Make queue waiting time productive by offering LLM-based help tools such as CodeHelp to waiting students¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 qualitative), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description¶

A forward-looking recommendation for addressing long office-hours queues: rather than changing scheduling alone, instructors can make waiting time productive for students. The article suggests that "tools like CodeHelp[17, 23] can utilize the LLM to automatically generate answers to students' coding questions without directly revealing solutions", so instructors could offer such a tool to assist students while they wait in the queue.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Access to an LLM-based help tool with guardrails that answers coding questions without directly revealing solutions

Constraints¶

• The article presents this as a possible option to assist waiting students, not as a strategy evaluated in its simulations

Target Learners¶

• Students waiting in office-hours queues in programming courses

Target Learning Goals¶

• Productive use of wait time and progress on coding problems before reaching an instructor

Claims¶

• Students predominantly recommended future students use office hours and formal course staff, with LLMs positioned as a supplement [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• Use New Student First scheduling for online office hours queues and FCFS for in-person queues

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Z. Gao, G. S. de Oliveira, D. Babalola, C. Lynch, and S. Heckman. (2024). Who should i help next? simulation of office hours queue scheduling strategy in a cs2 course. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Educational Data Mining. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12729866