Student Management Workflow

This document describes how to manage students in the GitHub Classroom-based workshop. GitHub Classroom handles repository creation, access control, and roster management automatically.

For full setup instructions, see classroom/README.md.

Adding Students

Standard enrollment (before or during workshop)

  1. Share the assignment invite link with the student (see classroom/README.md, Steps 3-5)
  2. Student clicks the link, selects their name from the roster, and accepts
  3. GitHub Classroom creates their private repo from the template automatically
  4. The Student Progression Bot creates Challenge 1 in the new repo

No manual scripts or invitations are needed. Students do not need to be organization members.

Late additions

Students can accept the invite link at any time -- the roster is not locked. If they join after the workshop has started:

  1. Share the appropriate invite link (Day 1, Day 2, or both)
  2. Student accepts and their repo is created immediately
  3. They start at Challenge 1 of that assignment and progress at their own pace

Removing a student

From the GitHub Classroom dashboard:

  1. Open the assignment
  2. Find the student in the roster
  3. Click the three-dot menu next to their name and select Remove
  4. Optionally delete their repository

Monitoring Student Progress

GitHub Classroom dashboard

The dashboard shows each student's status:

  • Whether they have accepted the assignment
  • Their latest commit timestamp
  • Autograding results (pass/fail per test)

Individual repo checks

Each student's repo contains their challenge issues. To check a specific student's progress:

  1. Open their repo from the Classroom dashboard
  2. Check the Issues tab -- open issues are incomplete challenges, closed issues are completed
  3. Check Pull requests for any pending work

Troubleshooting

Student cannot find their repo

  • Confirm they clicked the invite link and accepted
  • Check the Classroom dashboard to verify their repo was created
  • Have them visit github.com and look under "Your repositories"

Student accepted but no Challenge 1 issue appeared

  • Check that the Student Progression Bot workflow is enabled in the template repo
  • Manually create Challenge 1 by opening a new issue using the challenge-01 template in their repo

Student's autograding tests are failing

  • Review the test output in the Actions tab of their repo
  • Common causes: file not saved, wrong filename, merge conflict markers still present
  • The grading guide (grading-guide.md) has per-challenge expected outputs

Student needs to restart

  • Delete their repo from the Classroom dashboard
  • Have them re-accept the invite link
  • A fresh repo with Challenge 1 will be created

Authoritative Sources

Use these official references when you need the current source of truth for facts in this chapter.

Section-Level Source Map

Use this map to verify facts for each major section in this file.