How do I send tutor messages?

In the Grok tutor messaging system, a chat thread is created for a user on a problem.

As a tutor, you have the following options to help you to students in a chat thread:

Composing a message
Viewing student submissions and saved code
Running and marking student code
Adding tutor notes
Using saved replies

Composing a message

The chat messages and tutor notes use markdown. The supported markdown syntax is essentially GitHub-flavoured markdown. Triple-backtick code blocks having supported languages py3, microbit_micropython, and blockly. These create runnable code snippets. For example, a message might look like:

Have another think about your `if` statement. Does `i` **always** have to be zero?
What happens in the following situation:
```py3
i = 20
if i == 0:  
  print('True')  
else:    
  print('False')```

Once your chat message or tutor note is composed, it can be sent by pressing the send button - see (7) in the screenshot above.

To preview the rendered version of your chat message or tutor note written in markdown, you can hit the Preview toggle button - see (9) in the screenshot above. In preview mode, the composition area is replaced by a rendered version of the composed message.

💡If there's a case where you really need to try to parse a student's badly formatted messages, you can ctrl+click on the message to populate your chat textbox with the raw markdown (only works if you haven't typed anything into the textbox yet).

Viewing student submissions and saved code

Student submissions and saved code can be loaded into the pane editor by pressing the Load button in the history view underneath the pane editor, or in the tutor chat thread. See (1) in the screenshot above. 

For each submission, tutors can see more detailed information about why a student failed a test case by clicking on the View Raw button. This is mainly useful in the case where a student's code has thrown an exception or has failed a hidden test case. In the hidden test case scenario, you will be able to see the diff under the Diff tab. In the exception case, you will be able to see the full stack trace under the Traceback tab.

Running and marking student code

You are able to modify the students code as much as you want. You are also able to run and mark the code, including any modifications you have made - see in the screenshot above. The student will not see the fact that you have run or marked their code. This allows you to try changes to the student's code before suggesting how they progress with their current issue.

These fake submissions you make will appear in the history view below the editor with FAKE next to them instead of a submission number.

Adding tutor notes

Yes, you can leave notes for other tutors! You can change whether you are sending a chat message to the student or tutor notes to other tutors by pressing the 'Message / Note' toggle button - see (8) in the screenshot. Students do not see this bar when using the tutor messaging system.

Tutor notes appear as yellow items in the conversation area. When in tutor note composition mode, the composition window turns yellow so there is no chance you can get confused as to which mode you're currently in. Tutor notes are useful in many scenarios, such as where you're about to log off but you expect the student will be back soon and you want to hand over some state to the tutor who ends up responding; e.g. "this student is really struggling with the concept of a variable".

Using saved replies

When tutoring, certain problems or certain modules have common issues that a number of students hit. You can create and use saved replies using the saved replies button - see (10) in the screenshot. Saved replies can be associated with either the problem or the course. Students do not have saved replies functionality when using the tutor messaging system.

Before you create or edit a saved reply, check the context! Read the saved replies FAQ for more info about this.