# Note to student
This is a long note, but I hope to be a beneficial one. I know this is covid, and many are struggling. As a TA, I am also a student, and I understand completing a task and moving on. At the same time, as teaching staff, our obligation/duty is to assure that __COVID does not discount the content you learn__, even though an online setting.

Over the past few days, as the deadline for assignment one approaches, I notice there are more and more questions that follow a similar format:
> Hi, I am stuck on [...], here is my code:
> [Post a screenshot]
> I cannot get [...] can anyone help?

Part of our teaching philosophy is to allow for an unlimited number of attempts so that students can learn as they practice problem-solving skills. There should also be abundant time for you to complete the assignments. Research shows such effort is what strengthens student problem-solving skills and helps them better understand the concepts tested.

Again, as a student, we just want to get the answer to move on. But as a TA, I need to try and gear the question and present it in a way that help you learn and concrete the concepts taught in lectures and class. I must reaffirm, asking questions are a great way to navigate and clarify concepts. At the same time, learning to ask good questions that can help you improvise the content is equally important. When the instructors and TAs design questions, there is a concept or a thinking process that we want you to practice and get familiar with.

As a TA, when I see questions like the one posted above, I ask myself, "What should I tell the student?" Should I help the student debug? Did the student write the query like this because the student misunderstood the question prompt? Or did the student actually misunderstand a critical concept? At what level should I provide assistant? I have no idea these answers with questions like these. I believe many of the TAs on the teaching team share similar experiences. If students are confused by the question prompt or the description of the question, it should be a public post because other students need similar clarifications. If students are stuck on a concept or approach, a public post might help other peers that might need clarifications. If a student is asking this question just so that he/she can finish the question in 5 minutes and move on, then the teaching staff should be fair and not do the student's assignment for them.

I am suggesting going through the following process before posting to CW (especially debug-related private posts):
- Step 1: Make sure you understand the questions correctly.
- Step 2: Think about what this question is testing you on. Is this testing your understanding on aggregation? Or is this a question on writing and combining subqueries? Each problem stems from one or two concepts taught in class. Feel free to reverse engineer it. Think about what similar questions had been taught and explained in class.
- Step 3: What is the difference between your output and the result? What do you think the possible cause is? (Guess and verify with different approaches!)
- Step 4: What is your debug process? What have you tried? Have you tried searching for it online/in the software manual/documentation? Let us know the different approaches that you experimented with.
- Step 5: Double-check if someone asked it on campuswire? (There is a search bar at the top!)

Going through these steps creates many opportunities for you to get the most out of this course. It also allows you to practice asking the right questions. I believe that by **trying** to do this collectively, we can create a constructive and healthy learning environment.