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tips for students

How Sway discussions are timed in assignments

Coordinating with your assignment partner

Creating an account

Your instructor will provide you with a link which you can use to sign up with your official school email address. Within a few minutes, you should receive an email with instructions for activating your account. (If you do not receive this email, please check your spam.)

After activating your account, you can access SwayBeta at https://chat.swaybeta.ai.

If your activation link expires, you can always request a new one by resetting your password at https://chat.swaybeta.ai/student/reset_password.

SMS notifications

We strongly recommend enabling SMS/text message reminders for deadlines, matches, and messages. This will help you coordinate with your classmates. If you did not enable SMS when signing up, you can always do so under Settings.

Using SwayBeta for graded assignments

If you want to receive credit for your chats on Sway, you need to allow your instructor to verify that you've completed the assignments. If you didn't grant this permission when you first registered, you can update your choice under Settings.

If you did not allow anonymized research use when you created your account, please consider granting the permission later. You can update your choice under Settings where you'll also find a clear explanation of the privacy protections in place. By participating, you directly contribute to education research that aims to amplify and clarify student voices and help students have better discussions about challenging topics.

You will always know which of your chats are part of an assignment because they will have both a deadline and a progress indicator as shown above. Assignments are also highlighted with a purple banner labeled "Sway Discussion Assignment".

When you're completing an assignment, the progress indicator does not update continuously. Instead, Sway will periodically update the progress indicator in the UI (approximately every 10%).

How Sway discussions are timed in assignments

You instructor will set a minimum duration for Sway discussion assignments, but this time will not exactly correspond to how long the chat takes you. Because students can send messages at different paces and your chats can unfold asynchronously over days, the minimum discussion duration should be understood as an informed estimate of how long the discussion would take if you and your partner were both focused on exchanging messages of a typical length at a typical pace in a synchronous chat.

This means, for example, that if your instructor sets the minimum duration to 30 minutes, you don't need to engage in a continuous 30-minute back-and-forth to complete the assignment. Instead, you can send messages at your own pace, and your assignment will be marked as complete once your chat is long enough that it would have taken you around 30 minutes if you had sat down and chatted continuously at a normal pace. Note that the estimate may be less accurate the very first time you use Sway for an assignment. However, Sway will learn from how you use it and will provide more accurate estimates in subsequent assignments.

You're free to continue chatting (and periodically testing your understanding!) even after meeting the minimum duration requirement.

Coordinating with your assignment partner

If Sway does not immediately match you with another student, you will be matched at the opinion deadline. At that point, you can begin chatting.

When you're matched with a partner for a Sway discussion assignment, the first thing you and your partner should do is agree on how and when you'll complete the assignment.

You and your partner might agree on a time when you'll both be online to chat, or you might prefer to exchange messages asynchronously. Whatever you decide, make sure you and you're partner are on the same page: you can't make progress on the assignment unless both students are engaged and responding to each other and to Guide.

Handy hints for hard conversations

Having difficult conversations can be challenging but extremely rewarding. These eight tips can help you navigate them more effectively.

Begin by assuming good faith. Approach others with the assumption that they have good intentions, even if you disagree with them.
Listen to understand. Ask non-judgmental questions like “What led you to your current view?” to better understand the other person's perspective.
Keep an open mind. Be willing to consider new information and learn from the other side. It's okay to modify your position when presented with compelling evidence.
Focus on ideas, not identities. Criticize arguments and positions, never people or personal characteristics.
Use respectful language. Keep the discourse civil and constructive. Avoid insults, slurs, and needlessly inflammatory rhetoric.
Support your claims with reasons. Back up your points with credible sources and avoid mere emotional appeals. Just because you dislike something doesn't mean it's wrong.
Find common ground. Actively seek and acknowledge valid points on the other side, even if you disagree with them on the whole.
Be aware of your limits. Some unease is often a positive indicator of growth. But if the dialogue becomes counterproductive or hostile, it’s okay to respectfully disengage.

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