creating an assignment
To create a discussion assignment you need 3–10 topic statements, a minimum chat duration, and three deadlines. Students rate the statements privately and Sway pairs students who disagree over at least one of them. Once you have your topic statements, setting up an assignment takes two minutes. Use space bar to move to the next page.
A drawing of the Sway setup screens, shown one at a time as you scroll. It illustrates the steps described below; nothing in it acts on the real product.
No assignments found
this course has nothing in it yet
How many topic statements?
Students will rate each one on a 7-point scale
The more statements you provide, the more chances there are to find a disagreement. For a small class, five or more is worth it.
1st topic name
1st topic statement
2nd topic name
2nd topic statement
Minimum chat duration
number of minutes
Progress depends on the length of the messages sent and the number of exchanges between students. The minimum approximates how long the chat would take if both students were writing at a normal pace in a continuous back and forth.
Which mode would you like to use?
- Assignment
- QuickMatch
QuickMatch is the same matching with no deadlines: students are matched as soon as a classmate who disagrees is free.
statements become visible to students
pairs are formed — disagreement first
minimum duration reached, quiz done
LaunchFri Sep 11, 9:00 AM
Opinions dueMon Sep 14, 11:59 PM
Assignment dueThu Sep 17, 11:59 PM
Minimum chat30 minutes
topics
- medical paternalismMedical paternalism can be justified if the expected gain to patient welfare is sufficiently high.
- kidney marketsWe should legalize kidney markets.
- abortionIn most cases, abortion is morally permissible and should be legal.
+ Add topic
Matches
| DisagreeDisagree: pairs with students on opposite sides of a topic | AgreeAgree: pairs with students on the same side (one playing devil’s advocate) | No IdeaNo Idea: pairs where both students selected ‘no idea’ | SplitSplit: pairs where one student selected ‘no idea’ and the other had an opinion | TriosTrios: groups of 3, for assignments where an odd number of students participate | UnmatchedUnmatched: students who completed the opinion survey and are waiting to be matched | AbsentAbsent: students who have not completed the opinion survey |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
below: the report, once the assignment closes
Scroll, or press space
You're about to walk through how to create an assignment on Sway.
Pressing the space bar goes to the next screen, or you can scroll.
01 Assignment details
The selector at the top left [YOUR COURSE] names the course you're working in, and any assignments are listed underneath. The +Create button starts a new one.
Nothing is visible to students until the launch time you'll set at the end.
if you teach more than one class
The assignments displayed belong to whichever course is selected in the course dropdown.
If you teach multiple sections of a single course, we recommend combining them into a single Sway group for better matching.
02 How many statements
You must provide between 3 and 10 topic statements.
Students rate each one on a 7-point scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Each statement splits the students who have an opinion about it into two sides, and every student on one side is a possible partner for every student on the other. A statement that divides a class of 30 evenly gives Sway 225 pairings to choose from; the same split in a class of 12 gives 36.
If you have a small class (under 20 students), we suggest at least five statements; bigger classes can work well with fewer.
can two topics share a subject?
Topics don't have to be on completely different subjects. They can address a common theme as long as a student's answer to one doesn't predict their answer to the others. If everyone who agreed with the first statement also agreed with the second, the second wouldn't add new matching opportunities.
03 Name and statement
Each topic requires two fields. The name is a short handle, a word or two, that labels the topic in the interface and in the report you receive afterwards. It should fit in this sentence: “Today we are talking about [name].” The topic statement is the sentence students actually rate.
The screen repeats until you've provided all your topics. (You can edit and add more later.)
What makes a good topic statement
Topic statements are true-or-false sentences that students might agree or disagree with. They should:
- Make a claim. “We should legalize kidney markets” can be endorsed or rejected. “Kidney markets and organ donation” just names a subject, so there's nothing for students to agree or disagree with.
- Avoid double-barreled questions. Smooshing two ideas into one statement can make it difficult for students to respond.
- Generate some disagreement. The best statements split the class and provide many opportunities for matching, but anything with at least a 70-30 split generally works.
04 Minimum chat duration
Despite its name, the number does not measure elapsed time.
Chats can stretch over days or weeks, so progress is computed from the conversation itself — how many messages, at what lengths, in what pattern. It estimates how long that same conversation would take if both students sat down and typed it out, back and forth, at a normal pace, in one sitting.
Progress is set by whichever student has contributed least, so no amount of lengthy messages from an eager student can carry the day.
setting it shorter or longer
Set it shorter if you only want a quick introductory chat to make sure students understand the platform and have everything set up. Set it longer for grad students and advanced undergraduates.
05 Assignment or QuickMatch
In a QuickMatch, students can match and start chatting as soon as Sway finds a partner who disagrees about at least one topic statement. Students aren't guaranteed a match at any specific time. If you select QuickMatch, clicking “Next” completes the setup.
We recommend QuickMatch for synchronous, in-class activities, post-event chats, and campus-wide discussions where everyone is invited to join at their own time.
An Assignment starts out exactly like a QuickMatch, and adds an opinion deadline. Every student who submits their opinions before it is guaranteed a partner once it passes, whether or not anyone who disagrees with them has turned up yet. This is how instructors assign Sway discussions as homework. The opinion deadline is hard: students who miss it can't take part in the assignment.
what QuickMatch gives you instead (for a detailed walkthrough: managing a QuickMatch)
Without an opinion deadline there is no moment by which everyone is guaranteed a partner, and no detection of a partner who has stopped replying. Two controls on the QuickMatch row do by hand what those deadlines do on a clock. Force Matches pairs up whoever is still waiting — you won't normally need it, since students are matched as classmates who disagree with them submit their opinions. Force Completion ends all chats and promotes students to the understanding quiz and post-chat feedback. The report is emailed to you when you toggle the QuickMatch off.
06 Three deadlines
- Launch: when the assignment becomes available. Before it, students cannot see the topic statements or anything else about the assignment.
- Opinion: the deadline for rating the topic statements.
- Completion: the deadline for progressing chats to 100% and completing the understanding quiz and post-chat survey.
The two gaps between the deadlines are important. Launch to opinion deadline is how long students have to log in and rate the topic statements. It only takes a minute, but they must remember to do it (Sway reminds students by email). Opinion deadline to completion is the guaranteed window when students can chat (but nearly all will get started sooner).
Done
The assignment now waits for its launch time, with a Scheduled badge in the assignments list on the left.
The details panel displays what you set up. The name at the top has a pencil beside it for renaming the assignment.
Topics remain editable until launch, and deadlines can be changed until a few minutes before they trigger. Use + Add topic to add more later.
Matches table
The same details panel carries a Matches table. Hover over the columns to the leftTap the columns above to see what each one means.
The first five columns count groupings; the last two count students. Before the opinion deadline, the one to watch is Absent, since those students can still be reminded. Unmatched is not: a student sitting there is waiting for a classmate who disagrees with them, and the opinion deadline guarantees them a partner. In an assignment, Sway automatically reminds students of upcoming deadlines and tells them when a message is waiting. After the deadline, the first five columns show how the class was actually grouped.
what you cannot see
How any individual student rated a statement. Instructors cannot see that, and cannot read identifiable transcripts either; what arrives after the assignment closes is a de-identified instructor report.
what happens next
Once the assignment launches, your job is done. The assignment runs itself, and when it closes the report and the results spreadsheet arrive in your inbox without your asking. There are things you can do while it runs — the assignment management walkthrough goes through them — but they're for rare cases, not a normal week.
Students are emailed when it opens, when a deadline is coming up and they haven't acted, when they're matched, when their partner replies, and when they've left their partner waiting on a reply. You don't have to chase anyone.
Students who want more than email can add the mobile app for push notifications, or a mobile number for texts; both carry the same set of messages. Assignment notifications cannot be turned off wholesale. A student can mute the deadline and new-message emails in their own settings, but not the receipt for a submitted opinion survey, the notice that they have been matched, or the warning that a partner is waiting on them.
At the opinion deadline students are paired, told who they are talking to, and left to it with Guide in the conversation. Guide opens by asking them to agree on a time to talk; if they would rather chat asynchronously, it makes sure they commit to checking in regularly. At the completion deadline the assignment closes and your report is generated.
95% of chats on Sway are between two students who disagree, and a chat only progresses while both of them keep messaging. For many students, these turn out to be among the best conversations they have all term. See what they say on the feedback page, and the research behind it.
If you already have an account, the flow above starts at chat.swaybeta.ai → your course → +Create. If you don't have an account, you can request one here.
Up next
Topics that have worked well on Sway, what you can do once it launches, and how to get an account.
Topic statements
Statements that have worked well on Sway, sorted by subject and opinion distribution.
Browse the collection →Managing an assignment
Tools to solve common student problems, and completion metrics for assigning credit.
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