Practice Pool Title
by Instructor

Practice content development resources

• DataCamp's content help center
• DataCamp's Teach Editor

Step 1: Write Chapter Outline for chapter 1

How to create the Chapter Outline

• Make the outline of concepts in this template.
  • Make a copy of the file before you start editing it.
  • Get a shareable link for your document, allowing anyone with the link to access the document.
  • Paste the link below (section Your outline).
• While going through the course, list all learning objectives and introduced concepts, packages and functions for each lesson – a lesson comprises of a video followed by some interactive exercises.

Your outline

• Link to your outline

Chapter Outline checklist

• Are the learning objectives concise, yet specific?
• Are the learning objectives testable?
• Do you cover only the learning objectives relevant to this course?
• Are all relevant concepts, functions, and packages included?

Step 2: Write Practice Outline for Chapter 1

How to create the Practice Outline

• Make the outline of concepts in this template.
  • Make a copy of the file before you start editing it.
  • Get a shareable link for your document, allowing anyone with the link to access the document.
  • Paste the link below (section Your outline).
• For each learning objective in the Chapter Outline, specify which exercise type you will use and what the concept, package or function is that the learner needs to know.
• A typical Practice Outline comprises between 10 to 20 exercises per chapter.

Your outline

• Link to your outline

Practice Outline checklist

• Is it clear from the outline which concepts will be tested?
• Are the most important things tested?
• Is it clear what exactly is going to be tested?
• Is there a good mix of exercise types? We believe that our students practice best when the exercises are challenging and diverse. To that end, we encourage you to ensure a good mix of various exercise types in each chapter. Here's the mix we propose: MultipleChoiceChallenges < 25%, OutputChallenges < 35%, and BlanksChallenges ≥ 40%.

Step 3: Create exercises for Chapter 1 in the Teach Editor

Content vision

it is the goal of practice exercises to

• check if the student has a correct understanding of the course
• check whether the student remembers the most important things taught in the course
• allow the student to exercise until s/he can apply what s/he's learned in the course without having to look things up

Content checklist

• Does each exercise have a name?
• Does each exercise check exactly what you want to test?
• Are all distractors distracting? Is it realistic someone might think they are the correct answer?
• Will the student spend most time answering the question, instead of understanding what is being asked?
• Do the different versions of an exercise test the same concept?
• Do all sentences start with a capital letter and end with a punctuation mark?
• Is the code formatted nicely, using newlines where necessary? Review the mobile preview in a screen with the dimensions of a smartphone (type iPhone SE) when you're in doubt.
• Does the output not contain more than 5 lines?
• Do tables contain no more than 3 columns?
• Is every BlanksChallenge suited for a typing exercise (i.e. does it contain sufficient information)?
• Is the context (for coding exercises, if used) or assignment (for multiple choice questions) concise? These should not exceed 200 characters.
• DataCamp values diversity; do you use diverse protagonists in your context (if any)?
• Does each exercise adhere to the Practice style guidelines?

Step 4: Create exercises for the remaining chapters on the Teach Editor

Follow the content vision, guidelines and checklist outlined above.