Purpose: When a Dialogue activity counts toward your grade, it's worth understanding what makes it different from a typical written assignment, and what's expected of you.

Why a Dialogue Assessment Is Different

A written assignment is something you can draft, edit, and polish before you submit it. A Dialogue conversation happens in real time and adapts to what you actually say. That has a few consequences:

• You can't fully script your answers in advance, because the conversation responds to what you say, not a fixed set of questions.
• What you say (or type) is what gets evaluated. There's no separate "final draft," the conversation itself is the activity.
• If your course has a rubric attached, your session is scored against it, and that score goes to your instructor.

What's Expected of You

• Do the session yourself. Just like you wouldn't have someone else write your exam, don't have someone else complete your Dialogue session for you.
• Engage genuinely. Because the conversation is adaptive, trying to force a scripted or rehearsed answer usually doesn't work as well as actually thinking through the question.
• Follow your course's specific rules. Some instructors may allow notes or prep material for a Dialogue activity, others may not. Treat it like any other graded activity in your course; if you're not sure what's allowed, ask your instructor before you start.

What This Means for You

• Your instructor can see the content of your session (see the Learner's Guide for more on this).
• A rubric score, if your course uses one, is a starting point for your instructor's evaluation, not an automatic grade. Your instructor still applies their own judgment.
• You can download your own transcript after submitting, and if your course allows it, try the session again before it's treated as final. Using a retry to rehearse a specific script rather than to genuinely improve your understanding runs counter to the point of the activity, ask your instructor if you're unsure what's expected.
• Unusual patterns (like an oddly short session, or one that doesn't sound like your own reasoning) may prompt your instructor to follow up with you directly. That's normal and not automatically treated as a violation, it's a starting point for a conversation, not an accusation.

If Something Goes Wrong Mid-Session

Technical issues (audio glitches, the agent misunderstanding you) are common and expected. If something goes wrong during a graded session, don't try to work around it on your own, follow your course's instructions for reporting a Dialogue issue right away so your instructor has the full picture.

Questions

Specific rules about what's allowed for a Dialogue activity in your course come from your instructor, not from this guide. If you're unsure what's expected for a particular assignment, ask before you start the session.