Gravity 101: Overview & Features
While you're a student in the Covalence community, you're going to be learning through our video lectures and written reference materials that are housed in our self-built learning management system, Gravity. In this article, you'll learn about some of the major features we've built for you in Gravity.
Overview
When you first login at
https://gravity.covalence.io, you should be presented with your
Dashboard.
On the left-hand side of your screen, you'll see the main
sidebar, which is where you can update your profile, see current membership options, purchase additional courses or services, manage your code reviews, and view your referral link.
When you're inside a course, the sidebar now contains all the content in that selected course, and there are three main levels in the hierarchy of our content:
modules,
topics, and
activities.
Here's an example: in the sidebar, you should see
Intro to Web Development near the very top. That's a module. If you click that, all of the topics inside the Intro to Web Development module will expand. In this case, you should see:
How the Web Works, HTML, CSS, JS. Inside each of those topics are the activities that you can complete: lectures, reference materials, and labs.
Features
There are a few key features in Gravity:
questions,
feedback,
reviews, and
mentoring sessions.
Questions
Each activity has a Discussion section. Scroll all the way to the end, and you should see where you can post a new question or view previous questions and their answers. If you have a question about that particular activity, you can post it
on that activity, and the Covalence staff will be notified about it so that we can respond. This adds to our collective knowledge base for the entire community to benefit from over time.
Feedback
Each activity also has a toggle switch in the top-left of your screen. If you've completed an activity, you can toggle that switch to "All Finished", and you'll be prompted to leave feedback for us about that particular activity when you finish it. Please use this feature as much as you can as it helps us address any issues that creep into the curriculum over time.
Reviews
There are two types of projects in our curriculum: drills and labs.
Drills are meant to be very concise, repeatable steps that focus on basic operations you should be familiar with as a developer, especially when you're first learning fundamental concepts and syntax.
Labs are meant to test and challenge you to help you grow as a developer.
If you're a Catalyst student, you can formally submit your
labs (not drills) for review through Gravity. Look for a button in the top-right of the assignment that says "Submit for Review". Follow the directions, and the Covalence staff will be notified of your review. Once it's been submitted, you may keep progressing through the course, and we'll respond directly to your review as soon as when we can.
Mentoring Sessions
Catalyst students also have the ability to schedule weekly mentoring sessions through Gravity. Look for a button in the activity that says "Schedule a Mentoring Session" and carefully follow the prompts. Students also have the option to purchase 1-on-1 mentoring sessions, if you need some additional coaching and feedback from a dedicated Covalence instructor.