In all honesty, I must begin by congratulating the nobility of the spirit of our dear steemit team and all organizers of this wonderful academy @steemitblog. To whomever thought it out to give us this opportunity so as to express how we feel, I must say thank you and thank you again.Nothing could be compared to this kind of engagement which allows for collectiveness in suggestions for optimal functioning of our dear academy!

Other special thanks goes to our able professors of the academy. Truthfully, you guys has been wonderful. I must agree that it is not an easy task to roll out good lessons weekly and equally take time to curate the many task of the students. Thank you dear steemit professors.

I have taken time to read through some of the students feedbacks. In them, most expressed their satisfaction and dissatisfactions, their joy and their sorrow. I must commend them for not restricting to themselves how they feel. When a child cries out, he is seeking the attention of his guardians. With your contributions, you have cried out so to say and we hope that are guardians are listening eagerly. Yes, and we believe that they will definitely act on our cries. . Thank you fellow students for expressing yourselves nicely.

Let me say that I have been a student of cryptoacademy since it's inception. I participated from the first season of the academy to the last concluded season. In fact, my participation on steemit platform seems to be solely on the #cryptoacademy. I have been through it's various waves, through when there was little or no restrictions to it's present reality.

WHAT WORKED WELL

1: Arrangement of the classes into various segments.

One notable adjustment that worked so well is the arrangement of classes into its various levels of beginners, intermediary and advanced levels. Compared with the period when everything was joined together, it was difficult for students who are complete newbies to cope.

Another wonderful provision is the fixed introductory lessons. These lessons prepares the students for a journey in cryptocurrency.

Benefits of this arrangement.

• The fixed introductory courses gives students their first contact with cryptocurrency and Blockchain, it prepares them for the whole new concept of crypto and would help them understand their further studies on the subject of trading.
• The other level courses helps Students to grow gradually at a defined pace, climbing the ladder, from beginner to intermediary and then to advanced.
• Students can focus more on their developments rather than on their pockets.

2: The reputation clause.

This second requirement helps the first. Since the academy is focused on good content, it is therefore important that students master how to write on steemit before participating in the academy tasks.

Benefits of this arrangement.

• It will limit junk contents.
• It will help professors focus more on training the students to make progress on their trading skills than on making progress on writing skills and markdowns. Because the academy is for crypto trading and not a content writing class.
• It will help for even dispensation of available resources. It is obvious that the resources available for steemcurator01 and steemcurator02 is limited and therefore the reputation gives some restrictions allowing for proper allocation of such resources.

3: The initial arrangement of Club5050.

The initial law of club5050 promised higher payout for those in the club and not a qualification for participation in the academy.

Benefits of this arrangement.

• It will help the students further learn the importance of hodl in trading.
• It will motivate more participation in the club, since there is a reward attached.
• club5050, club75, club100 could be likened to staking and therefore will receive more massive adoption. Since the goal is to encourage more persons powering up than selling off their coins, attaching a reward will be more suitable than making it a rule.

WHAT DID NOT WORK WELL.

Let me begin from the last point I made

1: The current Club5050 rule:

I am a student and I can tell you that this is a problem. The new rules of club5050 is difficult to sustain. Take for example, a student need to power up 150 steem to participate in the academy monthly, he also need to power up the equal or higher equivalent of his total withdrawal within a month period. A beginner who bought 150 steem to participate in the academy and could not make 150 steem within a month is therefore disqualified from the academy. Suppose on the other hand, a student manages to make 150 steem and then powers it all up, he may have completely nothing to sustain himself, buy data and pay for electricity. If steemit through it's payout, promises sustainability of it's workers, these rules works against such promise. If our goal is to attract new writers to the community, the rule may serve the opposite.

Secondly, The New rule of club5050 may not encourage investors. In my personal opinion, I perceive the club5050, club75 and club100 as an incentive to attract new investors and encourage existing investment but not just to retain an existing ones. Every business persons is lured by tapping on his greed. An investors goal is to see a dollar add some fractions of cents at the end of the day. If the old rule were to be maintained, this could be achieved.

Thirdly, I opine that the current rule mandated people rather than persuading them to action. Humans do not function well when mandated but rather when persuaded.

2: The pattern of the reputation clause.

The reputation clause as I pointed out above serves a good purpose. Yet I believe that it can be improved.

Take for example, if the requirements for fixed introductory task is 50 rep and the weekly beginner task is 55 rep, it serves a good purpose to curtail junks, ensure good entry, and help utilize the available resources. If the 60 reputation is a benchmark for regular ( intermediate), the advanced should not be based on reputation but but on best performing students.

The reasons are :

• the academy is an institution for studies.
• student's progress varies and every student make progress at different pace.
• In academics promotion is not determined by how long a student has stayed in a class but how good.
• It will be easier to monitor students progress.
• It will encourage industriousness on the part of students.

What I am proposing is this: there could be "general beginner fixed task" , "beginner class" and "regular classes" which are determined by reputation and then, an "advanced class" which is determined by performance.
•••
A professor's monthly report can include the names of students due for promotion from regular to advanced levels.

Take for instance, if there are six courses for a student to take in a week and he made above 7 grade in four of the task continually for a month, he could qualify for advance level the next month. However, if he perform badly within a month in the advanced level area, he can be demoted and may not qualify for advanced level the coming month and so on.

The reputation clause, when observed the way it is followed today, may end up benefiting only the early adopter's but not best performing students, new investors, nor follow students progress.

3: The marking scheme.

While I must commend our professors, yet, It is obvious that the professors do not have a clear and defined scheme for grading a student but rather what seems pleasing to them.

In the immediate past seasons and the ones prior to it, there has been complaint of dissatisfaction by students. This is expected in an institution like ours. But the big question is: are the complaints valid?
Take for example, what are the criteria for the grades a professors gives? On what specific areas are the students being watched or tested? What marks should be accorded to a question or do all questions have equal marks? Can a student satisfactorily accept his failures due to his inability to meet the needed task requirements? Suppose another professor is asked to grade same task already graded by a professor, would the grades be same or similar ?

Just as I earlier proposed in my previous write-up. There should be a uniform grading criteria that can be probed by all. Without that, the academy will end up and may continue producing every week on the leadership board the professor's best instead of the academy's best.

Without a clear cut out grading scheme, we may have just given the professors autonomy to do as they please.

4: Some intermediate task are unnecessarily Lengthy.

While I do not disagree that intermediate task should carry more harder task than the beginners, some of them are unnecessarily long and require much use of images. If the queries are modelled to help a student learn something new, then it may worth it, but if it is a repetition of what is already known by students, then it serves no purpose but just to make a task difficult.

Personally, I noticed most task which I will call repetitions. For instance a student is asked to review a platform, he is equally asked to show how to create account with said platform. This may be same thing he did last week when reviewing another but similar Blockchain or DEFi platform. When a student has mastered how to create account, then why the repetition? These repetitions or similar things do not add but are just designed to make the task difficult.

5: Investing Real Money.

Investment in cryptocurrency is a good way to encourage students to practice what they are learning, however, should this not be optional? If a student is yet to fully comprehend crypto project, asking him to make investment may not be ideal, in event his money is lost, he may blame it on the professor or the academy. While the academy will do well to help students discover good crypto projects, build and manage a crypto portfolio, it should be mainly for educational purposes and not an investment enforcement company.

6: Low feedback.

What I observed from the immediate past season is that when you have a complaint to make, you are simply on your own. Since we do not tag steemcurator01 or steemcurator02, whom should our complains go to?

How would you improve the Academy? What changes would you make for future seasons of the Academy?

1: I will maintain the existing level structure of the academy but remodel some aspects.

• There will be general beginner lessons which are fixed. Qualification should be based on reputation and sp power.
• There will be beginner courses which qualifications are determined by a slightly higher reputation and sp.
• There will be regular crypto academy courses which qualifications may be determined by reputation and sp.
• There will be advanced level courses which qualifications are determined by merit.

The qualifications for participating in the advanced should be the best performing students for the previous month. A student with B grades from majority courses should quality. A students qualification to advanced is not permanent, after a month review, he can be demoted if he fails to keep up by having high grades.

2: I will reenact the previous law of club5050.

• Club5050 and 75 should not be mandatory but come with some incentives. Take for example, if the payout reward for regular crypto courses is 1% of the total voting power of steemcurator02, those in club5050 can get 1.5% while those in club 75 or 100 can get 2%.

I will further incentivise academy members who are in club100 and having higher SP .

Take for example, a user who lock up his coin for three months or more and continue to make post can be rewarded with relatively higher votes on a post in relation to the weight of his account. Meeting certain sp requirements could mark the threshold. If the requirement is 5000 sp, 10000 or 20000, whatever the requirement may be and when locked up for three months and above would come with some incentive, this may move people to hold more sp, invest more in steem and find the academy attractive taking cognizance of their possible profit.

3: I will introduce ban of any student involved in plagiarism for one month instead of being ousted completely from the academy.

4: I will introduce a uniform grading schemes for all the levels.

• Student of each level would have grade expectations based on the questions. A typical example is the last task questions of @reminiscense01 . When each question has a defined mark expectancy, it becomes more transparent.
• There should be a uniform standard for grading. For example, are the students watched on Grammer, coherency, proper use of markdown, style of writing or skill? What should determine a best performing student - a person who got all the questions accurately or a person who got all the questions plus other additional strengths?
  If there are 5 students with good presentations and has answered all questions accurately, what determines whom appears on the leadership board? What will govern the professor's selection of those that should?

Notice below situations.
Situation 1
Take for example, a professor grades a student's task as being free from plagiarism and yet he marks him low on originality. ,,If a student did not plagiarize, how come his content is not original?
What then is originality?**

Another situation example, a professor comments that a student has a good understanding of the topic and his overall presentation is good, he asked the student to pay attention to maybe his images. Yet, the student gets a grade of 6/10 which is a pass. What and what made him to have low grade? Was it the way he attached the image? Are there specific areas he need to work on next time? Should the image deny him having a higher grade? If another student make similar mistake will he have same grade?

When there are no clear marking scheme, the students may continue to murmur and to the detriment of the academy. They may curry favour with some professors while looking with disdain at others.

4: I will appoint a team who would checkmate excesses by both the professors and the students. A reputable professor who is unbiased can make up this team. They will give attention to complaints and responses and equally take suggestions to the steemit team.

• There are possibilities of students making unfounded claims and accusations, moreover in a democratic settings everyone should be free to air his view, these views can be reviewed and a feedback given to proffer a solution.
• Valid claims can be promptly attended to as not to kill the morale of anyone.
• Claims involving professors can be tactfully notified to them in private allowing the professor to correct the raised issue. The complaining student can be notified that attention is being given to his complaint.
• When a complaint is not valid, response should be given promptly to deter the complainant and others from misleading others.

5: I will encourage interaction by giving mini votes to commenters.

• A comment that adds value discusses areas of a work that benefits. An honest comment that has weight and not just a " nice one, keep it up" comment.
• A student who may not qualify for a level in the academy may have a good understanding of the topic under discussion. Instead of burying his ideas, His input can come in a form of comment and should be supported with a mini vote.

Benefits of this arrangement.

• Such interaction will help in finding out good content.
• A commenter can fish out plagiarism.
• A commenter can lift the spirit of the students.
• While a commenter do not comment on the grade giving by the professors, he can through his comment help the professors see aspect of the work that is good. The professors will not however be much influenced by pupular work through comments since they already have a criteria for their grading.

6: I will encourage professors to make open their syllables for a season.

• It enables the students know their course outline.
• It will allow for better research.
• It will encourage more contribution since the students knows what's next.
• It will raise study enthusiasm.

What did you think of the marking scheme for Academy posts? And the rewards available?

As I have already mentioned, currently, the marking scheme is below what is expected. Adopting a defined marking scheme accessible by all would be ideal.

I have earlier made a proposal in the comment of this post below:

https://steemit.com/hive-108451/@mobibliss/status-p2p-messaging-or-crypto-academy-s5w5-or-homework-post-for-wahyunahrul

source

I believe that this opportunity accorded to all of us today is a way the steemit team is responding to this call and those of other students. Thank you very much dear steemit team!

The intermediate task rewards are not worth the effort and time.

I may be wrong in this, someone can help put me right.

• The task most times are time consuming
• The task are unnecessarily Lengthy

Coming to the rewards, I have already started above how I feel it can be improved using club club5050. Since the reward of steemcurator02 is not unlimited, applying those suggestions may somehow add to the rewards, encourage hodl, and motivate investment.

Also considering the tedious nature of most of the task, it may not worth it attempting the task with the current reward payout.
I remember that I did an intermediate task that took me five days, the professor rated it 8.5 and the payout was $18 USD. Invariably, I have made $9 dollar as a wage. It is only a jobless person that will want to put such time for such little payout any time.

Some intermediate task may require 48 hours watch period, the student need to understand the lesson, then the task, before attempting the questions. If it took four days to complete, coupled with the fact that the professor may require one making at least $10 dollar investment, if you add gas fee, sometimes one may end up spending $15 for a $9 dollar payout task, plus all the time invested. Honesty, it is not worth it. The intermediate task assignments need complete overhaul.

You can also tell us what you enjoyed most, and what you learned from the Academy.

The academy has broadened my knowledge about crypto currencies. What I learned from the academy which I will always be grateful for is how to figure out strong crypto projects and scams.

I remember, prior to the academy, I paid an individual a whooping 150,000 naira to teach me how to trade crypto. In fact, he taught me nothing. Whatever I have learned about crypto is from crypto academy and personal research. That is why, if it is within my power, I will do all it takes to help the academy grow.

Conclusion.

My concluding words are just vote of thanks. Thank you dear steemit team. Thank you our able professors. Thank you all for giving us this opportunity.

All the suggestions above are personal views.

@focusnow
@sapwood
@fredquantum
@reminiscence01
@kouba01
@ngoenyi