🎯 Purpose
Otus is built to support every part of your teaching, from communicating with students and families to building lessons, assigning assessments, and tracking growth. This guide connects you to each module in your teacher account so you can get oriented quickly and start using Otus with confidence.
💡 Why Getting Familiar Matters
✅ Get oriented to the full Otus platform in one place, no hunting for where things live.
✅ Understand how each module connects to your daily classroom goals.
✅ Know exactly where to go to communicate, instruct, assess, and analyze.
✅ Build confidence using Otus features together, not just one tool at a time.
✅ Reduce ramp-up time so you can focus on what matters most - your students.
🔑 Key Otus Features to Use as a Teacher
Feature | What It Does |
Your landing page. View your Notification Feed & To Do list at a glance. | |
Access rosters, send messages, post to the Class Board, and manage class details. | |
Build and assign your own lessons directly to your students. | |
Upload and share resources with students or other teachers. | |
Create, assign, and grade your assessments, all in one place. | |
View student performance by assessment or by standard. | |
Design individualized learning plans and track student progress throughout the year. | |
Create a space for you and your students to communicate in a blog format. | |
Analyze attendance, assessment results, standards performance, and more. | |
Access the Otus Help Center directly from the navigation menu. |
⚙️ How It Works
🏠 Home
When you log in to Otus, your Home page is the first thing you'll see. It has two sections: the Notification Feed, which displays student submissions so you can open and review them right away, and the To Do list, which shows upcoming lessons and assessments so nothing slips through the cracks.
🏫 Classes
The Classes module is your hub for everything related to your students and classroom. From here you can:
View your student roster and open individual student profiles
Post announcements and updates to your Class Board
Send emails or text messages to students and families via Mailbox
Manage class settings — including adding co-teachers, renaming classes, and adding students
Assign groups and recognitions to students
📖 Lessons
The Lessons module is where you build and assign instructional content. You can create lessons from scratch, organize them by class, and assign them directly to your students, all without leaving Otus.
The Bookshelf module is your personal resource library. Upload documents, links, and files that you want to share with students or other teachers. It keeps your materials organized and easy to distribute whenever you need them.
The Assessments module is where you manage the assessment lifecycle.
Create new assessments using a variety of question types
Assign assessments to one or more classes
Grade submitted student work directly within the module
View and edit assigned assessment details at any time
Access assessments that administrators have shared with you
The Gradebook gives you two ways to look at student performance:
Assessments View: shows scores for every graded assessment, by student
Standards View: shows how students are performing against specific academic standards, aggregated across all relevant assessments
🗂️ Plans
The Plans module allows you to create and manage individualized learning plans for each student, track their progress, and document goals throughout the year.
💡Plans is available to participating districts. Contact your district to learn more!
✍️ Blog
The Blog module gives you and your students a space to communicate in a blog format. Use it to encourage student reflection, share classroom updates, or create a running dialogue with your class throughout the year.
The Analytics module is where you go to dig deeper into your classroom data. As a teacher, you have access to reports across four areas:
Attendance: track and report on student attendance
Recognitions: view recognition data you've assigned to students
Assessment: analyze assessment performance across your class
Standards: review how students are performing on specific standards
❓ Help
The Help module connects you directly to the Otus Help Center from anywhere in the platform. Use it any time you want to search for a specific article.
🚀 Getting Started
Step 1: Log in to Otus at your district's link.
Step 2: Explore your Home page. Review your Notification Feed and To Do list.
Step 3: Navigate to Classes to view your roster and get familiar with your students.
Step 4: Use the left-hand menu to explore each module at your own pace.
💬 Need help getting started? Chat with us in the bottom right-hand corner!