🎯 Purpose
The Lessons module allows teachers and administrators to create, assign, and manage instructional content for students. Lessons are built using activities — flexible content blocks that support a variety of formats, from text and video to questions and external tools. Whether you're delivering new content, checking for understanding, or sharing resources with colleagues, the Lessons module centralizes your instructional workflow in one place.
💡 Who is this for? Teachers use the Lessons module to build and assign content directly to their students. Administrators can view any lesson assigned within their permissions and distribute lesson copies to teacher groups.
💡 Why Use This Feature?
The Lessons module is designed to support flexible, organized instruction at both the classroom and district level.
✅ Build lessons using a variety of activity types to match your instructional goals.
✅ Assign content to individual students, student groups, full classes, or multiple classes at once.
✅ Set due dates, start dates, and activity order requirements for each lesson.
✅ Monitor student progress at both the activity and individual student level.
✅ Share lessons with colleagues to support consistent instruction across your school.
✅ Stay organized with lesson folders and draft management.
🔑 Key Features
The Lessons module provides a flexible set of tools for building and delivering instructional content.
Feature | What it does |
Create lessons using 10+ activity types: Instructions, File Attachment, Question, Video, Image, Audio, Page, Link, YouTube Video, and LTI. | |
Preview a lesson from the drafts page or lesson builder before assigning it to students. | |
Assign lessons to individual students, student groups, a full class, or multiple classes at once. | |
Require students to complete activities in order or allow them to work in any sequence. | |
Set specific timeframes to control when a lesson becomes available and when it is due. | |
Track completion by activity or by individual student from the assigned lessons view. | |
Organize lessons into folders for easier navigation and management. | |
Share a lesson copy with individuals. Administrators can also send copies to teacher groups. | |
Administrators can preview any lesson that has been assigned within their permissions. |
⚙️ How It Works
Lessons are built inside the Otus Lessons module using the activity builder. Each lesson is made up of one or more activities, which can include instructions, file attachments, questions, videos, images, audio, pages, links, YouTube videos, or external LTI tools. Lessons remain in Drafts until they are assigned.
Teachers can preview a lesson from the drafts page or from within the lesson builder before assigning it to students.
Administrators can preview any lesson that has been assigned within their permissions.
Once a lesson is ready, it can be assigned to individual students, student groups, an entire class, or multiple classes at once. Teachers can require students to complete activities in order or allow them to work at their own pace. Start dates and due dates can also be configured.
Once assigned, the lesson appears on the student's Notification Feed, To Do List, and Assigned Lessons page with a status of New!
ℹ️ Unenrolled students will still appear in assigned lesson views. Keep this in mind when reviewing progress data.
Teachers can track student progress by activity or by individual student from the assigned lessons view.
Teachers can send a copy of any lesson to another individual teacher. Administrators can send copies to other administrators, individual teachers, or teacher groups.
Teachers and admins can organize lesson drafts using folders.
🚀 Getting Started
The Lessons module is accessible from the Otus navigation menu. No additional setup is required.
Step 1: Log in to Otus and navigate to Lessons from the left-hand navigation menu.
Step 2: Select Create Lesson to open the activity builder and begin adding activities.
Step 3: Preview your lesson from the drafts page to confirm it looks correct before sharing with students.
Step 4: Select Assign to choose your audience, set start and due dates, and configure activity order.
Step 5: Monitor student progress from the assigned lessons view, tracking by activity or individual student.