The Co-Teacher role allows a second instructor to have comprehensive access and primary responsibilities within a class, ensuring seamless collaboration and instructional support. A co-teacher can perform most of the same tasks as the main teacher to manage the class, assignments, grading, and communication.
🗝️ Key Features
Co-teachers have extensive capabilities across the Otus platform, including:
Assessment & Lesson Management: Assign, unassign, and grade assessments and lessons (including those assigned by the main teacher).
Gradebook Access: View the whole-class and individual student Gradebooks and edit grades/statuses.
Class & Group Management: Change class names, manage student groups, and add notes to student profiles.
Class Communication: Publish posts on the Class Board, send messages via Mailbox, and post on the Class Blog.
Student Recognition: Create and assign recognitions, which triggers a notification for the main teacher.
⚙️ How It Works
Co-teacher access is enabled when the main teacher adds a co-teacher to their class roster. Once added, the co-teacher sees the class tile in their Classes module and gains collaborative access to almost all class functions.
Key Distinction: The primary difference between a co-teacher and a main teacher lies in administrative privileges (like adding other co-teachers) and ownership of draft content. The creator of a draft (lesson or assessment) is the only one who can view or edit its content before it is assigned.
🎯 Why Use Co-Teacher Capabilities?
Facilitate Collaborative Instruction: Enables team-teaching models where two instructors share full responsibility for planning and assessment.
Ensure Coverage and Consistency: Allows either teacher to manage assignments, communication, and grading without relying on the other.
Streamline Communication: Provides both teachers with the ability to communicate with students and families directly via Mailbox and the Class Board.
📝 Key Capabilities and Limitations
This table details the co-teacher's abilities and restrictions across major Otus modules:
Module | Co-Teacher CAN DO | Co-Teacher CANNOT DO |
Classes | ✅ Change class name, manage student groups, manage recognitions, add notes to profiles, add to Family Communication Log. | ❌ Add additional co-teachers. ❌ Remove themselves as a co-teacher. |
*Archive/Delete | ✅ Archive and/or delete classes. |
|
Assessments | ✅ Assign/Unassign assessments (even those assigned by the main teacher). ✅ Grade assessments, access Manage Assignees, edit assigned settings (due dates). | ❌ Edit the content of assigned assessments drafted in the main teacher's account. ❌ View/preview draft assessments created by the main teacher. |
Lessons | ✅ Assign/Unassign lessons (even those assigned by the main teacher). ✅ View student progress, access Manage Assignees, edit assigned settings. | ❌ Edit the content of assigned lessons drafted in the main teacher's account. ❌ View/preview draft lessons created by the main teacher. |
Gradebook | ✅ View the Gradebook (whole-class and individual). ✅ Edit grades and statuses. ✅ Add/Edit + (plus) assessments. |
|
Class Board | ✅ Publish, comment on, and edit published posts. | ❌ Edit scheduled posts created by the main teacher. |
Mailbox | ✅ Send messages to students/families. ✅ View messages they sent. ✅ Receive replies to messages they sent. | ❌ View messages sent by the main teacher. ❌ Be CC'd on messages sent by the main teacher. |
Blog | ✅ Publish a post. ✅ Comment on a post. ✅ Edit posts they created. | ❌ Edit posts created by the main teacher. |
‼️ Warning on Archiving/Deleting Classes:
If a co-teacher archives or deletes a class, it affects the main teacher's account as well. Only archive or delete a class if specifically asked to do so by the main teacher.
🚀 Getting Started
If you are a main teacher, you must first add the co-teacher to your class roster.
If you are the co-teacher, you should:
Look for the class tile in your Classes module.
Be aware that if Google features are used, the main teacher must log in with Google SSO at least once for the features to function for you.
💡 Pro Tip: Adding Co-Teachers
The best practice for adding co-teachers is through your district's Student Information System (SIS), as this information syncs nightly with Otus. Adding a co-teacher directly in Otus may result in them being removed during the overnight sync if your district's sync settings overwrite manual changes.
Our recommendation is to always add co-teachers via your SIS first. If this is not possible or your co-teacher is removed after an overnight sync, please reach out to your administrator to request they be added via the SIS or chat with the Otus Support team.
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