Site tutorial

A walkthrough of this site for a teacher opening it for the first time. Print it for a new hire or the desk.

1. Find your way around

1. The home page (this site) asks who you are. Teacher goes to the launchpad; Student goes to the student grid.
2. The teacher launchpad is a grid of tiles grouped into sections. Star the tiles you use every day and they float to the top. Click a section title to collapse it. Search still finds a hidden tile.
3. Every classroom tool opens on the current block, read from the bell schedule in the page header. Change it once and the other tools follow.

2. Set up your rosters once

1. Open Groups & Seating and click the Names tab. This is the one editor for block A–G names.
2. Pick a block, then paste your class list: one name per line. Add a class label like "Algebra 1" if you want the block to read as more than a letter.
3. Repeat for each block you teach. That is the whole setup.
4. Type the names once and leave them alone. Bellwork, Smart Picker and the seating charts all read this same list. None of them keeps its own copy.
5. Build seating charts on the Seating tab. They save per block, separately from the names.

Classroom tools open on the current block and write it back when you switch, so you choose the block once per class rather than once per tool. An open page never flips itself mid-lesson. When the bell schedule moves on, it shows a nudge and waits for you.

3. Send a live assignment

1. Build it in Assign with a Code. Pick the type first (Do Now, Exit Ticket or Test), because that choice changes the rest of the form.
2. Fill in the Period. It prints on the PDFs and labels the session in your results list.
3. Click Preview as student and read it as they will see it. Tick Show answer key to check your own key.
4. Generate the code.
5. Click Save teacher key PDF now, before you start teaching.
6. Send students to this site → Join with a Code. Never hand out a /teacher/ link. It will stop at the passcode.
7. Use a new code every period. Students identify themselves as first name and last initial (Maya H), so one code shared across two blocks gives you an unusable roster.

Where the results live. The code and teacher key are saved automatically to Assignment Results, but only in this browser. Another laptop sees nothing. To move a session: use Export log and import the file on the other computer, or paste a single code and teacher key from the PDF you saved. A key that is lost cannot be reissued.

Class Jam. A live round on the board. Pick problems, then press Start a Jam in a bank, the Problem Generator, the Composer or Bellwork, or choose Class Jam in Assign with a Code. Set a class goal, the minutes and the teams, then press Start Class Jam. The board opens: students join with the code, you press Start the Jam, and every right answer fills the class bar and the student's team bar. A student who misses sees the answer, plus the worked steps for a generated problem. The board never shows a name. When the Jam ends, who answered what is in Results. A Jam grades multiple choice and number answers only, so other problems stay behind.

Integrity flags. A student who switches tabs or leaves fullscreen is flagged to the teacher of that session. Choosing "Keep working" at the Submit prompt is not a leave. The department attaches no automatic consequence, so decide what a flag means to you before your first live test.

4. Build a worksheet from a bank

1. Open Problem Banks (under Find Problems) and pick a bank: MCAS for released state items 2001 to now, or Algebra 1, Geometry and Algebra 2 for DOK-leveled problems, or Precalculus, Statistics, Prealgebra, Elementary Algebra and Intermediate Algebra for exercises from the free OpenStax textbooks (their credit line prints under each problem, on paper and on screen).
2. Filter down to the topic you are teaching. Turn on Show answers while you choose.
3. Tick the problems you want. A counter tracks how many you have picked.
4. Click Open in Composer. The picked problems land in the Worksheet Composer's tray; add them to the page, then set the title, directions, points, work space and columns there.
5. The answer key is its own page at the end, marked as the teacher copy, so you can hand out everything but the last page.
6. Print it from the Composer, or save the HTML and attach the file.
7. The per-problem PNG / JPEG / PDF / HTML buttons on a card follow Show answers: with it on you get the answer in the picture, with it off you get a clean copy. Check the toggle before you paste one into a slide.
8. To put the same set on screen instead, click Send as Do Now. It returns a join code and students answer it live.

5. Settings and your local data

1. Open the gear in the page header. It is easy to miss and holds the five things below.
2. Appearance switches light, dark or auto.
3. Calculator button shows or hides the keypad button in every page header.
4. Readable font switches every page to Atkinson Hyperlegible, a face designed for low vision. Math keeps its own type.
5. Teacher Local Data exports, imports or resets what this browser has stored: rosters, seating charts, Bellwork settings and saved assignment codes. Nothing here syncs, so this export is your only backup. Run it before you change laptops.
6. Site Health is a deploy check, not a classroom tool. It has no launchpad tile on purpose.

6. If something looks stale

1. Do a hard-refresh: Ctrl+Shift+R (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+R (Mac). Shared CSS and JS cache for four hours, so a new tool can be live and invisible until you do.

Passcode note: the teacher code is a navigation deterrent, not authentication. Do not put licensed, confidential, or student-identifying files behind it.