Once you’ve made a resource in Kira, be it a course, single lesson, or standalone activity, it needs to be assigned to a class of students to be accessible to them. You can assign work in a few different ways.
Option 1 - Assign from the Resource
When viewing a resource, you’ll see a button in the top right corner that says ‘Publish.’ Be sure to select this to proceed, as it tells Kira the lesson is ready for students! Once Publish has been clicked, you can assign your lesson.
A Note on Publish: There is no need to worry about ‘unpublishing’ work - any time you make a change, you’ll see the button change to ‘Republish.’ You can republish as many times as you would like, including once it’s already been assigned to students!
Republishing assigned work will push the changes out to all students with access. |
Option 2 - Assign from Manage Assignments
On any page where you can view the left hand navigation bar, you will see ‘Manage’ and ‘Assignments’. From this page, you can select Create New Assignment in the top right corner to create an assignment from any published resource.
First Assignment Choice: Who do I assign to?
When making an assignment, you’ll be presented with the option to determine who you are assigning work to. It is important to note that when making this selection, all groups selected in a single assignment will share release/due dates and assignment settings.
If you want to assign the same work to multiple classes but you want release/due dates or assignment settings to vary, you’ll create another assignment via the Manage Assignment button, selecting the same resource but a new audience. Think of each assignment as its own separate instance, like when you hand out physical work in class - even though it’s the same thing, you give it to students at different times and sometimes in different ways.
Second Assignment Choice: Release & Due Dates
To differentiate your assignments, you’re able to give them unique names outside the resource name itself. You’re also able, on this page, to determine release and due dates. Release dates determine when a student can access work; due dates determine how that work shows on student calendars and when work is shown as ‘late’ in the gradebook.
Due dates do not lock students out of work, and you as the teacher can determine how you would like to treat late submission work.
Your first option is to release an assignment with no release or due dates. This means it will be immediately available for students to access and work on, and they will see no due dates on their calendar.
No release dates is likely the preferred setting if you are:
Assigning a single lesson or standalone activity you intend to use the same day
Assigning any resource that will serve as a ‘reference’ for students, as opposed to work they are completing during a given time period.
Planning to lead a class that is largely independent study or student-led, where they are expected to work at their own pace.
Your second option is Schedule Release and Due Dates. This allows you to set specific dates and times when you would like work to become available for students, as well as setting a day when students will see it is due and begin receiving ‘overdue’ notifications (and ‘late’ markings in your gradebook for late work submissions).
Within this option, you can choose to set your own dates, or use the auto sequence resource option. Auto sequence will unlock a few things:
Fill in dates based on previous dates for speed editing (these are changeable if you need to make adjustments)
Auto-adjust based on human adjustments made to the sequence
Ensure anything that does not have an available date is automatically unavailable.
Schedule & Auto Sequence is likely the preferred setting if you are:
Assigning a course but only want students to see certain lessons at a time, and do not want to manually set available dates for all resources
Planning to teach with whole class/tier 1 instruction, or in a way where uniform pacing is important
If you choose not to use auto sequence, you will need to set all dates by hand, and anything without an available date will be considered automatically available.
How you choose to assign work is up to you and can be changed at any time by modifying your assignment. Think about how you want your class to run, but keep in mind, nothing is set in stone!
Third Assignment Choice: Progression Settings
The last thing to select on assignment is your Advanced Settings. You can learn more about what all of these settings mean, and when you may want to use them, in our Advanced Settings Article.
The two we care most about when assigning material are the following:
Require Submission to Progress (All Resources)
This toggle will ensure that students must complete all activities in a step before proceeding to the next step - in other words, it ensures that they will have to complete the lesson in order.
Use this when… | Don’t use this if… |
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The alternative:
Use the ‘Access’ button in a resource to place a lock students cannot move beyond, regardless of what is available. If you have a lesson you want students to work through in order, but are okay with them moving forward with the class even if they haven’t finished, you may want the lock option!
Require Resource Completion to Progress (Courses Only)
In a course, you have many resources (lessons and standalone activities) and want to ensure students are working through them in order. This toggle makes sure that happens.
Use this when… | Don’t use this if… |
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The Alternative
Available dates and the aforementioned lock can help you here if you need to help students zero in on specific assignments.
Once you make your selections and assign your work, your students are ready to go - and you’re ready to teach!