Templates and Prebuilt Curriculums

The Templates page opens on Classla courses, grouped by subject: Computer science, Science and Math, with the subjects you said you teach first. Inside each subject, AP courses (the same units and topic numbers as the College Board CED and AP Classroom) come before the other Courses, and math courses run in the order students take them. The buttons above the list show one subject, and the search box finds a course by name. A card's "Before this course" line says what a student should already know. Each organization you belong to has its own tab next to Classla courses. Until your account is verified, the page says so instead of listing Classla courses, and students do not see the page. The subject curriculum is:

• For computer science, AP Computer Science Principles, CSAwesome (AP Computer Science A), an AP CSA review-set library, and AP Cybersecurity in two versions: one whose labs use Python, and one with no programming at all, whose labs use the Linux terminal. In the no-programming version each short answer has a rubric you grade with; students do not see it, because its criteria name the expected answer. CS in Classla describes both.
• For math, full courses for Algebra 1, Geometry and Algebra 2 (from Illustrative Mathematics) and Precalculus, Calculus 1 and Calculus 2 (from OpenStax), plus AP Calculus AB and BC review sets. Math in Classla describes the review sets.

You can also start from an empty course.

On the Templates page, Use Template makes a course from a template, with its own join code. The Create Course dialog on your dashboard lists the same templates under Or start from a template, with Use beside each. The new course is yours: edit any lesson, delete a unit, add three of your own. Nothing in it is published to students until you publish it.

The course sidebar's create menu, and the menu on any folder, has two ways to bring in ready-made work without starting a new course.

• From a template…: "Copy single assignments out of a template into this course." Pick any template you can use, then tick individual assignments or whole folders. Keep template folders recreates the template's folders around them. The dialog says what happens: they land in the folder you opened it from, unpublished, and each one can still pick up later updates to the template. Each copy is a full copy, with its own coding workspaces, images and rubric.
• From a review set… appears when the course's Subject has review sets: "Used to offer ready-made review sets for this subject when you create an assignment." Today that is AP Computer Science A, AP Calculus AB and AP Calculus BC. Filter by Unit, Topic, Difficulty and Format, preview a set with its answer keys, and Add it as an unpublished assignment. Or Build a round from the selection: Build… samples up to 40 Questions across the topics and difficulties you ticked into one new assignment, with no question twice. Shuffle mixes the order, and Skip played (on by default) uses questions this course has not played live yet first. Review sets wait on a verified account.

A review set is an ordinary assignment and each question is an ordinary block, which is why a review set can be played as a live game, edited, or have two of its questions copied into a quiz of your own. A set you add keeps a link to its source, so when Classla corrects a question the update follows the template rules below: a copy you have not edited updates itself, and an edited one shows Update available. A round you build from the selection is a new assignment and does not update.

The Subject is in Course Settings. You can also pick it when you create the course, under What are you teaching?. It lists computer science and math subjects, your own subjects first, plus Other, and choosing one changes nothing else about the course.

Templates are edited after you copy them: Classla fixes a typo in an official lesson, a colleague improves a lab in your organization's template. Every assignment that came from a template remembers where it came from, and a change to the template reaches it in one of two ways.

• A copy you have not edited, and that no student has started, updates itself. When the template is edited in Classla, that happens about a minute after the change; when Classla updates an official template, it happens once the update is rolled out to courses.
• A copy you edited, or one a student has started, is left alone. The assignment's header shows Update available. Pressing it opens Update to the latest template version?, which says what the update will do: that it replaces your changes, that students who already started may have answers that no longer line up, and that "Due dates, publish settings, and the assignment link stay the same." Under What changes it lists every block the update adds, removes or changes, with the old and new text side by side and the changed words marked, plus a new title or rubric. If you edited the assignment, the list includes your own edits, since the update replaces them too. Nothing changes until you press Update assignment. If you would rather keep your assignment as it is, press Keep my version (the dialog says so at the top, and the button is at the bottom beside Cancel): nothing in the assignment changes, Update available goes away, and it comes back only when the template changes again. A rubric change you have not taken still shows on its own.

Either way, the assignment's content before the update is saved first, so you can bring it back from the assignment's version history. Students' coding work is kept for every coding block the update did not change. A rubric that has already been used to grade a student is never replaced; the dialog says so, and you can edit it yourself.

An organization is a group of teachers who share templates. On the Templates page, Create Organization makes one and shows its join code; a colleague enters that code under Join Organization. Each organization has its own section on the page, with Create Template for an empty one and Manage Organization, where an admin sees the Members and can Promote to Admin or remove someone.

To turn a course you taught into a template, open its Course Settings and, under Course actions at the bottom of the page, use Export Course to Template: "Create a template from this course. All assignments and folders will be copied, but student enrollments and grades will not be included." You pick the Organization and a Template Name. This is also how you reuse your own course next year: export it, then Use Template on the result. There is no one-click copy of a whole course, and exporting needs an organization, even one with only you in it.

A template opens in the same course view and editor as a course, without the student tabs. Members of its organization can edit it, and those edits reach the courses made from it as described above.

CSAwesome is by Beryl Hoffman and the CSAwesome team at Runestone Academy, used under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, and Classla's adaptations are shared under the same licence. Classla does not charge for that content. The credit appears on the course summary automatically, it repairs itself if a save would drop it, and it says plainly which parts are Classla's own work. Some lessons include AP Computer Science A labs and free response questions from the College Board, which remain the College Board's.

The Algebra 1, Geometry and Algebra 2 courses are adapted from IM 9–12 Math by Illustrative Mathematics, used under CC BY 4.0. The Precalculus, Calculus 1 and Calculus 2 courses are adapted from OpenStax, Rice University, used under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Each course's summary carries its credit automatically.

• Three subjects have review libraries today: AP Computer Science A, AP Calculus AB and AP Calculus BC. Other subjects can be selected on a course and have no sets yet.
• Starting from the official curriculum, and adding review sets, waits on a person at Classla looking at your account. Email camden@classla.org and it is usually the same day.
• Review-set questions are written from scratch by Classla against the AP topic lists. They are not College Board questions.
• Accepting a template update replaces your own edits to that assignment. The old version is kept as a restore point, but the two are not merged.
• There is no one-click copy of a whole course. Export it to a template, then use the template.
• Templates are shared by a join code within an organization, or published by Classla as official. There is no public template gallery and no share link.

• Organizing a Course
• Blocks: What an Assignment Is Made Of
• CS in Classla
• Math in Classla
• The Four Modes
• Getting Started with Classla