Overview

Membean's class creation wizard guides you through the process of creating your first class. Each step will ask you for information that Membean will apply to the class. This article will walk you through the different available settings and how they affect your students and grading.

Step 1: Create Your First Class

Class Name

Class names will display on your teacher dashboard as well as your students' dashboards, so choose a name that will be recognizable. Examples of good class names are "Period 1," "7th Bell," "Honors English 9," etc. Keep in mind that classes will be listed alphabetically on your teacher dashboard.

Classes do not have to follow your roster. You may wish to move remedial or ESL students into a separate, smaller class to assign them different expectations, assessments, or assignments.

Grade

The grade of your class should be set to the lowest grade within the class. For example, if you teach a 7th/8th grade English class, set the grade of the class to 7.

The grade level of the class affects what Membean word list your students calibrate on and the amount of time they have for assessments.

Step 2: Does the whole class need Extra Help?

The Extra Help setting automatically adjusts several settings to aid students who struggle with reading or are still learning the English language. 

All settings will be applied to every student within a class checked Extra Help. Only check the Extra Help box if the entire class is either ESL/ELL or struggles with reading. 

Step 3: Set Your Cycle

Training cycles are the period of time that you use for grading. For example, you may require that your students train for a certain amount of time every week, every five days, every two weeks, etc. You can read about our training recommendations here.

  • Days: The number of days within the training cycle indicates the length of your cycle. Keep in mind that cycles are recurring, with no "down days" in between.
  • Begins Every/Training Starts On: If you have your teaching cycle set to a 7-day week, you will choose the week day that your cycle begins on. If your cycle is set to another length of time, you'll choose a date for your cycle to begin on. Your cycle will automatically recur.
  • End Time: The end time of your teaching cycle is when your students need to complete their Membean training by. For example, if I have a 7-day cycle that starts on Tuesday with an end time of 5:00 pm, students will need to complete their training by the following Tuesday at 4:59 pm. If students start a session prior to the end time, the entire session will count toward that cycle.

Examples

  • You plan on checking grading reports every Friday after school. You set your cycle to 7 days beginning on Friday with an end time of 3:00pm (Students must finish their Membean every Friday by 2:59pm).
  • Your class meets twice a week, so you plan on checking your grading reports every two weeks over the weekend. You set your cycle to 14 days beginning on Saturday with an end time of 12:00am (Students have two weeks to complete their Membean training and must finish every other Friday by 11:59pm).

Step 4: Set Your Training Expectations

Training expectations are the number of days and minutes that students should spend training every training cycle.

  • Days: The number of days within your training expectations indicates how many separate days your students need to train on in order to meet the required training for the teaching cycle.
  • Minutes Per Day: The amount of minutes per day within your training expectations indicates how long your students must train on each day in order to reach their goal.
  • Total Minutes: The total minutes within your training expectations indicates how many minutes overall your students have to train per cycle.
The number of days and minutes per day within your cycle does not have to equal the total minutes. As long as your students meet each indicator, they will meet their training expectations. For example, you could set your expectations for 2 Days, 5 Minutes Per Day, and 60 Total Minutes. If a student trains for 10 minutes on one day and 50 minutes on another day during the cycle, they will meet the training expectations.

Step 5: Create More Classes

From your dashboard, click on the plus sign.

Fill out the form to best fit your class's needs, and click Save.