Create a lesson
The complete procedure, in the order that avoids rework.
Before you start
- The course exists and its sections are defined.
- The video, if there is one, is published and embeddable.
- You know where this lesson sits in the sequence.
Create it
- Open Courses → Add New Lesson.
- Enter the title — short enough to read in the course outline.
- Write the content in the editor.
- Set a featured image if the layout settings display one.
- In Lesson settings → Configuration, choose the Attached course.
- Save the lesson.
- Choose the Attached section, now that the selector knows the course.
- Add the Lesson video URL and set the video type, if the lesson has a video.
- Set the Estimated time.
- Set the order attribute in the page attributes.
- Publish.
Why the save in step 6 matters
The Attached section selector is built from the sections of the course the lesson is attached to. Until the course is saved on the lesson, the selector has nothing to offer — or offers the previous course's sections.
Saving in between is the difference between a lesson that appears in the outline and one that quietly does not.
Writing lesson content
Each lesson is a page a student reads in one sitting:
- Open with what this lesson covers, in a sentence.
- Deliver the material.
- Close with what to do next, or what the following lesson builds on.
Two habits that age well:
- Do not refer to lesson numbers. Order changes; the previous lesson survives a reorder, lesson 4 does not.
- Do not duplicate the video. If the video carries the material, the written content should be the summary, the transcript or the exercise — not a second version of the same thing.
The order attribute
The lesson's position comes from the order value in its page attributes. Lessons are sorted by it in the outline, in previous/next navigation, and in the lesson list.
Use spaced values — 10, 20, 30 — so a lesson can be inserted between two others later without renumbering the course.
Exceptions
Two fields make a lesson behave differently from its course, and both should be deliberate:
- This lesson is a preview — opens it to everyone. See Lesson previews.
- Lesson permission rule — replaces the course's rule for this lesson. See Lesson permission override.
Leave both alone for an ordinary lesson.
Verify
- Open the lesson list and confirm the Course and Section columns are filled.
- Open the course as a student with access.
- Confirm the lesson appears, in the right section, in the right position.
- Open it and confirm the content and video render.
- Confirm the back link and previous/next navigation work.
- Confirm the progress percentage behaves as your completion mode expects.
- Open it as a student without access and confirm it is blocked — unless it is a preview.