Before you teach a unit, it helps to read it the way your students will. Any course in the Library opens on the same course page and lesson pages your students use, so you can click through lessons, try the interactive pieces and look at every quiz question. A few things are different for you, mostly in your favor: nothing is locked, and nothing you do is recorded.
Available on: every plan, including Free. You can preview any course, whether or not it's on one of your classes.
Open a course
There are three ways in:
From the Library: in the sidebar, open Library > Courses and click Open on a course card (or click its cover).
From a class: open Classrooms > your class > Coursework > Assigned Courses and click the course's card.
While adding a course: in the Add Course window, click Open the course. It opens in a new tab so you don't lose your place.
Walk through it
Look over the course page. The top shows the cover, the course name, and chips for the number of units and lessons (plus an estimated length when the course has one). Below it, Course outline lists every unit with its sections and lesson counts.
Expand a unit. Click a unit row to see its sections, or click Open unit to jump to its first lesson.
Open a section. Click a section row. Its first lesson opens, with the unit's lesson list on the left.
Move through the lessons. Use Next and Back at the bottom of each lesson, or click any item in the lesson list. Click Back to course at the top of the list to return to the outline.
Open the section quiz. On the last lesson the button reads Quiz, or click Section quiz in the lesson list. You'll see the answer key (more below).
On a phone or small screen: the lesson list starts closed so the lesson gets the full width. Tap the panel button on the left edge to open it, and pick a lesson to close it again.
What's different from the student view
Everything is open to you. Students open lessons one at a time and the quiz only after the last lesson, and they can't open sections you've locked with Manage Access. You can open any lesson, quiz or section in any order, even ones locked for your class.
Nothing is recorded. Your clicks don't create progress, time or scores, and they don't show up anywhere your students or your reports can see. Your button says Next; theirs says Complete & continue, which marks the lesson done.
Quizzes show the answer key. Instead of taking the quiz, you see every question with all of its versions ("Variant 1", "Variant 2" and so on) and each version's answers, with the correct one in green and marked "(Correct)". Students see one version at a time, with answers in a shuffled order, and get a different version to try again if they miss. See How quizzes and assessments work.
No personal progress panel. Students' course pages have an Up next card with Resume learning and a Course progress bar, and for Personal Finance Core Foundations (3e), cards for their certificate and Twine Town. You won't see those, because you have no progress of your own.
No locks or opening dates. Students see locked units and sections grayed out with a lock and "Locked" or an opening date. To check what your class can open, look at Coursework > Manage Access instead. See Manage Access: choosing which units students can open.
The lesson content itself (text, graphics, videos, interactive tools and the Read aloud button) is the same for you and your students.
Tips
Read the answer key before you assign a quiz. Seeing all the versions of a question tells you exactly which idea it checks, which is handy for a warm-up or exit ticket.
Count lessons to plan time. The unit rows show how many lessons each unit has, and each lesson page shows "LESSON 2 OF 5" so you can gauge a section's length.
Try a lesson on your phone, too. If your students work on phones or Chromebooks, a quick check shows you what they'll be scrolling through.
Try Read aloud on a lesson so you can show students who benefit from it where it is.
Common questions
Is there a "view as student" mode?
Not a separate one. The pages you open are the student pages, with the differences above. The parts that depend on a student (their progress, locks and certificate) show up only for students.
Will previewing a course affect my class's data?
No. Teachers don't have progress, so opening lessons and quizzes doesn't add anything to your Gradebook, reports or students' records.
Can I preview a course before I add it to a class?
Yes. Every course in the Library opens with Open, whether or not any of your classes has it.
Why don't I see the locks I set in Manage Access?
Locks apply to students only, so your preview always shows the whole course. Manage Access is where you can see and change what's open for each class.
How do I see how a particular student is doing in the course?
Use the class's student pages and Gradebook rather than the course preview. See Looking at one student's progress in depth.