There's no single right pace for a personal finance class, but there is a reliable way to set one up in Intertwined. Three tools each do a different job: the Planner is your private map of the term, Manage Access decides which parts of the course students can open, and assignment dates tell students what they owe and when. This guide walks through using them together, from the first week of planning to keeping a class on track in week twelve.
Available on: assignments with publish and due dates work on every plan. The Planner and Manage Access need Intertwined Solo or a school plan.
1. Sketch the term in the Planner
Start with the big picture before you create a single assignment.
Open Planner and choose the class.
Click Lay out a course, choose the course, set Starting to your first teaching day, and set Days this class meets.
Read the preview's date range before adding it. It gives each section the time the course expects, counting a class period as 45 minutes, so it's a quick test of whether the course fits your term.
If the range runs past the end of your term, decide now what to combine, shorten or skip, rather than discovering it in May. Once you add the layout, drag items off holidays, testing days and assemblies, and add your own plan items for exams, projects and simulator weeks. Students never see any of this. The Planner: mapping out lessons on a calendar covers every Planner feature.
2. Decide how students move through the course
Two approaches work well, and you can switch later:
Open course: students can open any section. This suits mixed-pace classes and students who like to work ahead. Assignments set the expected pace without stopping anyone.
Released as you go: students see every unit and section on their course page but can open only what you've opened. In Coursework > Manage Access, click Lock all, then use Open through, choose a unit, click Apply and Save. Open more as the class moves on.
A shortcut for released courses: when you assign a locked section, the Create Assignment page offers Open it to students on the publish date. Leave it ticked and the section opens by itself on the publish date, so your assignments and your access stay in step without a second visit to Manage Access. Details in Manage Access: choosing which units students can open.
3. Turn the plan into assignments
Assignments are what students act on, so their rhythm is the pace students feel. A pattern many teachers like:
One reading assignment per class day, so each day has one clear task.
The week's section quizzes at the end of the week, as a checkpoint for you and for them.
A day or two between publish and due date for anything done at home.
Two ways to create them:
Create Assignment with a future publish date, to stage a week or a unit ahead. Staged work shows as Scheduled, and the Publishing soon card on Insights > Assignments reminds you before it goes live. See Creating an assignment.
Dragging a section's Reading or Quiz chip from the Planner's Course tab onto a day. That's the fastest way, but the work is visible to students immediately and due at 11:59 PM that day.
Important: a due date picked on the Create Assignment page is due at the start of that day (12:00 AM). For work students should finish in Tuesday's class, choose Wednesday as the due date.
A sample week
Monday: slides from the Teaching Toolkit (a plan item) and the reading for section 3.1, due Tuesday.
Tuesday: a toolkit worksheet (plan item) and the reading for 3.2, due Wednesday.
Wednesday: the reading for 3.3, due Thursday, with an Arcade game as a warm-up.
Thursday: a case study in class (plan item) and catch-up time.
Friday: quizzes for 3.1 to 3.3, due Monday.
Fitting in simulators
Simulators work best as anchors for a unit rather than one-off days. A few patterns:
Run the Personal Budget Simulator right after your budgeting unit, so students apply what they read.
Start the Investing Simulator early and let it run in the background across several units; checking portfolios makes a good weekly warm-up. Running an investing competition has ideas.
Give the Economy Simulator a block of class days, since you run its rounds with the class.
In classes using the 3e course, Twine Town checkpoints follow the course: some open only after certain sections, so set their due dates after your class reaches those sections.
Assign the simulator with points and a due date at the end of the stretch, so it gets a Gradebook column and a suggested score for each student. Simulators depend on your plan; The simulators at a glance: which one fits your lesson helps you choose.
4. Check your pace every week
Open Insights > Assignments. The Needs attention cards flag past-due work that fewer than half the students have finished. Two of those in a row usually means the pace is too fast.
Look at course completion on the classroom Overview and the topics students missed in Reteach before moving on. See Reteach: finding what your class needs to revisit.
When a unit runs long, switch the Assignments page to Calendar and drag the due dates, then drag the matching plan items in the Planner.
Teaching several sections of the same course
Plan one class fully, then use Copy to another class in the Planner and set Land the first day on to suit the other section's schedule. Plan items copy; assignments don't, because each class tracks its own students. Create the assignments in each class, then use Insights > Assignments with All classes to see every section side by side.
Students who fall behind or join late
Whole-class assignments include students who join later, with the class's original due dates, so a new student sees earlier work as Overdue. Tell them what they can skip.
For make-up work, create an assignment for Specific students with its own dates. See Assigning work to the whole class, a group, or individual students.
Moving a due date moves it for everyone the assignment is for, so use it for class-wide changes, not single-student extensions.
Tips
Plan in units, assign in weeks. A full term of assignments made on day one is hard to adjust; a week or a unit at a time keeps you flexible.
Leave slack. A buffer day every two or three weeks absorbs fire drills, assemblies and the lesson that needs a second day.
Keep the Planner honest. When you move an assignment, move the matching plan items too, so next year's copy starts from what actually happened.
Common questions
How long should each section take?
Lay out a course uses each section's expected length as a starting point. Treat it as a first draft; your class's pace after two or three weeks is the better guide.
Can different periods have different due dates?
Yes. Each class has its own assignments and its own plan.
Do assignments stop students from working ahead?
No. Assignments set expectations; only Manage Access controls what students can open.