Learning Paths
Release lessons on a schedule — all at once, by date, after previous, or manually — so students progress at the pace you choose.
A Learning Path turns any course into a structured release schedule. Instead of handing students every lesson at once, you choose when each lesson unlocks — on a date, after the previous lesson is passed, or only when you say so. Students see locked lessons in their timeline with an unlock hint, and receive a notification the moment a lesson opens.
Release Strategies
Open the course editor and find the Learning Path release panel on the right. Choose one of four strategies:
| Strategy | What it does | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| All at once | Every lesson unlocks on enrollment. | Self-paced catalogues, reference material |
| By date | Each lesson unlocks on a fixed offset or absolute date. | Cohort-paced courses, marketing drip |
| After previous | Each lesson unlocks when the one before it is passed. | Sequential mastery paths |
| Manual release | No automatic unlocking — you release each lesson one by one. | High-touch coaching, custom pacing |
Courses with no strategy chosen keep the Legacy behavior — you assign lessons manually on the calendar as before, with no release gating.
Switching to any non-legacy strategy on a course that already has enrolled students shows an amber warning with the number of affected students. If the course has sub-lessons (homework or exercises nested under a class lesson), the warning spells out the aggregate impact — for example "This will assign 12 sub-lessons to 5 enrolled students" — because sub-lessons are auto-assigned to every student under every non-legacy strategy. New rules apply to new enrollments automatically; to push them to existing students, use the Apply to existing students button below.
If your organization admin has restricted which strategies are allowed, unavailable options appear greyed out with the suffix "(not allowed by your organization)".
Per-Lesson Release Settings
For By date and After previous strategies, each lesson exposes its own release settings. Open any lesson in the course editor — a collapsible Release panel appears.
By date
Two options via radio buttons:
- Offset from enrollment — a number of days after the student joins (e.g.
7means "unlocks a week after enrollment"). The preview line below shows when the lesson would open for a new student. - Absolute date — a specific calendar date and time. Times are interpreted in the course's release timezone, which is set to your timezone the first time you configure this strategy.
After previous
A single Prerequisite lesson dropdown. The default is Previous lesson by order — the lesson immediately before this one. Pick any published lesson in the same course to override. When the student passes the prerequisite, this lesson unlocks automatically.
On the course lesson list, a small blue chip shows each lesson's release setting at a glance — for example Release: +7d, Release: Apr 25, 2026, or Release: after Lesson 3 — Vocabulary review. Click the chip to jump straight into the Release panel.
Apply to Existing Students
Changing rules on a live course does not affect students who are already enrolled. To push the new schedule to them, click Apply to existing students in the course editor.
Click Apply
Click the Apply to existing students button (with the people icon) below the release panel.
Confirm
A dialog asks you to confirm the action. It explains that the system will recalculate the locked and unlocked state of every lesson for every current student under the new rules. Already-passed lessons keep their state — only the lock status is recomputed. Click Apply rules.
Watch Progress
If you have many students, a progress dialog opens showing how many enrollments have been processed so far and how many failed (for example, 12 / 45 processed • 0 failed). You cannot close it until it finishes. A toast confirms the result.
The button re-applies the Learning Path to every accepted enrollment. Lessons a student has already passed keep their state — only lock/unlock is recomputed.
Manual Release
You can release any locked lesson on demand, regardless of the course's strategy.
From the Path tab
Open an enrollment page (from Enrollments → pick a student) and switch to the Path tab. Every unreleased lesson has a Release now button on the right. Click it; a 5-second Undo toast lets you take it back. A confirmation toast appears when the release succeeds.
From the Roster grid
The Roster tab on the course page shows a students × lessons grid. Click any locked cell to release that lesson for that student. Check multiple cells and click Release selected in the footer bar to release them in bulk. Failed cells stay outlined in red for easy retry.
The Path Tab
The Path tab on each enrollment shows the student's full Learning Path.
Header strip — a one-line summary like 3 / 12 lessons complete · Current: Unit 2 — Past Tense · Enrolled 9d ago · Next unlock: Apr 25, 2026.
Each row shows a state chip:
| Chip | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Passed | Student finished the lesson |
| In progress | Student has started but not finished |
| Unlocked | Released but not yet started |
| Locked | Not yet released |
Released lessons show a subtitle like Released on Apr 25, 2026 — Released by schedule. Other reasons you may see: Prerequisite passed, Released manually, Released with course, Released with parent lesson, Group sync, Legacy backfill. Locked lessons show the unlock hint instead — for example Unlocks on May 2, 2026, Unlocks after Lesson 3 — Vocabulary review, or Manual release.
Approvals
If your org admin has enabled Require admin approval for manual release, your manual-release clicks become requests instead of immediate unlocks. A toast confirms the request was submitted and is awaiting org admin approval. The lesson stays locked until an admin approves it in the Pending Approval Requests widget. See Learning Path Overview (Admin) for the admin side.
Notifications
When a lesson unlocks for a student, they receive a Lesson unlocked notification with a message like "Unit 3 — Past Tense is now available" and a link straight to the lesson. This fires for every unlock path: scheduled date-based unlocks, prerequisite completion, manual release, and bulk apply-to-existing-students.
Sub-Lessons (Child Homework & Exercises)
When you nest homework or exercises under a class lesson (see Manage Course Lessons), those sub-lessons follow their parent across every non-legacy strategy:
- Auto-assigned at enrollment. Every sub-lesson becomes a real student lesson for every enrolled student — you do not assign them one by one. This happens for all four non-legacy strategies (All at once, By date, After previous, Manual release).
- Unlock in lockstep with the parent. A sub-lesson shares the parent's unlock moment. When the parent opens, the sub-lessons open with it. Sub-lessons do not have their own release date or prerequisite.
- Do not advance the release chain. Under After previous, only parent lessons sequence the course. Passing a sub-lesson (e.g. submitting a homework) does not unlock the next unit — the parent must be passed for that.
- Cascade on manual release. When you manually release a parent lesson, its sub-lessons release with it. The Path tab records each sub-lesson's release reason as Released with parent lesson.
Adding a sub-lesson to a shared course assigns it to every enrolled student the next time rules are applied. If you use a single course as a template across many students, add sub-lessons before enrollment opens or confirm the impact in the warning banner when switching strategy.
Choose Legacy if you need full per-student manual control over sub-lessons — Legacy is the only mode that does not auto-assign them.
Legacy Courses
Existing courses default to the Legacy strategy. Nothing changes — you keep assigning lessons manually on the calendar. No Path tab, no release chip, no locked-lesson behavior for students, and sub-lessons are not auto-assigned. Switch to a strategy only when you want release gating.
Next Steps
- Use Case: Rolling out a Learning Path — end-to-end walkthrough from planning to monitoring.
- Managing Enrollments — enrollments are the trigger for Learning Path materialization.
- Learning Path Overview (Admin) — org-wide adoption, approvals, and analytics.
Q&A
Can I change strategies mid-course? Yes. Existing enrollments keep their current lesson state until you click Apply to existing students. New enrollments follow the new rules automatically.
What counts as "passed" for the After previous strategy? A lesson is considered passed when the student clicks Save & Finish (or Send to teacher for homework). Teacher verification is not required — the next lesson unlocks as soon as the student finishes the prerequisite.
What does "Previous lesson by order" follow if I reorder lessons later? It follows the current position at the time each unlock is evaluated — so reordering lessons changes which one becomes the prerequisite for the next student who reaches that point.
Does manual release work under automatic strategies? Yes. Manual release is always available as an override. The Path tab records it as Released manually with your name.
What happens when a student's enrollment expires? Scheduled unlocks stop. Already-released lessons remain accessible until the expiry date.
Do sub-lessons (nested homework/exercises) have their own release date or prerequisite? No. Sub-lessons inherit the parent lesson's unlock moment under every non-legacy strategy. If you need per-sub-lesson release control, pick Legacy and assign them manually.
Passing the homework sub-lesson — does it unlock the next unit under After previous? No. Only parent lessons advance the release chain. A sub-lesson being passed does not open the next unit. Students finish the parent (the class lesson) to progress.
I added a sub-lesson to a live course — what happens to current students? New enrollments get the sub-lesson automatically. To push it to already-enrolled students, click Apply to existing students — the system materializes the missing sub-lessons with the parent's current unlock state (locked if the parent is locked, released if the parent is already released).
I appended a new lesson to an After previous course — what happens to students who already finished the earlier lessons? Click Apply to existing students to materialize the new lesson on every enrollment. Under After previous, backfill also advances the release chain: if the new lesson's predecessor (its explicit prerequisite, or the prior lesson by order) is already passed by that student, the new lesson unlocks immediately with reason Prerequisite passed. If the predecessor is not yet passed, the new lesson stays locked and unlocks later when the student finishes it. Newly-added sub-lessons nested under the new lesson cascade-release alongside it.