Lesson Document Lifecycle

How lesson content flows from course lessons to student copies, and what happens at each stage.

Who this is for

Teachers who create lesson content in courses and assign it to students through live sessions, class plans, or homework assignments.

What this page answers

What are the four layers of the lesson system and how do they connect?
When does a student task or live session freeze?
How do published course updates automatically flow to unstarted lessons?
How do I use "Refresh from course lesson" for unstarted live rooms?
How does "Continue from previous" work?
What is different between individual and group sessions?
Who can cancel or delete a lesson, and what happens to billed balances?

Prerequisites

An active course with at least one lesson
At least one enrolled student or active class

The master-and-copies model

A course lesson is the master curriculum document. When you assign it to a student or add it to a class plan, the system creates a provisional snapshot.

Unstarted class sessions and unopened student tasks automatically follow the master course lesson. When you edit a course lesson, your changes accumulate in a private working copy. Once you click Publish changes, your updates automatically flow into all unstarted sessions and unopened student tasks without manual intervention.

A lesson freezes at a clear boundary:

A live class lesson freezes when its live classroom room is created.
A homework or exercise freezes when a student first opens the task.

Once frozen, student work and live room state are protected against unexpected shifts. For an unstarted live room created in advance, teachers can pull the latest published version at any time using Refresh from course lesson.

The four layers

The lesson system has four distinct layers:

Layer	What it is	Analogy	Statuses
Working copy	The private draft of a course lesson. Every edit you make lands here until you publish. One per lesson. See Working copies.	The marked-up page on your desk	Unpublished changes, or none
Course Lesson	The format-neutral master material inside your course or library. Always active; edits open a working copy.	The master document in your binder	Active / Published
Lesson	The student or class instance created when assigned or placed in a class plan. Automatically follows the master until frozen.	A photocopy given to the student	Added, Started, Passed, Verified, Canceled
Live session	The scheduled classroom appointment. It connects participants to their lesson documents.	The classroom appointment	Scheduled, Active, Ended, Canceled

Provisional snapshots and automatic following

When you assign a lesson to a class calendar, a student, or a guest link, the system creates a provisional snapshot:

Child tasks follow the parent

If your root lesson has child homework or exercises attached to it, those child tasks are also provisioned alongside the parent. They unlock automatically according to the class plan's opening rules and follow course updates until students open them.

Pushing changes to student copies

Updating materials across your school is automatic for unstarted work, with clear safeguards for lessons already underway:

1. Unstarted class sessions and unopened tasks

The moment you click Publish changes on a working copy, your updates automatically flow into all unstarted class sessions and unopened student tasks. You do not need to push updates manually.

2. When a lesson freezes

To protect student progress, a lesson freezes at a clear threshold:

Live class lessons freeze when the live room is created.
Homework and exercises freeze the moment a student first opens the task.

Once frozen, the student document is detached from future course edits.

3. Refresh from course lesson (unstarted live rooms)

If a live room was created before you published your edits and class has not started yet, you can pull the latest published version into the room:

Open the class plan or session row menu.
Select Refresh from course lesson.
Review the confirmation warning: refreshing replaces the room document with the latest published lesson and resets any pre-class notes added to the unstarted room.
Confirm to refresh.

Once a live session starts or a student submits homework, their work is permanently protected and cannot be refreshed from the course.

Document flow during a live session

How the document behaves during a session depends on whether it is an individual or group session.

Individual (1:1) sessions

The teacher and the student both work on the same Lesson document — the student's copy. The teacher can toggle whether the student is allowed to edit.

Group class sessions

Each participant has their own Lesson (their own copy). During the session, the teacher's edits are pushed to all participant Lessons simultaneously. Everyone sees the same content in real time.

Group homework and exercises are NOT shared. Each student gets their own isolated copy and works independently. The shared-document behavior described above only applies to live group class sessions.

Continuing from a previous session

Sometimes a class session runs out of time before covering everything. The "Continue from Previous" feature lets you carry the document state from one session into the next, instead of starting over from the clean course lesson.

How it works

Every live session automatically saves the teacher's document state. When you later assign a lesson to a new session, you can pick up where you left off by selecting a past session instead of a fresh course lesson.

To use it, open the assignment dialog and check the "Show continuable" toggle in the lesson browser. This reveals a "Continue from Previous" section that lists past sessions with saved documents.

The assignment dialog then shows two sections:

Course lessons — the standard list of lessons from your course (fresh copies from the original)
Continue from Previous — a list of past sessions that have saved documents

If you pick "Continue from Previous," the new Lesson is created with the document from the selected past session, not from the course lesson.

Either way, a new Lesson is always created. The only difference is where the document content comes from: the clean course lesson or the previous session's document.

The "Continue from Previous" section is hidden by default. Check the "Show continuable" toggle in the lesson browser to reveal it.

"Continue from Previous" works for both individual and group sessions.

The full picture

Here is the complete document lifecycle from creation to completion:

Cancelling and deleting lessons

A teacher assigned to a lesson (or an Operations admin or Owner) can cancel or delete it. Operations admins and Owners can manage lessons across the entire school, while regular teachers can manage their own assigned lessons.

Action	What it does	Financial effect
Cancel	Moves the lesson to Canceled status. The lesson record is preserved in history.	Never refunds. Prior deductions remain. The optional `deduct` checkbox serves as a late-cancellation fee for teacher standby time.
Delete	Removes the lesson completely from the schedule, student queues, and history.	Auto-refunds. Any previously billed deductions are returned to the student or school balance.

Cancellation Never Refunds; Deleting Does

Lessons in Locuto.PRO are billed upon delivery/completion. Therefore:

Cancelling a lesson preserves the historical audit trail. Cancelling never triggers a refund, because work was already scheduled or delivered. When cancelling an unbilled session where the student missed the class without notice, the teacher can check the deduct box to charge a late-cancellation standby fee.
Deleting a lesson states that the lesson should not have existed at all. Deleting removes the record and automatically refunds any previous deduction associated with that lesson.

Student 12-Hour Cancellation Cutoff:

Students can cancel a scheduled class only when more than 12 hours remain before the scheduled start time.
Within 12 hours (<= 12h), cancellation is disabled for students and they must click Request Reschedule instead.
Students cannot cancel homework or exercise lessons (they remain in their study queue until completed).
Staff members (teachers and admins) are unrestricted by the 12-hour clock and can adjust the schedule at any time.

Attendance Confirmation in Group Classes

In live group classes, attendance is confirmed when students enter the room:

Student Start Confirmation: As soon as a student clicks "Start" to join the live classroom, their attendance is confirmed as present. If their camera or network temporarily disconnects during the call, their attendance record remains intact.
Teacher Verification: When the teacher ends the live session, the teacher confirms the final attendance list. Only students confirmed as present are charged for the lesson.
Post-Session Document Recovery: When a teacher ends a live session, the room remains active in the background for 60 seconds to ensure all student notes, whiteboard sketches, and feedback finish saving cleanly.

Homework Completion as Work Evidence

Homework assignments differ from live sessions:

Homework does not have an "absent" status.
Clicking "Finish" and submitting homework serves as work evidence (passed), which settles the homework lesson.
If a student misses a suggested homework due date, their work is not marked absent or prematurely billed; it remains in their queue until submitted or canceled by the teacher.

Per-student deletion inside a group session

When a teacher deletes one student's lesson inside a group live session, only that student's lesson copy is removed and only that student's deduction is refunded. The rest of the group session and the lessons attached to the other participants stay as they are.

For deleting an entire group session, each participant is refunded individually.

What the student sees

For canceled lessons, the lesson card moves to the Canceled state in the student's schedule and lessons list.
For deleted lessons, the lesson card is removed entirely from the student's schedule and study queue. If a refund applied, the student's transaction history shows the refund entry.

If you need to move a lesson rather than drop it, prefer rescheduling over cancellation — rescheduling keeps the lesson copy and history intact and carries any attached homework or exercises along with the new time.

Quick reference

Action	What happens to the document
Assign a lesson to a session or class	Creates a provisional snapshot that automatically follows published course updates
Edit a course lesson	Edits accumulate in the private working copy; published version remains unchanged
Publish changes	Replaces the course lesson's published version; updates automatically flow into unstarted sessions and unopened student tasks
Lesson freezing	A live session freezes when its live room is created; a homework or exercise freezes when a student first opens it
Refresh from course lesson	Pulls the latest published version into an unstarted live classroom room, replacing any pre-class notes
Save during individual session	The shared live Lesson document is updated
Save during group class session	All participant Lessons are updated simultaneously
Continue from Previous (assignment)	New Lesson is created from a past session's document instead of the course lesson. Switch to the Continuable tab in the lesson picker to select from past sessions.
Cancel a lesson	The lesson moves to Canceled and is preserved in history; never refunds prior deductions.
Delete a billed lesson	The lesson disappears from history and any billed deductions are auto-refunded.

Manage Course Lessons — creating and organizing lessons in your course
Working Copies — safe editing and version history
Live Session Scheduling — scheduling sessions and assigning lessons
Running Live Sessions — tools and workflow during a session
Homework Management — assigning, tracking, and verifying homework

Q&A

I updated my course lesson but students say their task didn't change. Why?

Check these two possibilities in order:

The change was never published. On any course lesson, edits sit in the working copy until you click Publish changes. A lesson with an unpublished draft is marked with an amber asterisk on the course outline.
The lesson already froze. If a student had already opened their homework or exercise, or if the live room had already been created, the document froze to protect student work. For an unstarted live room, use Refresh from course lesson in the class plan row menu.

Can I update a live class session after creating the room?

Yes, as long as the session has not started yet. Open the class plan or session row menu and click Refresh from course lesson. This pulls the latest published lesson and displays a confirmation warning that any pre-class notes added to the unstarted room will be replaced.

Does "Continue from Previous" use the course lesson or the student's work?

It uses the document from the previous session's Lesson, which includes all edits, answers, and annotations from that session. It does not use the course lesson.

In a group session, can one student's edits affect another student's lesson?

During a live group class session, the teacher's edits push to all participant Lessons. Students can only edit if the teacher grants them permission, and their edits also go through the shared save mechanism. Outside of the live session, each student has their own independent copy.

What happens if I assign an unfinished lesson to a new session via "Continue from Previous"?

A brand new Lesson is created with a copy of the previous session's document in its current state — including any partial work. The original lesson in the previous session is not affected. You now have two independent Lessons: the old one (with whatever status it had) and the new one (status: Added, with the carried-over document).

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