This help document shows you how to set the lesson duration for your course. The learning object types selected for the course will impact the estimated duration.
When Building a New Course, you go through five steps. Setting the duration of a lesson is part of Step 3: Specifying Lesson Structure.
Now that you’ve completed Course Builder | Step 2: How to select specific standards and skills for your course, you can set the duration of a lesson.
**NOTE** The lesson duration does not need to match the class period. It is the length you would like each lesson in the course to be.
Set Duration
Enter the length of the lesson under "Duration of a Lesson".
Estimated Duration
As you select learning objects to include, the estimated lesson duration will change. See Course Builder | Step 3 – Select activities to include in each lesson for details on adding learning object types to the lesson.
The estimated duration will increase based on the expected duration of each learning object type that you add to your lesson. The estimated lesson duration will be calculated based on the expected duration of the learning object types selected with a 3-minute buffer between each learning object.
**Note** Learning Object Types highlighted as “optional” will not impact the estimated lesson duration. When you finish creating your course, only standard learning objects will be automatically displayed to students assigned to the course. Optional learning objects can be assigned to students as needed.
Match Duration
The duration of a lesson that you set must align with the estimated lesson duration. It does not need to be exact as these are estimated times, but it should be close to the same.
If the duration you enter does not match, you will get a warning message:
You can change the "duration of a lesson" to match estimated, or you can add or remove learning object types from your lesson to change the estimated lesson duration to more closely match what you want for each lesson.
Other Details
You’ll also see the "number of suggested lessons in the course" above the duration of a lesson. And, you’ll see the "duration of a period" if it was set in Course Builder | Step 1: Setting the pacing for your course.
Next Steps
Once you have the lesson duration set, you will need to specify the learning object types to include in your lesson. See Course Builder | Step 3: Select activities to include in each lesson.