Learn how to set up your account, organize Lessons, and add your students.
Teachers and students all need to create accounts in order to use Stile online. This article will take you through how to set up your own account, organize Lesson content for your Class, and how to set your students up with accounts so they can access the content. By the end of this article, you'll be all set to teach your first Lesson in Stile.
Note: This article is part of a 3-part series designed to help you use Stile for the very first time. You'll find links to other articles peppered throughout. These links will open in new tabs, so you can explore more of Stile without losing your place in this series! If you are a North American teacher, some features will have different names. The instructions provided throughout the help centre will still apply.
Follow along step-by-step, or you can click on a section below to jump straight to it:
- Create an account and/or log in;
- Set up your first Subject (and what that means);
- Get to know the Teaching plan;
- Look at the structure of a Lesson;
- Customize the content (optional);
- Release and hide Lessons (and what that means);
- Add students to your Subject.
Create an account and/or log in
Everyone needs their own account to use Stile. This includes both students and teachers. If you already have a Stile account, then you just need to log in at www.stileapp.com. If you have not yet set up an account, you will need to be invited by your school's Stile admin. Admins are most often the Head of Science/Department or a Learning Coordinator, and they can send you an email invitation. Once you receive your invitation, click the link included in the body of the email to get started.
Note: If you are a Victorian, South Australian, or New South Wales public school teacher, then you don't need to create an account! Log in at stileapp.com using your DET credentials and a Stile account will be created for you and allocated to the correct school automatically.
The invite link will take you a special login page that will guide you through creating an account. You will be prompted to enter your name and create a password, or you will be redirected to your school's login portal if your school has enabled a Single Sign-on integration. You will be taken to your new Stile account at the end of the sign up process. The link in the invitation email will now be expired, so you can log in by entering your email address at stileapp.com going forward.
Set up your first Subject (and what that means)
You will land in the Stile Library next, with a navigation menu on the left side of the page.
The library contains Stile's entire collection of pre-made resources. You can use the filters and the search bar at the top of the list to select a curriculum and refine the menu or browse freely from the whole collection. Lessons are organized into collections called Units. Click on a Unit's cover image to reveal more information about it.
The Overview tells you what main concept you'll tackle in the unit, as well as a list of big ideas covered and some of the highlights that your students will enjoy. This page also offers links to additional resources including a parent email template, the unit teaching plan, Stile X, and the digital Lab Guide for any practical activities included. The Preview lessons tab allows you to see some of the content available in the unit, from a student's perspective. Teacher tips and model answers are hidden in this preview. The Curriculum tab lists the curriculum requirements met by completing the Unit.
Take some time to have a browse and see what's available. You'll also find a list of Teacher Resources for each unit which includes a comprehensive teaching plan and lab guide, parent email template, Stile X information, and any other relevant goodies like posters and blog posts.
When you find something that fits your Scope and Sequence, click the Teach this unit button in the unit's overview. This tutorial uses Classification and Biodiversity as an example, but you can choose any unit that suits your needs.
A window will pop up and prompt you to create a name for your first Subject. Subjects are where you organize your Lessons (such as those in the Biodiversity unit) and enrol your students. Subjects can be used for multiple Classes (groups of students) and multiple units, so we recommend you pick a basic name to help you and your students know exactly what it is at a glance. You can rename your Subject later if you change your mind. Click Next when you are ready to continue.
A short animation will play while the unit copies into your new Subject, followed by a Done! message when it's ready for you. Click Go to my subject to see what it looks like.
Take a moment to explore your Subject page. Along the top you will see the Subject's name and four buttons: Lessons, Students, Markbook (or Gradebook for US teachers), and Options. You are currently in the Lessons view, where you will see your freshly copied unit.
Units are organised into Folders. The title of the unit is displayed in the dark grey header with the Lessons listed below, followed by Teacher notes and resources. Take advantage of the linked resources! They are there to help you.
You can close and open the Folder by clicking on the arrow next to the unit's name. This is helpful when you have more than one Folder in your Subject and you don't want to scroll through all of their Lessons.
Get to know the Teaching plan
Locate the Teacher notes at the bottom of the Folder and click to open the Teaching plan. It will automatically open in a new tab so you don't lose your place in Stile. Have a browse of the contents, especially This unit at a glance, Stile X (if you have it), and Important things to know. Then hop down to the Lesson Planning Guide section, where you'll find everything you need to know to hit the ground running. Keep this document open and move back to your Stile browser tab to dig into your first Lesson.
Look at the structure of a Lesson
Each Lesson in the Folder includes an icon and a description of what type of activity it is, to give you an idea of how to prepare. Lessons that are marked with assessed are summative: each question is worth marks (points) and the student will be given an overall mark (grade) at the end. Stile usually saves this assessed mode for check-ins, quizzes, and end of unit tests, however it can be applied to any Lesson.
Click on a Lesson's title to dive in. At the very top of the page, you'll notice a toggle switch with three options: Prepare, Teach, and Analyse. Each mode will give you a different view of the Lesson, with different tools. Clicking into a Lesson from your Lessons page will always put you in Prepare mode. We'll get to the other two modes later. Scroll down on your page to explore the Lesson.
The Lesson is introduced by its title overlaying an eye-catching cover photo. Below that you'll find a variety of content: text, images, teacher tips, questions, polls, and more. Teacher tips are just for you; they are invisible to students and provide you with additional info, prompts, helpful tips, and resources to help you engage your students. Have a look through the whole Lesson to get a feel for the structure and how you'll guide your students. As you explore, go back to the Lesson Planning Guide in the Teaching plan doc and see how it aligns with the structure of the Lesson.
Scroll back up to the top of the Lesson and click the Preview as student button above the top left corner of the cover photo. Your whole view will change: your Subject header will turn from green to blue, your Students and Markbook buttons will disappear, and the teaching notes will be omitted from the Lesson.
This is what the page will look like to your students when they open the Lesson. Have a look through again to get a feel for the difference between what you see in Prepare mode and what your students see. When you're ready, scroll back to the top and click the Exit preview button to return to Prepare mode.
Customize the content
Stile Lessons are fully customizable. You can change anything you'd like. Every piece of content is an independent element called a widget, and every widget has its own Edit button. As a teacher, you have access to most of the same creative tools as the Stile Content team, so you can even build your own Lessons from scratch!
Note: Customizing Lessons is entirely optional and Stile Lessons are classroom-ready, right out of the box. If you don't plan to customize anything, you can skip ahead to the next part of this tutorial.
For the sake of this tutorial, imagine you want to add a possible answer to a Multiple-choice question. The example here is Question 3 in Do we need to save the bees? Click the Edit button next to the question number.
At the bottom of the question is a blank textbox. Click into this textbox and type your new answer option. This will be marked incorrect by default because a correct answer has already been chosen. To make this a correct answer, click the red cross. Click the blue Done button to save your changes.
Note: In this example, we edited the existing "I'm not sure" answer with our new answer, and then made a new "I'm not sure" answer below it. This is so that the new response will appear before "I'm not sure."
You can also delete whole questions by clicking the Delete button next to its Edit button. Deleted questions can be restored from the Lesson's Options menu at the top of the page.
Release and hide Lessons (and what that means)
Now that you have familiarized yourself with the contents of the Lesson, how it looks to students, and maybe even customized some of it, it's time to control what your students will be able to see when they log in for the first time.
Go back to your Lessons page by clicking on the Exit Lesson button in the top left corner of the page.
Look at the Lessons within your Folder. To the right of each Lesson is its availability. This is where you can decide which Lessons are available to your students, and which ones are hidden. By default, Lessons from the Stile Science library are available (visible) to all students, excluding check-ins and tests. Each Lesson can be controlled individually, and you can also control selections or the whole Folder.
Having so many Lessons available on the first day could be overwhelming to students, or distracting for others, so let's hide all but the first few!
Click the white Hide all button on the right side of the Folder. You'll see the availability for each Lesson switch from All students to Hidden from students. Next, you will select which Lessons to release to your students for their first day.
To the right of the Lesson you want to make available, click on Hidden from students to reveal a menu. For now, your only option in this menu will be a tickbox next to All students, so tick that box. This menu will become much more powerful once you enrol your students!
Repeat this step for each Lesson you would like to make available. We call this releasing Lessons.
You can preview the Lessons page in student view to see what your students will see when they log in. Click on the View As menu and select Students near the top right corner of the window. Your page will change to look the way a student will see it. This is a great way to double-check your Lesson selection before adding students!
Note: Hiding all Lessons within a Folder will also hide the whole Folder from the students' page, so they won't even know it exists. If your student preview is blank, go back to the default view and make sure you released at least one Lesson.
Add students to your Subject
It's finally time to add your students. Lessons in your Subject can only be accessed by students and teachers who are enrolled in the Subject. Enrolment is managed via the Students page, so click the Students button in your header. If you're in a Lesson and don't see the header, click the Exit Lesson button and then it will appear.
Students are organized into Classes within your Subject and the first Class is already created for you, simply called Students. You can create any number of Classes in a Subject, but we'll just use the default one for now.
At the top of the page is a very large, six-digit code. This is the unique Class code that your students will use to join this specific Class. This code expires after 14 days and a new one will be generated, so make sure you have the correct code on the first day.
On your first day with your students, direct the students to go to www.stileapp.com/join and enter the Class code into the text box on that page. They will each be prompted enter their email address next, and then they will be guided through creating an account if they are brand new to Stile. If they have a Stile account tied to their email address already, then they'll be asked to enter their password to log in. They can reset their password if it's been forgotten over the holidays!
You will see their names pop into your Class list in real-time as they log in. Enrolment is a one-time process for each Subject, so they will not need to use the Class code again. They can log in at www.stileapp.com the next time they use Stile and find the Subject on their homepage.
Whew, you made it! You should now have your Subject all set up and ready to teach your first Lesson.
Continue on to Pt 2: Run your first interactive, engaging Lesson in Stile