Facilitator Documentation

Everything you need to lead your cohort effectively. This guide covers session management, content authoring, attendance, progress tracking, and the AI-powered tools at your disposal.

Facilitator Workspace

When you sign in as a facilitator, your dashboard shows a focused view of the cohorts you lead. Key widgets include:

• My Cohorts — quick access to each cohort you facilitate.
• Upcoming Sessions — your next scheduled sessions with date and time.
• Pending Actions — attendance not yet submitted, assessments to grade.
• Student Alerts — students who have missed multiple sessions or are falling behind.

Use the sidebar to navigate between your cohorts, lesson plans, and the content authoring tools.

Managing Your Cohorts

Each cohort is a group of students taking a class together. As a facilitator, you can:

• View the roster of enrolled students with their contact details.
• See attendance history and completion status per student.
• Communicate with students through the platform messaging system.
• Access the classroom view for each cohort to manage session-level activities.

Navigate to Facilitator → Cohorts to see all cohorts assigned to you, both active and past.

Creating Sessions

Sessions represent individual meetings or lessons within a cohort. Each session typically maps to one week of teaching.

1. Open your cohort and go to the Sessions tab.
2. Click Add Session to create a new session.
3. Set the date, time, topic, and any notes or materials.
4. Optionally link the session to a specific module or content block.
5. Save and the session appears in both your calendar and students' schedules.

Taking Attendance

Attendance tracking is a core feature. You can record attendance during or after each session.

1. Open the session from your cohort's session list.
2. Click Take Attendance to see the student roster.
3. Mark each student as Present, Absent, or Excused.
4. Add optional notes for any student (e.g., arrived late, left early).
5. Submit the attendance record. Students are notified and it reflects on their profile.

Attendance can also be taken in bulk from the Attendance page, which shows all sessions across your cohorts.

Authoring System (Content Blocks)

The Forge uses a modular content system. Each class is made up of modules, and each module contains content blocks — individual pieces of learning material.

Content Block Types

• Text — rich text with formatting, headings, and lists.
• Video — embed YouTube or uploaded video content.
• Scripture — Bible verse references with automatic lookup.
• Quiz — inline assessment questions.
• Activity — instructions for group or individual exercises.
• Discussion — prompts for group conversation.

Creating Content

1. Navigate to the class and open the module you want to edit.
2. Click Add Block and select the block type.
3. Author the content using the built-in editor.
4. Drag and drop to reorder blocks within a module.
5. Publish when ready — students will see the content in their classroom view.

AI Studio

AI Studio is a powerful tool that helps you generate teaching content using artificial intelligence. It can create:

• Lesson Outlines — structured outlines based on a topic or scripture passage.
• Teaching Notes — detailed notes with key points, illustrations, and applications.
• Slides — presentation-ready slides exported to your content.
• Handouts — printable student handouts with fill-in-the-blank sections.
• Quiz Questions — auto-generated questions based on lesson content.

Using AI Studio

1. Go to AI Studio from the sidebar (or the CMS page).
2. Select the content type you want to generate.
3. Provide a topic, scripture reference, or paste existing notes as a prompt.
4. Review the generated content and edit as needed.
5. Export directly into a content block or download as a file.

Module Completion Tracking

Each module has completion criteria that students must fulfill. As a facilitator, you can track and manage this:

• View the completion matrix — a grid showing each student's progress across all modules.
• Manually mark modules as complete for students who meet criteria outside the platform.
• Set module prerequisites to ensure students progress in order.
• View completion percentages at the cohort level to gauge overall progress.

Student Progress Monitoring

The student progress view gives you a detailed look at each participant's journey:

• Attendance rate — percentage of sessions attended.
• Module progress — how many modules completed out of total.
• Assessment scores — quiz and assignment grades.
• XP earned — total experience points and current rank.
• Skills developed — skills assigned and proficiency levels.

Use the Journeyview to see a timeline of a student's milestones, or export progress reports for your records.

Lesson Plans

The Lesson Plans feature lets you create structured teaching plans for each session:

1. Navigate to Lesson Plans from the sidebar.
2. Create a new plan and link it to a specific session and module.
3. Structure the plan with sections: Opening, Scripture Reading, Teaching Points, Discussion, Activity, and Closing.
4. Add time allocations for each section to keep your session on track.
5. Share the plan with co-facilitators or print it for your reference.

Google Calendar Sync

Connect your Google Calendar to automatically sync session schedules:

1. Go to Calendar from the sidebar.
2. Click Connect Google Calendar and authorize access.
3. Once connected, all your cohort sessions appear as calendar events.
4. New sessions are automatically added to your calendar.
5. Cancellations or reschedules update in real time.

Calendar sync is one-way (Forge to Google Calendar) and respects your privacy — only session titles and times are synced.