Why You Can Start With Rapunzl In Less Than 5 Minutes

Yes, a teacher can start with Rapunzl in less than 5 minutes. You sign in with the school Google or Microsoft account you already use, connect Google Classroom, import a class, assign a module, and your students sign in with one click.

That is possible because Rapunzl cuts three chores out of setup: making accounts, typing in rosters and handing out passwords. Single sign-on (SSO) means everyone uses the school account they already have, and the Google Classroom connection brings the class list with it.

If you teach personal finance, economics, business or math in grades 6 to 12, that matters because your time is the scarcest resource in the room. A financial literacy platform for teachers should get out of the way and let you get to the lesson.

The path from sign-in to first lesson

The path has six steps, from signing in to opening your Educator Dashboard. They are the path, not a stopwatch. Rapunzl does not time each step, and your own pace will depend on your class and your school's settings.

1. Sign in with Google or Microsoft. Choose Sign in with Google or Sign in with Microsoft on the Rapunzl sign-in screen and use your school account. There is no new username or password to create.
2. Connect Google Classroom. Authorize the connection to the Google Classroom account you already teach from. (Google Classroom is available now with a Google sign-in. Microsoft sign-in is sign-in only.)
3. Pick a class and import it. Choose the Google Classroom classes you want in Rapunzl. Your students are added for you, so you do not type a roster or hand out class codes for those classes.
4. Assign a module. Browse the standards-aligned curriculum, choose a module for your course and assign it to the class. The assignment reaches the Google Classroom class as well.
5. Students click in. Students sign in with their school accounts, and the module is waiting for them.
6. Then open the Educator Dashboard. Your class is already there, so you can see who has started and what comes next.

Once students have signed in, you have a live class, a first assignment and a place to watch it unfold in the Educator Dashboard. Nothing in that list asks you to build a class from scratch.

If your school uses Microsoft instead of Google, Microsoft sign-in is available now, and you can still create a class and assign modules in Rapunzl. Roster import and grade passback are Google Classroom features.

What the Educator Dashboard gives you

The Educator Dashboard is where you run the course once students are in: it shows progress and assessment results, exports grades and carries standards crosswalks.

The dashboard covers:

• Classes: create classes, including ones imported from Google Classroom.
• Assignments: assign courses and modules from the curriculum to a class.
• Progress: monitor student progress as work comes in, so you can see who needs a nudge.
• Assessment results: review how students did on module assessments, not just whether they finished.
• Grade export: export grades when you need them somewhere else.
• Standards crosswalks: see how the content you assigned lines up with the standards you report against.
• Pacing guides: minute-by-minute pacing guides to plan each lesson.

If you use Google Classroom, scores also go to the Google Classroom gradebook, so you may not need to export them.

The curriculum behind the dashboard is built for flexibility. It scales from a 3-week unit to a 28-week year-long course, in English and Spanish, across 48 modules in 4 courses. You can see the full range on the curriculum page, and a short unit is a perfectly good place to start.

How single sign-on keeps it easy all year

Single sign-on keeps Rapunzl easy all year because students and teachers use the school account they already have, and the class list follows Google Classroom.

Rapunzl works with Google and Microsoft sign-in, and with Google Classroom, so the account a student uses to open Rapunzl is the same school account they use everywhere else. For you, that shows up in four practical ways.

No new passwords to reset. Students and teachers use the school account they already have. Nothing new to remember means nothing new to forget, and no Rapunzl password reset lines forming at your desk.

Rosters that follow Google Classroom. After the first import, your Rapunzl class list follows the Google Classroom roster as students join or leave. A student who joins your Google Classroom class is added to the Rapunzl class list.

Grades in the gradebook you already use. Rapunzl assessment and assignment scores go to the Google Classroom gradebook, so you are not copying numbers between two systems.

Sign-in through school-managed accounts. Because sign-in goes through the school's own Google or Microsoft account, access stays tied to accounts the school or district manages. Fewer passwords also means fewer weak, reused or written-down ones.

This table shows where each sign-in option stands today.

Rapunzl is rolling out single sign-on and rostering through Clever and ClassLink, and will support both. If your school signs in through one of them, the SSO page is the place to check current status. For the full story of why Rapunzl built the Google Classroom connection, read the launch post on Google Classroom SSO and the announcement in the newsroom.

What a teacher does on day two

On day two you open the Educator Dashboard, check who has started and plan the next assignment.

Look at progress for the module you assigned. Check who has started and who has not, and send the second group a reminder through the channel you already use with your class. If your first module included an assessment, look at the results to see which ideas need another pass before you move on.

Then plan the next assignment. Because the class list is already synced and the curriculum is organized by course and module, adding the next piece takes the same assign step you used the first day. If your department needs standards evidence, the crosswalks are already in the dashboard.

That rhythm of assign, watch, adjust and assign again is the whole point. The setup is short so the teaching can be long.

See the first five minutes for yourself

The quickest way to judge the five-minute start is to see it with your own class in mind. Request a demo to see the Rapunzl curriculum and educator tools.

By Clarissa Collins, Curriculum Designer at Rapunzl.