FAQs
Any question which you have about Cura has been asked before.
We’ve answered them all here.
Getting started
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If you’ve been invited by Cura HQ, follow the prompts in the email from support@curaeducation.com (with the subject line Invitation to Join Cura.) Click ‘Sign in/Setup account’. You’ll be asked to create and then confirm a password, then you can log in using your school email address and your newly-created password.
You can also create your own account without being invited by someone else. Visit www.curaeducation.com/signup , select your region, then complete the signup form. Once you click Start Trial, you’ll receive an email with a confirmation code. Enter that and you’ll be good to go!
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Log in to Cura and go to the Explore page. Here, you’ll be able to view and search all of Cura’s units.
You can scroll through units on the main page, or you can search by topic, year level, and unit type.
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First, make sure you have moved from a preview to a trial or a paid subscription.
Then, go to the Explore page in the top navigation.
Click on the unit you’d like to use with your class. When the unit overview opens, click the orange Create a Classroom button.
Give the classroom a name and a subject, and click Save. You’ve now created a classroom!
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Go to My Classrooms in the top navigation.
Click on your desired classroom. You’ll see two blue buttons. One of them says Add/Remove Students.
Click this, then click the Add Students button. You’ll see that you can add students individually, or you can upload a CSV file with multiple students. There’s even a template CSV file you can download and populate.
Once you’ve added students, send them their invitation emails. They’ll receive an activation link to create their password and log in to their account.
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Sharing your classroom with other teachers is a great way to collaborate using Cura!
To do so, click the Add/Remove Teachers button. To add a teacher, click Add Teachers and choose from the dropdown list.
If you can’t see a teacher’s details there who you’d like to add to your classroom, email their name and email address to support@curaeducation.com.
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You can’t create a classroom unless you are a paid subscriber or have a one-term trial.
If you would like to convert your two-week preview to a trial, please email support@curaeducation.com.
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All Cura projects are built to encourage student collaboration.
Students should do their own work across the first part of the project. This is where they’ll consolidate their content understanding. However, they should work wih their teammates to discuss ideas and share their understanding of the content.
Once students reach the ‘end product’ part of the unit - where they apply curriculum content to solve a real-world problem - they should create their end product as a team. Assessment of the end product is therefore common across each team member.
Using Cura in class
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Cura isn’t an online textbook. Nor is it meant to replace one. Instead, it helps you make dry curriculum content meaningful and engaging for students. That’s because all Cura’s units teach content through hands-on, real-world problems.
Use one of Cura’s micro-units to break up curriculum content mid-topic. Use one at the start of the topic to get students hooked. Or use one towards the end of the topic and make the end product the summative assessment for the unit. The choice is yours!
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Each Cura unit is mapped to core curriculum. You can see this by clicking into a unit on the Explore page. You can see the task-by-task breakdown of which part of the curriculum is covered.
This is your starting point. It helps you identify which unit to run in any given topic. So, how you do then fit it into your scope and sequence?
Each Cura unit can be run from start to finish, without needing to resort to any additional resource. It can therefore function as your ‘textbook’ for the part of the topic it covers, as well as the resource for hands-on, real-world application
However, you could choose to supplement a Cura unit with another teaching resource (like a textbook). You could use a combination of both resources to build theoretical understanding, then use Cura to make the application of that theory more engaging.
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At the moment, you can’t edit Cura’s units. But it’s on our product roadmap. We hope to have editable units by the start of the 2024 school year.
If you’d really like this feature, let us know by emailing support@curaeducation.com.
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At the moment, you can’t edit Cura’s assessments. But it’s on our product roadmap. We hope to have editable units by the start of the 2024 school year.
If you’d really like this feature, let us know by emailing support@curaeducation.com.
You can have students skip questions or assessments. The failure to complete a question - or your decision not to assess one - won’t impact their scores for the unit.
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Students can save their work in the platform. To do this, you’ll need to add students to a classroom.
If students save their work on the platform, you can then track their progress, mark their work, and leave them feedback. All in the one place.
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Yes. If you’d like a student to resubmit work, tick the box labelled ‘Revise and Resubmit’ when assessing. This gives students a chance to take your feedback on board and have another go.
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No. You can use Cura solely as a teaching resource if you’d like. But Cura is built for both teachers and students. If you set up your students with accounts and add them to a classroom, they’ll be able to work at their own pace. They can save their work in the one place. And you can easily track their progress, mark their work, and leave feedback.
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Not yet, though it’s a great idea. We will look at adding that to our roadmap.
Account support
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Visit this page to see how to change or re-set your password.
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Visit this page to see how to change or re-set your password.
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If your trial has finished - and you’d like to keep using Cura - email us at support@curaeducation.com.
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Any of your colleagues can sign up for a 14-day preview, which they can convert to a one-term trial if they wish. Just send them this link. If they complete the sign-up form, they’ll get instant access.
If you’d like to add colleagues to your existing subscription, email us at support@curaeducation.com.
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Your Cura trial or paid subscription allows you to use any of Cura’s 120+ units. Don’t hold back - use as many units as you’d like!
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We’ll sort them out. Just email us at support@curaeducation.com.
Cura content
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We generally don’t create bespoke or on-request units. However, we sometimes make exceptions. And we’d still love to hear your idea for a Cura unit.
Please email support@curaeducation.com to chat about it.
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Not yet! We’re first building our offering for other curriculum subjects (like Humanities, Science, and English) before we start building units for new subjects.
However, it’s in our roadmap. Watch this space!
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Cura isn’t an online textbook. Nor is it meant to replace one. Instead, it helps you make dry curriculum content meaningful and engaging for students. That’s because all Cura’s units teach content through hands-on, real-world problems.
Ultimately, Cura and online textbooks are complementary. They do different things.
If you want something to build surface-level content understanding, drill students in theory and give teachers really in-depth analytics on where student understanding is strong versus weak, your online textbook is the tool to use.
But if you want something more engaging, hands-on, and with a greater focus on application and transfer of knowledge, Cura is a better bet.
Technical support
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We regularly check for broken/dead links. But if we’ve missed one, please let us know!
Just email support@curaeducation.com and tell us the unit and task you’ve found the link in. We’ll fix it immediately.
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No. Cura doesn’t support native integrations with other LMSs. However, you can export student work and assessment data from the Cura platform, then easily import it into your LMS.
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We’re here to help! Please email support@curaeducation.com if you get stuck.
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Cura may not be an approved domain name for your school.
If this is the case, you need to ask your school IT admin to whitelist the domain .curaeducation.com. That will allow Cura’s emails to come through the school’s firewall.
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You will only be able to sign into your Cura account using the email address you registered with. If you'd like to change your existing email used for Cura, please contact support@curaeducation.com.