How to Create A Course in Schoology – Teacher’s Guide

Creating a Schoology course is surprisingly straightforward, whether you’re running a summer program, teaching at a school without Schoology integration, or just want to experiment with your own digital classroom. Let’s walk through this together.

• Why You Might Need to Create Your Own Course?
• What Happens Next: Your Fresh Course Landing Page
• What Comes After Creation?
• OnlineExamMaker: Your AI-Powered Assessment Assistant
• Tips for Schoology Success

Why You Might Need to Create Your Own Course?

Here’s the thing about Schoology—it’s fantastic when everything’s set up for you. Your fall courses appear like clockwork, your spring schedule loads automatically, and life is good. But what about those edge cases?

• Summer programs that fall outside the regular academic calendar
• Independent study courses you’re running on the side
• Schools without Schoology integration where teachers want to use the platform anyway
• Pilot programs or experimental classes that aren’t in the official system yet

For these situations, you’ll need to create your course manually. The good news? It takes about two minutes. The better news? You’re about to learn exactly how.

Step 1: Set Up Your Schoology Account

Before you can create courses, you need access to Schoology. If your school district uses Schoology, you probably already have login credentials. If not, head to Schoology’s website and create a free teacher account. It’s remarkably simple—just your email, a password, and you’re in.

Once you log in for the first time, don’t be surprised if your dashboard looks a bit bare. Unlike established teachers with years of courses stacked up, your screen might be refreshingly empty. That’s perfectly normal. Think of it as a blank canvas waiting for your masterpiece.

Step 2: Navigate to Course Creation

Here’s where the magic happens. Look for the “My Courses” section on your dashboard. It’s usually pretty prominent—Schoology knows this is why you’re here.

Click on “Create Course.” That’s it. No hidden menus, no confusing subfolders. Just a straightforward button that does exactly what it says.

Step 3: Fill in the Course Details

Now comes the fun part—naming your creation. The course creation form is blessedly simple. Let’s break down each field:

Course Title

Choose something clear and descriptive. In the example, the teacher creates “Schoology 101”—short, memorable, and immediately tells students what they’re getting into. Whether you’re running “Summer Chemistry 2024” or “Advanced Robotics Independent Study,” keep it straightforward. Your students will thank you when they’re searching for the course at 11 PM the night before an assignment is due.

Subject Area

Select the appropriate subject from the dropdown menu. Options include Science, Math, English, Technology, and more. This helps with organization and makes your course searchable within the Schoology system. For our example, “Technology” fits perfectly.

Grade Level

Pick the grade level that matches your students. If you’re teaching mixed ages or adult learners, you can often select “None” or “Other.” Don’t overthink this—it’s mainly for administrative sorting.

Grading Period

Here’s where things get slightly trickier if your school uses Schoology district-wide. You might need to select an actual grading period for the course to show up properly in your listings. If you’re operating independently, this might not matter much. Choose whatever makes sense for your timeline.

Step 4: Hit Create and Celebrate

Once you’ve filled in the basics, click that beautiful “Create” button. Boom. You’ve just created a Schoology course.

What Happens Next: Your Fresh Course Landing Page

After creation, Schoology drops you straight into your new course’s homepage. It’s clean, minimal, and—let’s be honest—a little intimidating in its emptiness. But don’t worry. Every course starts this way, whether it was auto-generated by your district or created manually by you.

You’ll see several tabs across the top: Updates, Materials, Calendar, Grades, and more. This is your command center, and over the next few weeks (or days, if you’re ambitious), you’ll fill this with content, assignments, discussions, and all the digital goodness that makes online learning work.

What Comes After Creation?

Creating the course is just step one. The real work—and the real fun—comes in building it out. Here’s what typically comes next:

Next Step	What It Involves	Why It Matters
Add a Course Image	Upload a banner or logo	Visual appeal helps students identify your course quickly
Write an Update	Post announcements or welcome messages	Sets the tone and keeps students informed
Upload Materials	Add syllabus, readings, resources	Gives students immediate access to course content
Set Up Calendar	Input important dates and deadlines	Helps everyone stay organized and on track
Configure Gradebook	Set up grading categories and weights	Essential for tracking student progress

Each of these steps deserves its own attention, and fortunately, many come with their own tutorials. The video creator mentions having additional videos covering each feature—smart thinking, since trying to cram everything into one video would be overwhelming.

OnlineExamMaker: Your AI-Powered Assessment Assistant

While Schoology provides the framework for your course, sometimes you need specialized tools to make your teaching truly effective. This is especially true when it comes to assessments and examinations.

Let’s talk about one of the biggest time-drains in teaching: creating exams and quizzes. You know the drill—spending hours crafting questions, worrying about difficulty balance, formatting everything properly. What if there was a smarter way?

OnlineExamMaker is an AI-powered exam creation platform that integrates beautifully with your teaching workflow. Think of it as having a teaching assistant who specializes in assessment design, but without the need to share your tiny office or split your already-modest budget.

How OnlineExamMaker Helps Teachers

• AI-Generated Questions: Upload your course materials, and the platform generates relevant questions automatically. It’s like having a question bank that builds itself based on your actual content.
• Multiple Question Types: From multiple choice to essay questions, the platform handles diverse assessment needs. No more being limited by what you have time to create manually.
• Time-Saving Automation: What used to take hours now takes minutes. Create comprehensive exams by simply inputting your learning objectives.
• Anti-Cheating Features: For online and hybrid teaching, built-in proctoring and question randomization help maintain academic integrity without turning you into a suspicious detective.
• Instant Grading: Objective questions are graded automatically, giving you back precious time for actual teaching instead of red-pen marking.
• Analytics and Insights: Understand which topics students struggle with through detailed performance reports. It’s like x-ray vision for learning gaps.

Integration Tip: You can create exams in OnlineExamMaker and link them directly in your Schoology course materials. Students click through seamlessly, and you get all the benefits of both platforms. Best of both worlds.

For teachers running summer courses, independent studies, or just trying to manage heavy workloads, tools like OnlineExamMaker aren’t luxuries—they’re necessities. The time you save on exam creation can go toward actual student interaction, curriculum development, or—radical thought—maintaining some work-life balance.

Tips for Schoology Success

Before we wrap up, here are some hard-won insights from teachers who’ve been in the trenches:

1. Start simple. Don’t try to build Rome in a day. Create your course, add essential materials, and gradually expand. Perfectionism is the enemy of progress.
2. Use consistent naming conventions. Future-you will be grateful when you’re searching for “Week 3 Quiz” instead of trying to remember if you called it “Quiz 3” or “Assessment Three Week Three.”
3. Schedule your updates. Schoology lets you post announcements in advance. Use this feature. Your Sunday-evening-you will thank your organized-Friday-afternoon-you.
4. Leverage the calendar heavily. Students live and die by due dates. Make them impossible to miss by using the calendar religiously.
5. Don’t reinvent the wheel. If your district provides course templates or if colleagues share resources, use them. Teaching is collaborative, not competitive.

Looking Ahead: Hybrid and Online Teaching in 2025

Creating your own course gives you control and flexibility. Summer enrichment programs, independent studies, supplementary courses—they all become possible when you know how to build your own digital classroom.

And here’s the beautiful thing: once you’ve created one course, creating others becomes exponentially easier. You understand the workflow, you’ve figured out the quirks, and you’ve developed your own system. That first course is the hardest. Every one after gets smoother.

Final Thoughts

Creating a Schoology course isn’t rocket science—it’s more like assembling IKEA furniture. The instructions are straightforward, the process is logical, and once you’ve done it once, you wonder why you were ever intimidated in the first place.

Whether you’re teaching chemistry over the summer, running an independent robotics program, or just exploring what Schoology can do, you now have the roadmap. Click “My Courses,” hit “Create Course,” fill in the basics, and you’re off to the races.

The hard part isn’t creating the course. The hard part—and the rewarding part—is filling it with great content, engaging students, and making learning happen. But that’s what teaching has always been about, whether the classroom is physical or digital.