Enumerated Sequences

Sometimes you have a sequence of lessons which don't fit any regular pattern.

Our Jacob's Algebra textbook is divided into chapters, each of which are divided into a different number of lessons.  Chapter 1 has 9 lessons, chapter 2 has 6 lessons, chapter 3 has 7 lessons, chapter 4 has 5 lessons, chapter 5 has 8 lessons, and so on.

Of course, you could use nested sequences to express two different incrementing ranges.  But in this case, its not quite right.  The second (inner) sequence has a different range, depending on the first (outer) value, and you'd have to do a great deal of editing and bumping after creation.

You could also create the lessons one chapter at a time.  That would work, but is not the user experience I am looking for.

Enumerated Sequences

Enumerated sequences express explicitly the start and end values to use in multiple ranges.  They are designed for the case above, where there are different values in each range.

You can express an enumeration by following your range with a comma ',' followed by another range, (which can be followed by another comma, and another range...)


The result is the series that we want, all in one swift click:

Chapter 1 Lesson 1
Chapter 1 Lesson 2
Chapter 1 Lesson 3
Chapter 1 Lesson 4
Chapter 1 Lesson 5
Chapter 1 Lesson 6
Chapter 1 Lesson 7
Chapter 1 Lesson 8
Chapter 1 Lesson 9
Chapter 2 Lesson 1
Chapter 2 Lesson 2
Chapter 2 Lesson 3
Chapter 2 Lesson 4
Chapter 2 Lesson 5
Chapter 2 Lesson 6
Chapter 3 Lesson 1
Chapter 3 Lesson 2
Chapter 3 Lesson 3
Chapter 3 Lesson 4
Chapter 3 Lesson 5
Chapter 3 Lesson 6
Chapter 3 Lesson 7

Chapter 4 Lesson 1
Chapter 4 Lesson 2
Chapter 4 Lesson 3
Chapter 4 Lesson 4
Chapter 4 Lesson 5

Chapter 5 Lesson 1
Chapter 5 Lesson 2
Chapter 5 Lesson 3
Chapter 5 Lesson 4
Chapter 5 Lesson 5
Chapter 5 Lesson 6
Chapter 5 Lesson 7
Chapter 5 Lesson 8

Note that if I did not provide enough lesson enumerations for all my chapters, Scholaric would repeat the last one to fill out the remaining chapters.

Happy Planning

Splitting and Grouping Lesson Sequences

I have just released Scholaric with a new lesson planning feature that I call splitting and grouping.

Previously, all lesson sequences incremented by a single value, for each day it was scheduled.

Now with split and grouped sequences, we can alter this behavior where desired.

Splitting a Sequence

Lessons in a sequence can be split or divided, across multiple days, so that the same lesson appears for multiple scheduled days.  You might use this if you want, for example, a chapter of your book for a whole week.

A split sequence is the equivalent of creating a sequence with one value for a number of days, then the next value for the next few days, and then the next value for the next few days...

Split sequences are indicated by following the range with a slash '/' and the number of days to split the lesson across.

 

The above split sequence generates lessons with the following pattern:

Read and Outline Genesis Chapter 1
Read and Outline Genesis Chapter 1
Read and Outline Genesis Chapter 2
Read and Outline Genesis Chapter 2
Read and Outline Genesis Chapter 3
Read and Outline Genesis Chapter 3
Read and Outline Genesis Chapter 4
Read and Outline Genesis Chapter 4
...

and would result in 2 chapters a week, since the student has it assigned 4 days per week.

Grouping a Sequence

While splitting uses the same values in a range multiple times, grouping does the opposite - specifying multiple values from the range show up in a single day.  A group is useful to, for example, assign a certain number of pages from a range each day.

A grouped sequence is the equivalent of entering a literal range each day, with each new range starting after the previous range ended.

Grouped sequences are indicated by following the range with an asterisk '*' and the number of values from the range to include in each group.


The above grouped sequence generates lessons with the following pattern:

War and Peace Pages 7-16
War and Peace Pages 17-26
War and Peace Pages 27-36
War and Peace Pages 37-46
War and Peace Pages 47-56
...

and would result in 30 pages per week, since the student has it assigned 3 days per week.

Note that the range 7-100 does not divide evenly into sets of 10.  Scholaric detects this, and makes the final range smaller.  In this case it is 97-100.

Happy Planning

Advanced Lesson Sequences

Scholaric now supports additional lesson sequences.

In addition to numeric ranges like this:

Lesson {1-10}

You can now use alphabetic ranges as well:

Section {A-G}

lower case works too:

Parts {a-d}

Some of our series have two sequences nested inside each other, like a letter (a-c) within a number (1-5)

Lesson 1 Part a
Lesson 1 Part b
Lesson 1 Part c
Lesson 2 Part a
Lesson 2 Part b
Lesson 2 Part c
Lesson 3 Part a
Lesson 3 Part b
Lesson 3 Part c
Lesson 3 Part a
...

To do this use

Lesson {1-10} Part {a-c}

These nested sequences introduce a new problem. For the above example, if you needed to continue (say you had limit of 10 lessons set), you will need to start the numeric (outer) range at 3, and the inner (alphabetic) range at b. But, the range of {b-c} applies only to the first sub-range for the rest, it needs to revert back to the full {a-c}, or you will skip Lesson 4 Part a.

We need a new syntax to cover this case. This is called seeding, which starts your inner series at a point other than the first value in the range.

Seeding is set by following your range with a colon and the seed value.

Lesson {3-10} Part {a-c:b}

This inner seeded sequence is b-c for Lesson 3, a-c for the rest.

Happy Planning

Delete a Lesson Series

Scholaric Users can delete a series of lessons.

When you delete a lesson that is part of a series, you will see a new checkbox in the delete dialog:

If you select delete series, then all lessons created as part of that series, from that date forward will be deleted as once.  This also gives you the ability to redo a series, and change the schedule or text, or whatever you want.

This applies to all repeating lessons created in the last week, since I've started tracking them this way.

My apologies for not going back further on this, but Scholaric is approaching a quarter million lessons, and I would have to take it down for hours to retrofit them.

Happy Planning