Previewing a session as a student

Preview as student shows you your session through a student’s eyes. You see the screens they see, but you don’t join as a student, so nothing about the preview turns up in your results.

When to use it: Before a lesson, to check your questions read well on a student’s screen, or before you send a link, to check what students will see when they join.

Preview the session

1. Open the session in the teacher view.
2. Open the three dots menu at the top of the session.
3. Choose Preview as student.

The student view opens in a new tab, so your teacher view stays open in the first one. A Preview banner runs across the top to remind you where you are. Choose Exit preview to go back to the teacher view.

Preview how students join

1. In the teacher view, choose Share.
2. Under the link and code, choose Preview as student.

A new tab shows the card students join with, the same one they see on the Signal homepage or when they follow your link or QR code. It shows what your session asks of them: their name if guests can join, or their signed-in account if they have to sign in.

Continue from the card and you walk straight on into the student preview. Nothing joins. Choose Exit preview to go back.

Tip: This preview is only there when students can join with a link or code. For an Assessment, Share appears once you’ve published it.

What the preview shows

• Live quiz: the questions you’ve opened, as students see them. Live questions are view only in the preview, so you can’t answer them.
• Assessment: you can click right through, answering the questions, submitting, and seeing the feedback and reflection steps. Nothing is saved, and nothing counts in your results. Where personalised feedback would appear, the preview shows a note instead.
• Engage: the timeline as students see it. So the screen isn’t empty, the preview adds an example reaction, comment and question. These are only in your preview; no student sees them.

Anything you post in the preview is real. If you add a comment or question there, it goes into the session as you, the teacher, and students see it.

Good to know

• Only the teacher who created the session sees the preview.
• It doesn’t add you to the class list. You aren’t counted as a student, and your preview answers never appear in results.
• Preview a single check-in while you write it. When you add a check-in to an Engage session, a Preview label shows what students will see and answer.