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Class Join Settings and Approving Students to Join
Class Join Settings and Approving Students to Join

Learn how students join your class and how you can approve them.

Allison Gottlieb avatar
Written by Allison Gottlieb
Updated over 2 weeks ago

Once you've Created a Class, you will want your students to join it.

How students join your class

  1. First, find your class code by clicking into the class and clicking the Wrench icon. Your class code is shown beside Class Settings.

  2. Next, you can privately give this code to your students, who can log in to their Showbie accounts to join the class. (Please do not post class codes in public places.)

  3. In the top right of their student account is a + button. Students can click this and type in your given code to join your class.

Joining a class in a student account.

For security purposes, classes are set to Join by Approval by default. As such, the student will get a message saying Waiting to Join Class, and won't be able to see the class content until you approve them.

Student account view: Waiting to join a class.

Class registration settings

Join by Approval

By default, when you create a class it will be set to Join by Approval. This means, that when students join your class, they will see a message saying "Waiting to Join Class" and won't see any class content until you approve them to join.

Closed

Closed means that no new students can join the class.

🔒 Security tip: After all your students have successfully joined the class, we recommend changing the class join settings to Closed.

To change your class join settings:

  1. Go to the desired class and click the Wrench icon, select Class Settings.

  2. Click on the Class Code.

  3. You can then select registration By Approval or Closed, and hit Save.

How to approve students to join your class

If your class is set to 'Join by Approval,' once a student enters the code to join your class, you will get a push or email notification letting you know they are waiting to be approved to join.

Example email notification of a student waiting to join a class.

You can click on the email notification to go into Showbie to approve them to join. Alternatively, you can go into your Showbie account, go to the class, click the Wrench, and select Class Members.

You'll then see the pending request and can tap the checkmark to approve them, or 'X' to block them from the class. This can be done individually or in bulk by selecting Approve All. If you block a student from a class, you can always Unblock them later.

If you do not recognize a student who is requesting to join your class, wait to approve them until you've verified they are meant to be part of your class.

Approve or block students requesting to join your class from the class members section.

FAQ

My students are getting a "Class Unavailable" error!

If students encounter a "Class Unavailable" error, it is likely due to a school-wide student permissions setting enabled by your school's Showbie Admin.

This setting may restrict students to only joining classes that include an approved teacher at their school.

How do I fix this?

Double-check your Showbie profile ("My Info") to see if your school is listed there. If not, your teacher account may not be attached to your school in Showbie.

Check for an invitation from your Showbie Admin in your email inbox or spam folder. If you can't find the invitation, you may have to ask your admin to resend it so you can join your school in Showbie.

💡 Tip: In cases of cross-school teaching (e.g., you are a shared music teacher and belong to a different Showbie school than your students), you can add a co-teacher from the relevant school to your class. This will allow students to join the class because it now includes an approved teacher from their school.

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