> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://fayneos.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Practice Blocks: Let Students Rehearse the Skill
> Explain it back, Rapid-fire drill, Decision scenario, and Field mission: lesson blocks where students practice the skill, and you see how it went without reading their answers.
Most lesson blocks help students take in an idea. Practice blocks ask them to **use it**: explain it in their own words, answer the hard lines they will hear from clients, make the calls in a realistic case, or go and do the thing for real. Feedback is instant, there are no scores or grades, and nothing a student writes or says is shown to you.
You find all four in the **Practice** group of the block menu. Type `/` in a lesson and search for **explain**, **drill**, **scenario**, or **mission**. In the menu they are called **Explain It Back**, **Rapid-Fire Drill**, **Decision Scenario**, and **Field Mission**.
Practice blocks work in lessons only. They need a signed-in student, so they are not available on your academy's Home page or on offer landing pages.
## The four blocks
The student explains an idea in their own words, typed or spoken, and sees which of your key points they covered.
Your hardest lines, such as client objections, come one at a time. The student answers fast and sees whether the answer would land.
A short branching case. The student makes the calls, sees what each choice leads to, and reaches an ending.
A real-world task done outside the course. The student commits to a date, gets one reminder email on the day, and comes back to check in.
Each block opens with a small label that tells students what to do: **Explain it in your words**, **Respond to each line**, **Make the calls**, or **Do this for real**.
### Explain it back
Use it right after the passage that teaches an idea worth being able to say out loud, for example "explain to a client why your method has a name".
* **You write** the prompt, an optional audience ("a client who thinks naming things is marketing fluff"), and two to six **key points** a good explanation covers. Each key point can carry a short hint.
* **The student** types an explanation, or records one of up to two minutes that is transcribed and can be edited before checking. They then see their answer, one line of feedback (it lands, or the one idea that would make it land), and your key points with the covered ones ticked. They can rewrite it any time.
* **Settings:** under **Answer by**, choose **Type or speak**, **Type only**, or **Speak only**.
### Rapid-fire drill
Use it for pushback your students will actually face: objections on a sales call, tough questions from a board, a client who disagrees.
* **You write** a title, a short setup, who is speaking ("Prospect"), and three to eight **lines**. For each line you add one to three points a strong answer makes, and a model answer.
* **The student** gets the lines one at a time and answers by typing or speaking. After each answer they see **Strong**, **Getting there**, or **Missed it**, with each point ticked or missed and your model answer behind **Show a strong answer**. The round ends with a summary of every line and their strongest answer. If any answer missed, they can **Run the misses again** or **Start over**; if every answer was strong, only **Start over** shows.
* **Settings:** a per-line **Timer** (a nudge, not a cutoff: when it runs out they can still finish and send), **Answer by**, and the **Speaker** label.
### Decision scenario
Use it when the lesson teaches judgment under trade-offs, where the right call depends on the situation.
* **You write** a title and a setup on the card, then click **Edit scenario** to build the story in a side sheet: up to ten steps made of **decisions** and **endings**.
* A decision has **The situation** and two to four choices. Each choice has **What they do**, **What happens**, **How good** it is (**Strong**, **Okay**, or **Weak**), and where it **Leads to**.
* An ending has a **Verdict** (**Great**, **Mixed**, or **Poor**), **How it ends**, and a **Takeaway**.
* **Draft with AI:** describe the situation in a line, and a first draft is built from your lesson for you to read through and edit. It replaces the scenario on the card, so Fayne asks first if there is one.
* **The student** reads the situation, makes each call, sees what it leads to, and reaches an ending that reflects the path they took, with a recap of their choices. They can try another path.
* Everything a student sees in a scenario is your own writing, so no AI runs while they play.
### Field mission
Use it for the thing a lesson only pays off if students actually do: run the audit on their own files, have the conversation, ship the page.
**You write**, on the card, the mission's title and a sentence or two of instructions ("What doing it looks like"), and one to three check-in questions under **After they do it, we'll ask**. In the settings panel you set:
* **Default date:** the date suggested when a student commits, from **Tomorrow** up to **In a month**. The default is **In a week**. Students can always pick another date.
* **Email a reminder on the due date:** on by default. See [The reminder email](#the-reminder-email) below.
* **Your reply after the check-in:** one reply for each outcome (**They did it**, **They partly did it**, **It didn't happen yet**). If you leave one empty, students see a short, friendly default.
**The student:**
1. Answers **When will you do it?** with a quick pick or **Pick a date** (up to a year ahead).
2. Optionally writes a plan under **I will do it when…**, then clicks **I'm in**.
3. Sees the committed card with **Add to calendar** (a calendar file), **Check in now**, and **Change date**.
4. Checks in under **How did it go?**: **Done**, **Partly**, or **Didn't happen yet**, plus your questions. After **Didn't happen yet** they are asked **What got in the way?** instead (optional).
5. After submitting, sees your reply for that outcome and a two-sentence **Coach note** written from what they told you.
The coach note uses **1 AI credit** from your pool. It is skipped, and your reply shows on its own, when the student wrote nothing, when your academy is paused, when your credit pool is empty, or when that student has already had 20 coach notes that day.
#### The reminder email
When the reminder is on, the student gets **one** email, "How did it go? *mission title*", at 9:00 in their own time zone on the day they picked. It links back to the mission. It is not sent if they:
* already checked in, or moved the date (the new date gets its own reminder);
* committed on the due day itself;
* no longer have access to the course, or the block was removed from the published lesson.
It is also not sent if you turned the reminder off, even after they committed, or if the date is more than about a year away. The email comes from your academy like its other emails.
The per-block switch is your only control; your course's drip reminder settings don't apply to it. Students can turn these emails off under **Reminders and nudges** in their email settings, which also turns off drip reminder emails. See [Invitations and emails](/docs/students/invitations-emails).
## Setting up a practice block
In a lesson, type `/` and choose **Explain It Back**, **Rapid-Fire Drill**, **Decision Scenario**, or **Field Mission** from the **Practice** group.
Fill in the prompt, key points, drill lines, or mission directly on the block. The card in the editor looks the way students will see it. For a decision scenario, write the title and setup on the card, then click **Edit scenario** to build its decisions and endings.
Select the block and its settings open in the **settings panel** on the right side of the editor. On smaller screens, use the block's settings button instead (a scenario opens in a side sheet). See [Block editor](/docs/content/block-editor#block-settings-panel).
Students see practice blocks once the lesson is published. The **Practice** tab in course insights also reads the published lesson, so republish after adding a block.
You can also ask the lesson assistant to add one. Its **Add a practice exercise** suggestion adds an explain-it-back after the key idea, or an objection drill if the lesson covers pushback. You can ask for any of the four, for example "add a drill with the five objections from this lesson"; it writes a field mission only when you ask for one.
Practice blocks count toward a lesson's reading time: their text, plus time to do them (about 2 minutes for Explain it back, the drill's own "about N min", 2 to 3 minutes for a scenario, and 1 minute for a field mission). A lesson saved before this change updates the next time you save it.
### Previewing practice blocks
In **Preview**, and when you view the academy as a member, practice blocks show what students will do but make no checks, send nothing, and use no credits. For example, Explain it back shows "Preview: members check their explanation here", and a field mission shows a preview note in place of **I'm in**. (The note uses your academy's audience word.)
## Practice in AI-generated courses
When you [generate a course with AI](/docs/content/ai-course-generation), it can add practice blocks on its own terms:
* **Explain it back** at most once per module, where students need to be able to explain an idea, and never in micro lessons or knowledge checks.
* **Rapid-fire drills** only when your material or your answers list three to eight real objections to practice.
* **Decision scenarios** and **Field missions** are never generated. Those are yours to write.
## The Learning Assistant and practice
The [Learning Assistant](/docs/learning-assistant/overview) sees a practice block only as the student sees it (the prompt, the setup, the lines), plus that student's own results in the current lesson. It coaches instead of answering: it will not write the explanation or the answers for them, or guess what the checker looks for. This holds even if you have told the assistant to just give answers.
## What you see as the owner
Open a course's insights (the chart icon in the course editor, or a course in **Insights**) and choose the **Practice** tab. It appears once the published course has practice blocks.
How many students covered every key point, how often each key point is covered, and how many tries it took.
For each line, the share of students whose latest answer is strong, and the point that gets missed most.
Where first runs end, the choices students make at each decision, and how many reach a great ending.
The share who checked in, how many **Committed**, **Checked in**, and are **Past their date**, and a **How it went** bar from the latest check-ins.
When something stands out, such as a key point few students cover, a weak choice most of them make, or students past their mission date, the tab says so in a sentence at the top. That is usually the part of the lesson to strengthen.
## Privacy: signals, not answers
You see signals, never your students' words. Explanations, drill answers, the path a student takes through a scenario, and what they write in a mission plan or check-in stay private to that student. Your Practice tab shows totals across students, such as how many covered a key point or checked in, never one student's answers or path. On Explain it back and Rapid-fire drill, students see a note saying **Only you see what you write here**.
Recordings aren't kept. A spoken answer is sent for transcription and only the text, which the student can edit, is saved.
The results count only students enrolled in the course. You and your admins are left out, so your own test runs stay out of the numbers.
## AI credits
* Checking an explanation or a drill answer **uses no AI credits**. Neither does transcribing a spoken answer. Practice keeps working for students even when your credit pool is empty.
* A decision scenario runs **no AI** while students play.
* **Draft with AI** in a decision scenario uses **1 credit** per draft (2 if the first draft needs a second pass to be valid).
* A field mission's **Coach note** uses **1 credit** per check-in.
See [Plans](/docs/billing/plans) for how AI credits work on your plan.