---
title: "Designing lesson activities"
slug: "designing-lesson-activities"
tags: ["Totara Learn", "Content Creator", "Explainer"]
updated: 2026-08-13T16:01:17Z
published: 2026-08-13T16:01:17Z
canonical: "totara.help/designing-lesson-activities"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://totara.help/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Designing lesson activities

## Content pages and branches

Content pages contain a set of links to other pages in the lesson. Each link in a content page has two components; a jump and a description that the learner sees as a button. A content page can effectively divide the lesson into a number of sections known as branches.

Within a lesson each branch can contain a number of pages and the end of a branch is usually marked by an **End of branch** page. Branches can be nested within each other, for example, a lesson might be structured so that specialist points are sub-branches within the main subject branch. Working on sub-branches can get complicated without a plan.

Content pages can also be used to hold content in a lesson as a simple page with a **Continue** button at the bottom of the page.

Below you can see an example of how you could structure a simple narrative with branches. ![A diagram showing a narrative structure with decision points and branching pathways showing outcomes.](https://cdn.document360.io/a007399b-031e-436b-999a-528240e16f58/Images/Documentation/Branching-diagram.jpg?sv=2026-02-06&spr=https&st=2026-11-06T06%3A09%3A34Z&se=2026-11-06T07%3A09%3A34Z&sr=c&sp=r&sig=7jM7eHwJeKeMzrx4tL60GTlMVtYNogMCvv0xWCUbPsM%3D)

## Planning a lesson

It is a good idea to plan your branched lesson out on paper before you try creating it in Totara. There are three basic pages that you can create:

- **Question pages**: There are six question types to choose from: multiple choice, true/false, short answer, numerical, matching, and essay. You can create different jumps based on the learners’ answers
- **Content pages**: A page with a set of links to other pages in the lesson
- **Simple page**:  A Content page without the set of links. By default a **Continue** button will appear, with a jump to the next page

The lesson activity allows learners’ answers to be scored and feedback to be given. Question types include:

- Multiple choice
- Multi-answer
- True/False
- Numeric
- Short answer
- Essay

## Next steps

- [Create a lesson activity](/totara-20/docs/create-a-lesson-activity)
- [Add content pages to a lesson activity](/totara-20/docs/add-content-pages-to-a-lesson-activity)
- [Add a question cluster to a lesson activity](/totara-20/docs/add-a-question-cluster-to-a-lesson-activity)
- [Import questions into a lesson activity](/totara-20/docs/import-questions-into-a-lesson-activity)

![Course badge](https://cdn.document360.io/a007399b-031e-436b-999a-528240e16f58/Images/Documentation/course-badge_Lesson.svg?sv=2026-02-06&spr=https&st=2026-11-06T06%3A09%3A34Z&se=2026-11-06T07%3A09%3A34Z&sr=c&sp=r&sig=7jM7eHwJeKeMzrx4tL60GTlMVtYNogMCvv0xWCUbPsM%3D)The Totara Academy has a whole course dedicated to using the [Lesson activity](https://totara.community/course/view.php?id=433) in Totara. Here you can learn more about using the lesson activity, find out about best practice, and give it a go yourself.

Join the [Totara Community](https://totara.community/) for more resources to help you get the most out of Totara.

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