Getting help and looking after yourself

Getting stuck is part of learning. Lurno gives you a tutor inside the lesson so you can ask for help without leaving the question, and a notification inbox for everything it needs to tell you.

Lurno also has a wellbeing space — check-ins, a Calm Corner, and a way to ask someone to get in touch. It is not part of the learning space today, so most learners will never meet it; this page explains it anyway, because if you also hold a staff-shaped role it is where those things live and what happens to your answers there is worth knowing.

AI tutor — appears on practice questions inside a lesson. Whether it can actually answer depends on two things: your organization having AI switched on, and your enrollment — the tutor authorizes you by the program you’re enrolled in, not by a staff permission. You can turn it off for yourself at any time.

Wellbeing check-ins — the module is switched on per organization by Lurno, and check-ins go to people who hold the permission to complete check-ins. Out of the box that permission sits on staff-shaped roles — administrators, instructors, facilitators, managers, mentors and reviewers — so if you are only a learner, you will not see check-ins unless your organization grants that permission to a role you hold. Your organization can also narrow the audience further, to one group rather than everyone.

Don’t see this in your account? See Plans, permissions & modules.

What this does

Four separate things, each with its own boundary: the AI tutor helps you understand one question at a time inside the lesson player, without giving away work you haven’t done; the assistant answers questions about your courses, work and results from anywhere in your learning space; your notification inbox collects everything Lurno needed to tell you, newest first; and wellbeing check-ins — where they apply to you — ask how you’re doing, store your answers under a pseudonym, and only ever show leaders group totals.

Ask the in-course tutor

The tutor appears under the current question in the full-screen lesson player. It shows on practice questions only, not on reading, video or media blocks.

Work on the question until you’re stuck.
Choose I don’t understand to have the question restated in plainer words. The wording changes; the question doesn’t.
Choose I need a hint for one small next step. Ask again for a deeper hint.
Choose Show me the answer once you’ve put down an attempt. After that, the same button becomes Explain the answer.

The reply appears in a short panel under the question — one to three sentences, in the language the course is written in, not the language your interface happens to be set to. So an Arabic course gives you Arabic hints even if you’re using Lurno in English. When you come back to a lesson in review, the tutor replays the last message it gave you on each question, read-only.

What it will and won’t do

This part is deliberate, and it is enforced on Lurno’s servers rather than in your browser:

Restating and hinting never see the answer. When you ask for a reformulation or a hint, the correct answer is not sent to the AI at all. It literally cannot repeat it back to you.
Later hints go deeper, not more specific. A second hint adds reasoning scaffolding — a way to think about it — rather than narrowing toward the answer.
Reveal and explain need an attempt first. Ask before you’ve answered anything and you get: “Give it a try first — put down your best answer, then I can explain it or walk you through the solution.”
Some questions can’t be revealed at all. If your instructor set the question so results aren’t released yet, the tutor refuses the reveal and says so, then offers to reason it through with you instead.
It won’t do the work for you. The tutor is instructed to stay short, stay warm, and never just hand over the answer.

If something goes wrong — the AI service is unavailable, or the reply tripped the answer-protection check — you get a safe generic nudge instead of a wrong or leaky one. Everything it produces is AI-generated and can be imperfect; the panel says so, every time. See AI tools for how AI is set up across your organization.

When it offers help before you ask

Sometimes the hint offer appears without you pressing anything. It says something like “Want a hint?” — an offer about the question, never a judgement about you.

It appears when one of three things is true on the question you’re on:

You’ve submitted a wrong answer three times.
You’ve changed your answer five times without submitting.
You’ve been idle about a minute and a half and have already tried something.

Idle time on its own never triggers it. Someone reading a hard question carefully looks identical to someone stuck, and the difference is whether they’re doing anything — so evidence of effort is required, not just elapsed time.

Four rules bound it, and each is there because of a way this goes wrong:

Never during a graded attempt. An unasked-for offer mid-assessment is worse than a requested one: you didn’t ask, and now you have to work out whether accepting is allowed.
Never the answer. The offer is a hint, and the same try-first rules apply once you accept it.
Never a label. You will not be told you look like you’re struggling, or shown a risk score. Those exist on the staff side and are not shown to you.
Once per question. Decline it and it doesn’t ask again on that question.

It’s computed from behavioural data, so it’s governed by your learning analytics consent as well: decline that and no offer is ever made, because it would be built from exactly the data you refused.

What gets sent, and how to turn it off

When you use the tutor, the current question and your current answer are sent to a third-party AI service so it can generate the reply. No other personal data goes with it. Your organization keeps a record of tutor turns, and asking to reveal an answer is written to its audit trail — so your organization can tell “worked it out” from “revealed it”. Revealing is a normal, allowed choice.

To switch the tutor off for yourself:

Open Account from your avatar menu.
Go to Consents.
Find AI assistance — it’s an optional policy — and choose Decline, or Withdraw consent if you accepted it earlier.

From then on the tutor buttons return “AI help is off. Turn on AI assistance in your privacy settings to use the tutor.” and nothing is sent to any AI service. You can turn it back on from the same place.

Ask the assistant about your own learning

Separately from the in-lesson tutor, your learning space carries an assistant you can open from any page. It’s the same assistant staff use, but scoped to you: it reaches your own enrolments and nothing else, and it cannot change anything.

Its suggested questions are the ones a learner actually has:

How am I doing in my courses?
What is due next?
Explain something I got wrong.
Help me find a course to take.

Where it gives you a number, it shows what it counted — courses in progress, completed, overdue, due, open attempts. If it can’t answer from what it can see, it says so instead of guessing.

Every reply carries the same disclosure the tutor does: it’s AI-generated and can be imperfect. It’s governed by the same AI assistance consent, so declining that turns it off along with the tutor.

Some organizations also allow speaking to it instead of typing. That’s off by default everywhere and needs a second, separate consent to voice processing, because speaking sends your recorded voice to a third-party service where typing does not. You can use the assistant by typing with voice turned off, and turn voice off again at any time. See Voice conversations.

Wellbeing check-ins

Check-ins are not part of the learning space today — there is no wellbeing entry in the learner navigation, and no check-in reaches you on a learner-only account. They live in the staff-side workspace, so you only meet them if you also hold a role there and your organization has put you in the check-in audience. If you do, a calm banner appears across the top of that workspace with a Check in button, and the questions open in a popup; most take about fifteen seconds.

Taking part is a decision you make. Before anything is collected, the popup asks “Take part in wellbeing check-ins?” and you choose I’m in. If you never answer that, nothing is collected. Once you have answered, the decision appears in Account → Consents alongside your other policies, and you can withdraw it there.

Dismissing is not opting out. The ✕ on the banner means “not this period”. It’s stored on your own device, sends nothing to the server, and comes back on its own next period. Closing the popup without answering is lighter still — the banner simply stays.

What is and isn’t shared

Your answers are stored under a pseudonym, not your name.
Individual answers are never shown to anyone — not your manager, not a wellbeing lead. Leaders only ever see group totals at or above your organization’s threshold; below that, results are hidden from them too.
The optional note box at the end is yours: “Nobody sees this except you.”
My check-ins shows your own history, with the page saying plainly: “Only you can see this page.”

Questions about how you’re coping stay switched off entirely until your organization has published at least one support contact — Lurno won’t ask that without somewhere to point you. See Check-ins.

Support resources

Alongside check-ins, and in the same staff-side workspace, the wellbeing space carries two things worth knowing about before you need them:

Calm Corner — short, practical reads: a two-minute breathing reset, unclenching, picking one thing when everything feels urgent, winding down, how to start a difficult conversation. Opening anything there records nothing.
Ask a lead to get in touch — a request you write yourself, with a rough urgency (whenever you can, this week, as soon as possible). This is the one moment your name is attached to something, and only for your organization’s wellbeing leads; you confirm you understand that before it sends. You then see its status — acknowledged, in progress, waiting on you, resolved.

Your organization’s support contacts are listed under If you need someone now. Lurno is not an emergency service; for an emergency, use the local services in your country.

Your notifications

The bell in the learner header, next to your avatar, carries a badge when something is waiting.

Click the bell to see the most recent notifications. Opening the panel clears the badge.
Click a row to mark it read and jump to whatever it’s about, or use the ✕ to dismiss it.
Choose View all for the full history — newest first, with Mark all read and Load more.

Notifications arrive live while you have Lurno open. Which ones reach you by email, and how often, is set in your own preferences — see Notification preferences and Your notification inbox.

Reference

Term	What it is
Reformulate	“I don’t understand” — the question restated in simpler words
Hint	One small next step; deeper on each ask, never more specific about the answer
Reveal / Explain	The answer, then why it’s right — both need an attempt first
AI assistance consent	The optional policy that turns the tutor and the assistant on or off for you
Voice processing consent	A separate optional policy, needed only to speak to the assistant
Learner assistant	Scoped to your own enrolments; read-only — it cannot change anything
Hint offer	An unprompted “Want a hint?” on a question you appear stuck on. Never during a graded attempt, never a label, once per question
Learning analytics consent	Governs whether your behaviour may be read at all — and therefore whether the hint offer can appear
Check-in	A short, periodic wellbeing question set, answered pseudonymously
Period snooze	Dismissing the check-in banner for this period only, stored on your device
Support request	A named message to a wellbeing lead, sent only when you choose to

Troubleshooting

I can’t see the tutor on this question. It only shows on practice questions in the lesson player, and only while you’re working — not on reading, video or media blocks, not on the completion screen, and not during an assessment.

The tutor says it isn’t available. The buttons are always there on a practice question, so a failure shows up as “The tutor isn’t available right now.” rather than a missing panel. Most often that means your organization hasn’t switched AI on, or you’re opening a program you aren’t enrolled in. Try again shortly, then ask your instructor or administrator.

The tutor says AI help is off. You withdrew the AI assistance consent. Open Account → Consents, find AI assistance, and accept it again.

It won’t show me the answer. Either you haven’t put down an attempt yet — do that first — or your instructor set the question so results aren’t released. In the second case the tutor says so and offers to reason through it with you instead.

There’s no assistant in my learning space. Your organization hasn’t been given it, or AI isn’t switched on there. Neither is something you can turn on yourself.

The assistant won’t answer about another learner or another course. By design. It reaches only your own enrolments.

It offered me a hint and I didn’t ask. That’s the stuck detector. It’s an offer about the question, not a judgement about you, and it won’t ask twice on the same one. To stop it entirely, decline the learning analytics consent in Account → Consents.

It never offers hints even when I’m stuck. You’ve declined learning-analytics consent, you’re in a graded attempt, or it already offered on that question.

There’s no microphone button. Voice is off for learners by default in every organization. Your organization can ask Lurno to enable it.

The hint feels vague or repeats itself. Hints add reasoning, not detail, and a hint that came too close to the answer is replaced with a safer one.

I never see a wellbeing check-in. On a learner-only account that is expected, not a fault — the permission to complete check-ins sits on staff-shaped roles by default, the module has to be switched on for your organization by Lurno, and your organization can narrow the audience further to a single group. If you have taken check-ins and want your answers deleted, that goes through the same route as any other data request — see Offboarding & data requests.