You must publish your class, otherwise students will not be able to access it. I would like to stress YOU and MUST. Canvas help page on publishing your course.
If you developed your class in a master, template or practice shell, or in a previous quarter's class you must import that content into the live shell for the upcoming quarter.

Initiate this process in the shell you want to copy to (i.e. the 'target' class). [Settings/Import Content button]
Choose Copy a Canvas Course from Content Type.
When you copy a course into another shell, it does not wipe out the existing content. If you import twice into a shell, you will have duplicate items (or items from both courses, if they are different). You can also select material to import by checking Select specific content.
You can adjust the events and due dates, which can be a time-saver. Be sure to put the previous quarter and the new quarter's start and end dates, or dates that match your course start and end dates. If you leave off any of those, they may not import properly. See more discussion in the next page.

Links in this page:
- https://guides.instructure.com/s/2204/m/4152/l/57126-how-do-i-publish-my-course
- https://guides.instructure.com/s/2204/m/4152/l/57077-how-do-i-import-content-from-another-canvas-course