November 2025 product update: Tips for streamlining teacher workflows to finish 2025 strong

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We’ve reached November, the point in the school year where students get more distracted than usual, and teachers are counting down the days to a holiday reprieve. The students are well acquainted with one another at this point in the school year and are chatty and fidgety. This is the time of year when teachers need tools more than ever to keep learners focused and engaged. For this month’s product update, we’re focusing on recent updates that will help teachers get their students locked in on learning for more than six or seven seconds.

Overview Panel

Overview Panel in Hāpara Highlights, released in September of 2025, is a new and improved version of the former Activity Viewer. It gives teachers a high level summary of what learners are working on during instructional time and helps them identify trends. It’s conveniently located on the right side of the Class View screen. 

The Overview Panel gives teachers high level visibility into: 

• Websites that learners currently have open or have recently visited 
• The number of students that visited those sites
• The names of those students 

This feature is a time saver for busy teachers because they can take a quick glance at it and have a good idea of what their students are up to during digital learning time. 

One teacher recently said, “I like being able to consult this list instead of looking through everyone’s tabs.” For example, a teacher may notice that five students are all on the same Google Doc. This tips the teacher off that they may need to investigate why students are all on the same document and not on their own individual assignments. 

Another example of how this feature is useful is when the teacher is delivering direct instruction and the students need to access a guided note-taking document. At the beginning of class, the teacher can ensure that every learner has successfully accessed the template. If the teacher sees that a student isn’t able to access the document, they can try to help right away before the lesson starts, preventing interruptions later on.

Student Browsing History

If there was ever a time for teachers to be moving around the classroom and not behind their desk, it’s right before an upcoming holiday or school break. Many students have become experts at quickly closing off-task tabs as teachers walk around the room, but Student Browsing History ensures that student activity online is documented so they aren’t chained to their desk all day. 

This feature helps teachers: 

• Focus on instruction and not monitoring screens the whole class. For example, if a teacher is working with a small group, they can record the browsing history of other students they aren’t directly monitoring during that time. 
• Identify if a student is struggling or disengaged. Perhaps, there’s not much activity for a particular student during the recorded period. Maybe the student doesn’t understand the concept and is stuck on the first question, is upset about something that happened earlier in the day, or is just unengaged and needs a gentle reminder to focus. This gives the teacher an idea of which students they need to go back and focus on or chat with next time they return to class. 
• Show parents how students are doing in class. Parents don’t get to see everything teachers do when they send their children to school. If they have more detailed questions about how their child is doing, the teacher can send a screenshot of the student’s browsing history to give them a better understanding. 

Class View 

The Hāpara Product Team worked hard this year to make sure that Hāpara classroom management tools are easy for teachers to use and require fewer clicks to get the job done! That’s why they introduced the Class View page. It allows teachers to seamlessly toggle between the Browser Tabs and Current Screens views in Highlights. This update reduced the number of clicks to access these views in Highlights and minimized time spent to access the most-used parts of our tool.

Close Tab Instantly Icon

Hāpara is the only classroom management tool that has the option for teachers to provide a reason for closing a student’s tab. It’s a way to provide formative feedback that helps learners make better decisions and progressively move toward digital citizenship. However, there are moments when teachers just need to quickly close a student’s tab and move along with the lesson. That’s why we introduced the option to close a tab instantly. If a student ends up on a distracting website at a critical instructional moment, or an unsafe site, teachers need that flexibility. 

Efficiency during critical times

Creating efficient digital workflows for teachers is crucial to ensure they don’t end up adding to their already very full plates with additional things to do when it comes to technology. If you’re a Hāpara educator, try out these new features and let us know if they’re helpful. Is there something we should add to the mix to make your life in the classroom less hectic? Tell us about it!