Why Pasadena Unified School District relies on Hāpara for classroom management

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Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) is an independent school district located in the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles County. Just northeast of downtown Los Angeles, it serves K-12 learners in the cities of Pasadena, Sierra Madre and Altadena. The district includes 23 schools with over 14,000 learners. Almost 2,000 are English language learners and over 2,200 are in the Special Education program. 

To help all students focus and succeed during digital learning, PUSD adopted Hāpara’s classroom management solution ten years ago. The district is 1:1 Chromebooks, and learners are online for classroom activities day to day. To help ensure students stay on their learning path, educators across PUSD rely on Hāpara.

Technology in PUSD classrooms

Erica Peters is an instructional coach at Eliot Arts Magnet, supervising math, history and technology. She sits on the technology committee, supports Chromebooks and works with new teachers in the district. She explains that in PUSD, educators are encouraged to use technology, and all of the district’s curriculum resources have a technology component. 

For example, in math, learners watch videos, and in English language arts, they may listen to books on their Chromebooks or complete digital activities. History classes are also a hybrid of digital and print, while science curriculum is completely online. 

Visibility into learners’ progress

Hāpara Highlights gives educators visibility into what their learners are doing in their Chrome browsers. Without a classroom management solution, educators would not be able to see what learners are doing online. With Hāpara Highlights, though, from one dashboard, educators can see learners’ current screens and recently opened tabs. 

Current Screens and Browser Tabs

Dawnely Raíces is a 6th grade ELA and history educator at Eliot Arts Magnet. Her go-to Hāpara Highlights feature is Current Screens to check in on learners’ progress.  

“It’s really quick for me to see what they are doing in that moment. Especially when we’re doing a diagnostic or a quiz, I’m able to see if they are struggling.”

It also gives her insight into how long a learner has spent on a website or Google file, and if the learner seems to be stuck, she can check in with them. 

She also uses the Browser Tabs feature to quickly see a list of the learners’ open tabs. If a learner has a long list of tabs open, she’ll close those that aren’t needed for the activity.

Lisa Prado is a 5th grade ELA and history educator at Sierra Madre Elementary School. She also toggles between Current Screens and Browser Tabs for visibility into how her learners are progressing. This quickly allows her to see who is on task and who needs to be redirected or supported.

Instructional coach Erica Peters says, “It’s nice to watch Current Screens, because, yes, they may have YouTube open and are listening to music, but in most classes, if they’re doing their work, the teacher is okay with that. So Current Screens is useful for that. Some teachers have also found it useful during math to make sure students are not going to the web browser to solve the problem.”

Visibility during a variety of learning situations

Lisa Prado also uses Hāpara Highlights when she’s away from the classroom for a professional training day and another educator is covering her class. “I want to make sure that my frequent flyers who wander are where they’re supposed to be.”

It’s helpful during her elective class as well, where she has a mixture of other educators’ learners. “I’ve been able to create a class for that [in Highlights]. They’re all online using a 3D printer CAD program. I also know they’re very rambunctious, and so they wander online, and I want to be able to monitor that.”

Ana DeMarco, a math teacher at John Muir High School, has learners work independently online for twenty minutes each day. If a learner is stuck on a problem, she’ll help them one-on-one. As she helps the learner, she uses Hāpara Highlights to quickly check that other learners in the class are making progress. 

She says, “Having Hāpara helps me know if the other students are working as well.”

Providing parents with visibility

Hāpara Highlights allows educators to provide parents with visibility into their child’s online choices, too. For instance, Lisa Prado uses the Snaps feature in Highlights to take an instant screenshot of a learner’s current screen.

She explains, “We’ve had instances where we’ve been able to take screenshots of current screens as proof of where the child has navigated or what they’ve opened. I’ve seen that be a bit of an eye opener for the parents when you’re trying to show them. So I think there are a lot of features that are helpful on the teacher’s end, and also for keeping kids safe.”

Monitoring with transparency

While educators can instantly close a learner’s off-task Chrome browser tab, Ana Demarco believes it’s important to communicate with the learner as a first step. 

She says, “When I have a new class, I always message them first, and if they continue watching what is not appropriate, then I will close the tab.”  

Dawnley Raices is transparent with her learners about monitoring their browsers. “I’m very honest with them. It’s just part of my classroom routine that they get a warning. They know I’m always watching.”

Instructional coach Erica Peters believes that there’s a right way to use browser monitoring. “The teachers that use it as a tool in their arsenal, along with actively walking and monitoring, it’s more meaningful for their classrooms, because it’s not all about this control thing, right?”

She continues, “I’ve even had teachers put up Highlights on the Promethean Board. There’s no hiding it, right? And I think that those teachers find it really useful.”

Filtering websites and focusing browsing

Educators in PUSD also use Hāpara Highlights to guide learners’ browsing. They can do this by setting up Focus Sessions and Filter Sessions.

Ana Demarco says, “I always like to send a message first and say, ‘Okay, this is not appropriate. This time is to work on your math software.’ If they don’t follow the rules, then I filter websites, or focus them on one website.” 

Dawnley Raíces also uses Filter Sessions when learners are continuously distracted. “You get your warning. And then if you still need help, I will filter the website out.”

Erica Peters finds guided browsing beneficial as well. “When we have a long URL or when we are doing testing, teachers use a Focus Session.” In these cases, educators can add the long URL so learners don’t have to type it in, and then learners can only visit that website. That’s why Focus Sessions are helpful to keep learners from visiting websites outside of an assessment.

Ana Demarco explains, “Sometimes the students are looking for the answers on the test in another place. So in that case, I have them focus only on the test.” 

Helping with self-control challenges

As an instructional coach, Erica Peters also sees the benefits of the Hāpara classroom management solution for helping with self-control challenges. 

“Because I have school site access, I can go in when we are concerned about a student and create a separate group to monitor them. For those kids who don’t have that self-control yet, it’s really helpful.” 

Lisa Prado uses the Pause Screens feature in Hāpara Highlights to help when the class is distracted. “I’ll use it as ‘I need your attention,’ and I’ll give directions. Because if they’re on any kind of game or something that’s a little bit more entertaining, they just won’t listen. I also will use it when I need the transition to be faster.”

Erica emphasizes, “It’s not meant to be, ‘I got you.’ It’s meant to help focus you. It’s meant to make sure that we can get places faster. It’s not just meant for me to lock you down. I really think that a lot of our students, especially my school that’s 25% Special Ed, haven’t developed self-control yet, so that is helpful in helping them with it.”

Communicating without interrupting the class

Erica uses the Announce feature in Hāpara Highlights to support learners. It allows an educator to send a learner, a group or the class an instant message that pops up on Chromebook. “When I’m administering testing to a large group, I love the Announce feature. Sometimes it’s something as simple as encouragement. Other times it’s, ‘Hey, I need you to stop talking or we’re going to have to move your seat.’  I don’t have to make a scene in the classroom, and that’s nice, right? So that is really useful for teachers who don’t want the commotion.”

Dawnley Raíces uses the Announce feature, too. “I use that a lot, especially if I have a sub, I might say, ‘Good job for doing your work.’ Or it might be, ‘Let’s find what we need to do to get to a good job.’” Her learners also like that she includes emojis with her announcements. 

Sharing links directly to student Chromebooks

The “Share links” feature in Hāpara Highlights allows educators to open a link directly onto learners’ Chromebooks. 

Erica Peters says this has made it much easier for educators and learners to quickly access an assignment or website. “In the past, you’d have to go to Canvas to add an assignment link and have the kids click through Canvas, versus now I can quickly send it out to you.” 

Ana Demarco says, “Sometimes my students were having trouble finding a calculator, so I like that I can save the link for the calculator and I can share it with them, and they will have easy access to the calculator.”

Instantly adding files to student Google Drives

In addition to Highlights browser monitoring, Dawnley Raíces also uses Hāpara Teacher Dashboard, which shows educators all of the recent Google files learners have opened. It also allows educators to quickly share a Google file with a learner, a group or the class.

She explains, “I was on maternity leave last year, and I had set up all the work. There was a link that wasn’t working, so then I was able to hop into the dashboard and add the file to everybody’s Google Drives while I was out. It solved the problem in 30 seconds, so I didn’t feel like I was doing too much while I was gone. It was able to save the lessons.” 

She continues, “To be able to have a sub text me and within five minutes, have all 100 of my students have exactly what they needed to then continue — my maternity leave was respected, but also the students were able to have what they needed. I didn’t have to come to school. I didn’t have to make anyone else do work. It was just super quick.”

She also appreciates being able to access learners’ Google Drives in Teacher Dashboard or Highlights, especially during report card time. When learners say they’ve turned in an assignment but can’t find it, she uses the Drive feature to help the learner search for it.  

Streamlining workflows

Overall, Erica Peters says about Hāpara, “It’s helped streamline a lot of pieces. We can get a real quick view of who’s working and who’s not. And, I think for teachers, it streamlines [their workflows] and makes it a little easier to do things than before.”