Gradual release of student responsibility online Follow

In this article:

What is gradual release of responsibility?

How do you set up students for success with Hāpara Highlights?

What is the typical progression for gradual release?

How do you differentiate and modify gradual release in Highlights?

How do you use Highlights for positive reinforcement?

With the whole world of the internet at their fingertips, students need support in figuring out how to be independent, responsible digital citizens. Hāpara Highlights tools allow you to easily use a gradual release of responsibility model in your classroom. This model helps your students grow toward independence when using the internet.

What is gradual release of responsibility?

Gradual release is when teachers slowly hand responsibility for learning over to students until students reach independence. Highlights can help you foster responsible digital citizenship habits in students with interventions that range from high levels of support to lower levels. You can start off using the higher-level interventions and gradually move toward lower-level interventions until students can make responsible decisions on their own.

How do you set up students for success with Hāpara Highlights?

When starting the process of gradual release of responsibility in Highlights, it’s important to take the time to make sure students are set up for success. Front loading in this way ensures everyone is on the same page before starting online lessons. It will take a bit of time but will pay off in the end! You can do this by planning a few preliminary strategies.

Transparency

Mutually trusting, open relationships with students are key when it comes to them achieving independent, responsible online behavior. This starts with transparency.

Being transparent with students about what you can see in Highlights helps foster respect, trust and honesty. Take some time at the beginning to walk students through what you have access to in Highlights and how you’ll be using this tool to keep students safe and focused during online lessons. Explain what you can see on your screen and the features you’ll be using to monitor their progress. Many teachers find it helpful to be clear about what they can see but to also let students know they won’t actively be looking for misbehavior.

Expectations and examples

Also consider a discussion-based lesson before you begin the gradual release of responsibility model. During this discussion, you and your students can come up with boundaries for what constitutes safe, responsible online behavior during learning. 

Talk about what it means to show integrity when engaged in an online task, what potential distractions may come up and how students can deal with distractions proactively to stay on track. Encourage students to share examples that are as specific as possible. 

You can also ask students why strong digital citizenship skills should be a goal. 

Additionally, consider discussing the negative consequences of irresponsible online behavior, such as:

• Getting off-task and going down an internet rabbit hole
• Sharing personal photos or information online
• Chatting with friends online instead of engaging in the learning task

Online management rules and systems

You can also work with students to create specific rules and management systems around:

• When students should be on devices (for example, some teachers use a color chart to signal when students can be online and when they can’t)
• When it’s OK to use earbuds
• Which apps or websites students can use
• Expectations for collaboration in student groups
• Consequences for not following expectations and procedures

What is the typical progression for gradual release?

Once you’ve set up students to be successful in your online lessons, you can begin the gradual release process to help them become independent, safe and responsible digital citizens. 

Use the following Highlights features as you implement the gradual release of responsibility model. Begin with higher-level interventions. Then once students are ready for more responsibility, use the midlevel and lower-level interventions to continue to support them.

I do

Highest-level intervention: Use the Guide browsing feature and set up a focus session (limited to pages within websites)

We do

Mid-level interventions: Use the Guide browsing feature and set up a filter session; use the Guide browsing feature and set up a focus session (opened to entire websites)

You do

Lowest-level interventions: There are no browsing restrictions for students; monitor and share feedback and resources instead; use the Activity Viewer, Browser Tabs, Current Screens, the Message feature, the Share links feature and Snaps.

How do you differentiate and modify gradual release in Highlights?

Hāpara knows that all students are different and not everyone is ready for the same level of freedom when browsing the internet. Gradual release with Highlights doesn’t have to follow a rigidly linear path. You can always reinstate higher levels of teacher control over students’ browsing ability if you need to. 

Highlights also allows you to use groups to differentiate your approach. You can easily create student groups in Highlights and set up guided browsing sessions for specific groups. Or you can send a message or share links with certain groups who need encouragement, support or help with resources.

How do you use Highlights for positive reinforcement?

Positive reinforcement is a type of behavior management system that rewards students when they do something right, rather than punishing them when they do something wrong. This encourages students to stay on their learning path and prepare for more online responsibility.

Here are two Highlights tools that you can use for positive reinforcement.

Message

The Message feature in Highlights allows you to send instant positive reinforcement to a student, a group or the whole class when you see that they’re making responsible choices online.

Snaps

When you see that a student has made a responsible browsing decision, you can take a Snap and send it to the student with positive feedback. 

Snaps are screenshots of a student’s browser screen along with helpful information such as:

• The date and time the Snap was taken
• Whether one student or a collaborative group were on the website
• A timeline of browsing

You can quickly take Snaps from the Activity Viewer, Current Screens or Browser Tabs and then find them stored in the Snaps tab.