Workspace

Hapara Workspace enables you to create differentiated, collaborative assignments and projects that your students can access anytime, anywhere. Separate from the Dashboard, Workspace provides a new way of presenting a unit of work in one space. It involves the development and posting of learning sequences using instructional cards. Similar to what you probably already do in Google Classroom, each workspace creates a folders within your Google Drive to store class documents.

No matter what framework for learning a teacher primarily follows, many tend to follow is Understanding by Design. One of the key features of UbD is that it is backwards planned. This involves identifying desired results, including various goals. Due to how Workspace was designed, understandings and essential questions can then be easily listed and visible to all learners. This, combined with the simplistic view of all resources needed for learning as well as evidence for learning, students will be able to recall the various standards being addressed within the unit of study.

When your learning sequence has been planned out, you can then consider the structure of your workspace. Within each Workspace, you can work within and/or edit the following:

• Number of Columns – There are four total columns available, but you can utilize any number of them. Column 3 (Evidence) is the only column programmed for classroom assignments for students to submit work. Columns 2 and 3 (Resources and Evidence) are also coded to support learner agency.
• Titles for Columns – You can easily change the default titles to make them what you like.
• Layout – Information is presented in the form of cards (analogous to Google Classroom posts). These cards can be rearranged/reordered within the column in which it was created in.
• Styles – You can easily change the color and/or add pictographs to each card depending on how you want to present content to students.
• Groups – Grouping students is one of the most powerful features of Hapara Workspace. With it, you are able to adjust who sees what. Currently, these groups are unique to Workspace only and not viewable in Dashboard or Highlights which allow you to group students in different ways.

Note: Similar to what you would do in any planning scenario, it is considered good practice to plan ahead of time and have a document or hard copy of how you would like posts to be organized. This also acts as a great backup in the event you accidentally delete a card.

Due to the flexibility of Hapara Workspace, educators can easily implement a wide range of different activities and applications in their learning spaces.

Differentiation is one of the key selling points when using Hapara Workspace. Because of this strength, Workspace can incorporate what is taught (content, process, product and environment), changes to how something is taught, as well as why something is taught in the first place; a personalized space for each learner. One good resource to learn more about this would be Carol Ann Tomlinson’s book The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners.

Some ways you can incorporate differentiation into your digital curriculum using Workspace can include:

• Creation of groups
• Gradual release of cards
• Allow for tasks (Evidence) to completed individually, or through group work
• Assigning different content to different students
• Means for students to determine their own learning
• Choice over what type of learning product is created

This is only a start and every context provides its own possibilities and potentials.