The back-to-school season is all about fresh starts, and at Beanstack, we’re kicking things off by highlighting five of our newest features designed to inspire student engagement, support teachers, and simplify your school’s reading program. Keep reading to discover what our team has rolled out over the summer.
1. Book Talks for Reading Engagement Insights
When we introduced Book Talks with Benny last year, it was a game-changer for reading accountability. Now, Benny the Bean is going beyond accountability to give you insight into student engagement with independent reading.
Instead of simply verifying whether a student read their book, Book Talks for Reading Engagement invites students into a fun, open-ended conversation designed to uncover whether they had a positive reading experience! Behind the scenes, Benny checks responses for in-depth answers and positive sentiment, flagging moments when a student goes above and beyond in their engagement. This new feature set also includes:
- Sorting and Filtering: Educators can easily filter Book Talks based on various parameters, such as class or grade, and even group sessions by student.
- Summarized Conversations: Benny provides educators with a summary of the student's conversation and an “Engagement Score” after each Reading Engagement Book Talk.
- Improvements to the Student Experience: Students can now pause, resume their conversations later, and even view their conversation history.
Pro tip: Book Talks for Reading is a great tool for identifying students best suited for reading competitions like Battle of the Books.
🛍️ Want a fun reward or a way to bring Benny’s spirit to your students? Benny the Bean is now a plushie—check out our merch store to get yours!
2. The Daily Reading Tracker
Say goodbye to paper reading logs for good! Our new Daily Reading Tracker gives educators an at-a-glance view of each classroom and students’ reading habits and includes:
- Daily and Weekly Overviews: View total minutes logged or progress toward a classroom goal—daily or weekly.
- Trends & Insights: Easily toggle between current and past weeks to identify patterns and opportunities for support.
- Classroom Leaderboards: Celebrate top readers with a ranked list based on total minutes or percentage of goal completed.
With this feature, teachers can effortlessly support, motivate, and celebrate every reader in their classroom.
Pro tip: Use the Daily Reading Tracker to share student progress during parent-teacher conferences.
3. Automatic Challenges
Looking for an easy way to keep students reading year-round? Automatic Challenges have you covered. We’ve curated our most popular monthly reading challenges—like “Hallow-Read” and “For the Love of Reading” and made it easier than ever to launch them. With this new feature, you receive a brand-new challenge each month, complete with:
- Easy Setup: Challenges are auto-published a week before the start of each month, with all students and staff automatically enrolled.
- Pre-Built Visuals: Each challenge includes a themed banner and ten ready-made logging badges.
- Flexible Controls: Don’t want to run a certain challenge? Just turn off auto-publishing for that challenge.
4. (Re)Introducing the Reading Culture Awards
Back for a second year, we’re changing things up for the Reading Culture Award program. We will continue to recognize and reward schools for increasing student engagement throughout the year, but we’ve added a new milestone (Spark!) and are taking a new approach to the Trailblazer status reward. Here’s how your school can earn recognition this year:
- New! Spark status: 10% student participation. You’ve sparked something special—your reading culture is on the rise!
- Igniter status: 25% participation. You’ve lit a fire. Each school that reaches this milestone receives a $25 gift card to keep the momentum going.
- Pathfinder status: 50% participation. Your school is well on its way to building a strong reading culture. You’re almost there!
- Trailblazer status: 75% participation. You’ve created a culture of reading worth celebrating.
New This Year: Monthly Trailblazer Drawing
From August through June, all schools that reach Trailblazer status and those that maintain 75% student participation will be automatically entered into a monthly prize drawing. Each month, we’ll award:
- 10 schools with $100 gift card
- 1 grand prize winner with $1,000 and a box of Benny plushies to help your community celebrate in style.
⭐ Coming soon: We’re working on an exciting new rewards program for teachers, too! Stay tuned, we’ll announce the details soon.
5. Edit Staff Roles and Classroom Names
Back to school is a time of transition. Roles shift, workflows change, we know the drill. The ability to Edit Staff Roles and Classroom Names will make your life easier during the busy season. Now, Media Specialist Plus users and District Admins can make changes directly within the platform—no need to contact support. This allows school administrators to:
- Grant Admin Access: Users can update users’ roles one-by-one or in bulk, allowing them to onboard other admins quickly and easily with the correct permission levels.
- Customize Classroom Names: School administrators can set custom class names, while district administrators can set a standard convention for their classroom names.
Whether you're managing new teachers or reorganizing classrooms, this feature saves time and ensures your Beanstack setup stays accurate and up to date.
New or a Pro, We’ve Got You Covered
These new features are just the beginning. We have plenty of exciting new features in the pipeline, including one that will make it faster and easier for educators to access key data points in Beanstack! Visit our Help Center for more information about these new features and updates.
Not using Beanstack yet? Contact our team to schedule a demo and learn how to bring these features to your school.