🆕 Enhancement releases

We've been busy! Here's a sneak peek at our latest new features and improvements:

Balanced Assessment by Formative (BAF) Preview, featuring:

Custom Luna Configurations: Districts can define their own files and instructions, and teachers can select a config to get a customized version of Luna layered on top of the standard model. This gives districts a tailored experience similar to using a custom gem or GPT.
Luna Next Steps: Generate targeted practice sets and/or formatives directly from the Insights page using Standards or most missed questions. This identifies learning gaps and instantly creates remediation, allowing teachers to address student needs with one click. Remediation Practice Sets are linked directly from the Activity Insights page. Teachers can identify gaps and immediately navigate to targeted practice, streamlining the intervention workflow.
Item Bank: Access a bank of high-quality questions written by Newsela's content experts. This ensures assessment rigor while saving teachers time on original content creation.
Translations: Enable real-time translations in most languages to support English Language Learners (ELLs). This removes linguistic barriers, ensuring all students can demonstrate mastery of the core content.

Mandarin Pinyin Support

Added Pinyin tones to the accents keyboard. This enhancement specifically supports Chinese language instruction, making it easier for students to type correctly accented characters.

Automated DOK Tagging

Depth of Knowledge (DOK) tags now appear by default in reports. This provides immediate visibility into item rigor without requiring manual setup from educators.

Customizable Response Layout

A new "Responses Per Row" filter lets teachers adjust how many student cards appear. This optimizes screen space and improves readability across different device sizes.

LockDown Browser Improvements:

Simplified Secure Browser Toggle: Replaced dropdown menus with a simplified toggle for high-security exams. This streamlines the assignment workflow and reduces confusion during the assessment creation process.
Student Session Status:A new 'Status' button identifies paused or overlapping student sessions. Teachers can now quickly manage and resolve testing irregularities directly from the "Responses" tab.
Auto-Pause Sensitivity: Secure browser sessions now trigger auto-pause after a single swipe-away attempt instead of two, to increase exam security and protect test integrity.
Incident Session Timeline: A timeline of student sessions is now visible inside the incident modal. This provides teachers and administrators with a clear chronological view of testing irregularities.

Score Export Reports:

Score Threshold Exports: Added a scoreThreshold column to CSV exports. This facilitates better data segmentation in external spreadsheets by including performance labels like "Proficient" alongside total scores.
ScoreGrid Export - Answer Choice Letters: Answer choice letters are now included in ScoreGrid CSV exports. This gives educators more detailed item-level data.

Accordion View on Responses Page

Questions on the Responses page now support an accordion layout. Teachers can expand and collapse individual questions, making it easier to focus on specific items when reviewing student work.

Multipart Item Bank Support

The Item Bank now fully supports multi-part items. This ensures complex, nested question structures are preserved and reused reliably without losing their hierarchy.

Common Assessments Enhancements:

Hierarchical Org Filtering: Common Assessment reports now automatically include descendant organizations when a parent is selected. This provides administrators with a comprehensive data view with a single click.
Common Assessment Retake Options: Expanded retake settings give administrators complete power and granular control over student attempts. This provides the flexibility needed for different assessment strategies across schools and districts.

Luna AI Assistant Improvements:

Smarter and more polished, Luna has received several capability and quality-of-life improvements:

PDF Upload Flow: Teachers can now upload PDFs directly to Luna for conversion into formative content. Clear alerts and improved error handling ensure users know exactly what's happening during the parsing process.
Rubric Creation Context: Luna now understands rubric context when making suggestions, enabling it to generate content that aligns with your grading criteria.
Standards Mentions: Teachers can now @mention specific standards directly in the Luna chat. This gives Luna precise context for generating standards-aligned content.
Smarter Error Handling: Improved error messages for context size limits ensure teachers get clear, actionable feedback.
Refreshed Animations: A new wave animation and a delightful astronaut fly-in add personality and polish.

Teacher Instructions on Practice Sets

Teacher instructions are now fully supported on practice sets. Educators can provide guidance and context directly within the practice experience, helping students understand expectations before they begin.

Student Profile Settings

Students can now access a "Settings" option directly from their account dropdown menu. The profile tabs have also been reordered to show Settings before Achievements

Student Responses - Activity Total Points

The Student Responses header now displays the total points for the activity. This provides immediate context on the assessment's overall weight.

Cookie Preferences in Profile

Teachers can now manage their cookie preferences directly from their profile settings page, providing easier access to privacy controls without navigating away from their account.

SPOT Report - Archived Classes

The SPOT report now includes a checkbox to show archived classes for admin organizations. This gives administrators access to historical data.

Hide Names in Insights

A new privacy option allows names to be hidden on the Insights page. This supports scenarios where teachers want to review aggregate performance data without exposing individual student identities.

TeX Rendering in Practice Modes

Increased support for rendering TeX/LaTeX across practice modes ensures math content displays correctly.

🤖 Beta and Early Access Features Updates

The below features have been added to our list of future features teachers can opt-in to test with us:

Seasonal Luna Personalization

Introduced holiday detection logic for Luna. This adds a delightful, dynamic touch to the UI that updates automatically based on the date.

🛠️ Fixes

Every technological tool runs into hiccups here and there. If you run into any technical issues please submit a report to our team so we could go ahead and fix it!

LockDown Browser Guest Exit

Added an "Exit" button for guest students using Respondus. This resolves a workflow blocker, allowing guest users to close the secure browser immediately after submission.

Streamlined Standards Selection

Deprecated standard sets are now hidden by default. This reduces clutter in the selection modal, helping teachers focus on active, priority standards while maintaining legacy access.

PDF Parsing Notifications

Improved error handling with clear toast notifications for failed PDF uploads. Users are now immediately aware of parsing issues, eliminating silent failures during document conversion.

Enhanced Assign Permissions

Restructured security to require explicit 'assign' permissions. This ensures only authorized educators can distribute assessments, closing a previous security gap for "view-only" roles.

Draggable Modals

Select modal dialogs can now be repositioned by dragging. This lets teachers move overlays out of the way without closing them, improving multitasking during grading and content creation.