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How to use Snippets / Session Insights for Parents?

Written by Ville

Session Insights for Parents (labelled Snippets in your settings and Session view) highlight key moments from a session, making it easier to review a student’s progress and revisit important parts of a lesson recording. Each clip includes a short title, a description of what makes the moment important, and a timestamp to help you find it in the recording.

What do Session Insights for Parents highlight?

They identify stand-out moments during a session. These can help you understand how a session went, showcasing a student’s milestones and achievements or areas where they may need further support. Examples include:

  • Conceptual breakthroughs: When a student grasps a new concept for the first time.

  • Productive struggle: When a student works through a challenging problem.

  • Building confidence: When a student shows growing confidence or independence.

  • Engagement and motivation: When a student shows curiosity or interest.

  • Rapport: When a tutor and student build a positive connection.

  • Teaching techniques: When a tutor uses explanations, questions, or feedback that resonate well with the student.

  • Areas for attention: When a student may need additional support.

These highlights can help you revisit specific moments in a session and reflect on a student’s learning experience.

How to enable Session Insights for Parents

Before you can view Session Insights, you’ll need to enable them in your Pencil Spaces settings.

  1. From your main dashboard, select Settings.

  2. Scroll down and select AI Assist.

  3. Under the Post-session tab, enable Snippets.

  4. Click Update to save your changes.

💡 Pro tip: Session Insights for Parents can also appear as a highlight preview in your post-session report emails, so you can get a quick overview of important moments without opening the full report first. To learn more about how to enable Session Summaries, see our guide: How to enable and view Session Summaries?

How to view Session Insights for Parents

Once your institution has enabled Session Insight for Parents, you can review them from the session details page.

  1. Open the Sessions page.

  2. Find and select the session you want to review.

  3. Click the Snippets tab.

Your Session Insights will appear on the right-hand side of the page. From there, you can select a moment’s timestamp to jump to that point in the recording to see what makes it stand out.

How to manage Session Insights visibility

Institutions can choose when Session Insights become visible to students and parents. This gives admins control over which highlights are shared and whether they need to be reviewed first.

To adjust your visibility settings:

  1. Open Settings and select AI Assist.

  2. Under the Snippets section, find Snippet visibility for participants and choose your preferred visibility setting.

    There are three options to choose from:

    1. Require Approval: Session Insights remain hidden from students and parents until an admin reviews and approves them. This is the default setting. Once approved, a notification is sent to let parents know that Session Insights are available.

    2. Always Show: Session Insights become visible to students and parents as soon as they’re ready post-session. A notification is sent to parents automatically.

    3. Never Show: The Snippets tab remains hidden from students and parents, and no notifications are sent.

Admins can switch between these settings at any time to suit their institution’s preferences.

How to share Session Insights with parents

You can share Session Insights with parents through post-session emails or notifications via SMS and WhatsApp. To configure these options, you’ll need to update your AI Assist settings and make sure each student’s parent contact details are available.

1. Add parent contact details

Before sending parent notifications, an admin needs to add the relevant contact details to each student’s profile.

  1. Open the People tab from your Pencil Spaces dashboard.

  2. Find and select the student whose parent details you’d like to add.

  3. Locate the Parents section in their profile, and add the parent’s name and contact details.

  4. Save your changes.

Be sure to double-check that the details are correct so that notifications will reach intended recipients.

2. Choose your parent notification channel

Once you’ve added parent contact details, you can choose how parents receive Session Insights notifications.

  1. Open Settings and select AI Assist.

  2. Under Notify parents via..., choose your preferred notification channel: SMS or WhatsApp.

  3. Click Update to save your changes.

3. Include Session Insights in post-session emails

You can also choose to include Session Insights in your post-session report emails, along with your Session Summaries. To enable this option:

  1. Open Settings and select AI Assist.

  2. Under post-session emails, check the Snippets box to choose which participants you'd like to receive Session Insights.

  3. Enable the settings and click Update to save your changes.

Once configured, Session Insights can be shared through your selected channels, depending on your institution’s visibility settings.

Need more help?

If you have questions about Session Insights or need help with your settings, please contact our Pencil Spaces Support team. We’re available 24/7 and will be happy to help.

For more details on how to access our live support team, see our guide: How to access 24/7 live support.

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