Reaching a student who needs a nudge
Most of the support you give starts with a student raising their hand: a help request lands in the inbox and you respond. But some students who are struggling never raise a hand. The Needs attention list is for them. It reads the check-ins students have already shared and gathers the ones who look like they could use a nudge into a single list, so you do not have to open every profile one by one to find them.
You will find it in the Students area, as the Needs attention tab next to the full roster. The roster stays the default view; you switch to Needs attention deliberately when you want to go looking.
The two signals
A student shows up on the list for one of two reasons, and the reason is shown against their name so you know what you are looking at before you open anything.
- Struggling. Their most recent check-in read "struggling" or asked for help, or they have flagged more than once in the last few weeks. This is a student telling you, in their own check-in, that things are hard right now.
- Gone quiet. They used to check in and have not answered for the last couple of finished weeks. Silence is not proof that anything is wrong, but a student who was engaged and then stopped is worth a gentle check-in. A student who has simply never checked in does not show here, because that is a choice, not a change.
Struggling students are listed first, then the ones who have gone quiet, so the top of the list is where your attention is most likely needed.
What it reads, and what it does not
This list reads the same thing the profile drawer already shows you: a student's own weekly check-ins. It is not a new window into anyone's data. It simply saves you from opening every drawer to find the handful of people who need you this week.
The Needs attention list draws only on students' own check-ins, the ones they share with the team on purpose. It never touches the aggregate Insights picture, and it never shows the reasons behind the mood, which stay anonymous for the whole cohort and are never tied to a name anywhere in the console. Opening the list is written to your audit logThe append-only record of who did what in the console. Opening a student's profile, and opening this list, are both recorded., the same way opening a single student's profile is.
Because it reads only what you can already see per student, it does not widen your access. A colleague scoped to one campus or program sees only the students they could already open; nobody sees a student outside their remit.
What to do with it
Open a student from the list and you land in the same read-only profile drawer as always: their check-in history, their help-request summary, the facts you need before you reach out. From there, reach the student the way your institution already does, a call, an email, a quiet word in a class you both attend.
Treat a "needs help now" signal as exactly that. Follow your institution's crisis pathway, do not wait for the student to raise a formal request. The list is a prompt to act, not a queue to work through at your own pace.
The list is a way to find who to reach, not a place to record what you did. There is no note or flag to leave on a student here yet; when you act, that happens through the help inbox and your usual channels.
Common questions
Is this a watchlist?
No. It is an on-demand list you open when you want to go looking, built from the check-ins students already share with the team, and every open is audited. It is not a standing register that runs in the background, and it never draws on the anonymous cohort insights. Think of it as a faster way to do something you can already do: open a student's check-ins and decide whether to reach out.
Can a student tell they are on it?
No. Like the profile drawer, it is a staff-side read of what a student has already shared, not an action on their account, so nothing surfaces to the student. Opening it is recorded in your audit log for your institution's own oversight.
A student never checks in. Why aren't they flagged?
Because never checking in is a choice, not a change. The list flags students whose own check-ins signal struggle, and students who were engaged and went quiet. It does not treat opting out of check-ins as a warning sign.
Who can see this list?
The same staff who can see the roster: anyone with permission to manage students. A content-only editor does not see it, and staff scoped to a campus or program see only their own students.
Related
The fastest answer is usually one question away.