Pause Points are scaffolds and checks for understanding embedded within BrainPOP movies.
IN THIS ARTICLE
Finding Movies with Pause Points
Using Pause Points
Pause Point Question Types
Reviewing and Submitting Work
Assigning Pause Points
Completing a Pause Points Assignment
Grading Student Work
FAQs
Finding movies with Pause Points
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Search the term “Pause Points” on BrainPOP to find all topics that include Pause Points.
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Open the topic page and click on Watch Movie.
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Pause points will be turned on for teachers and turned off for students by default. Teachers can also assign a specific set of questions to students.
Teacher default view:
Student default view:
If students turn Pause Points on, they will see the set options, but without grade bands.
Using Pause Points
As a teacher, you can preview the questions in each set by clicking on the orange dots in the movie progress bar. You can also see sample student responses for open ended questions by clicking Show Answer Key.
NOTE: Teacher-submitted responses will not be saved after continuing.
Students are not able to preview questions. They must answer each question before they can continue watching the movie.
Students will see a warning if they try to fast forward or skip ahead, but they can rewind at any point.
NOTE: When students move forward after rewinding, they will not be able to skip further ahead than the last Pause Point they answered and saved.
Pause Point Question Types
Multiple Choice Questions
Students have as many tries as they need to answer the multiple choice questions correctly. They must answer correctly before the movie will continue playing.
Multiple choice feedback:
Open Ended Questions
Students can respond by either typing, speaking, or drawing their answer.
Type
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Type the response.
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Click “Save” to continue playing the movie.
Draw
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Click the “Draw” tab to open the draw menu.
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Click “Start Drawing” to open the draw tool.
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Click Save at the bottom of the page to close the tool.
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Click “Save” to continue playing the movie.

Speak
- Click the “Speak” tab to open the voice record menu.
- Click “Record Your Answer.”
You will need to allow browser microphone permissions the first time you use the voice record feature. If you deny permissions or have denied them in the past, you won’t be able to record your voice. To allow permissions, you can reset them in your browser settings. - After clicking “Record Your Answer”, you’ll have a 3-second countdown before the recording starts. You have 30 seconds to speak and record your answer.
- Click Stop Recording when you’re finished. You can play back and listen to your answer.
- To redo your answer, click “Delete and record again”, then click “Delete” to confirm.
- Click “Save” to continue playing the movie.
NOTE: Voice Recording is not currently supported on iPhone or iPad.
Reviewing and Submitting Work
After students finish watching the movie, they can review their answers before submitting their work to their teacher.
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Click “Review Your Results”
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Students can click on the orange dots or the “Back” and “Next” buttons to review their responses to each question. Students can only edit their open-ended responses.
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Students can click “Back To Submit” on any of the questions to go back to the final results screen and submit.
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When your students are ready, they should click “Submit to Teacher” to submit their answers. Their Pause Points answers will not show up in the teacher dashboard until they submit.
Students can choose which class they want to submit the activity to.
Assigning Pause Points
From the Movie Page
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Click “Assign Movie With Pause Points.”
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Choose a set to assign. Your students will not see the grade band for the set you pick.
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Click Assign to assign the movie with Pause Points only, or click Add more features to include other activities in the assignment.
From the Teacher Dashboard
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Click “New Assignment”.
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Fill out the assignment details. In the activity step, click Movie, then select the set of Pause Points you want to assign. Your students will not see the grade band for the set you choose.
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Click Next and finish creating the assignment.
Completing a Pause Points Assignment
When students do an assigned movie with Pause Points, they won’t be able to toggle between other sets, and they won’t be able to turn Pause Points off.
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Students can find the assignment in their dashboard and click the assignment title.
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Click “Go” from the assignment page.
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Complete the assigned set of Pause Points. Students can’t turn Pause Points off or select a different set when they access the activity from the assignment page.
- If a student leaves before completing their Pause Points assignment, they are given the option to continue and start over.
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After answering all the questions and finishing the movie, students must click “Submit to Teacher” for their work to show up as complete in the teacher dashboard.
Grading Student Work
Scoring
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Multiple choice questions are auto-graded and worth one point each
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Open ended questions are worth 3 points, and teacher-graded.
Teachers can review and grade student work from the teacher dashboard.
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Navigate to the Assignments section in the teacher dashboard.
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Click on the assignment. In this view, you’ll only see the tally from the auto-graded questions unless you’ve graded the student’s work.
Note: Students will see “Not Scored Yet” on their timeline until you grade their work. -
Click on “View Work” to review each student’s work
Before the activity has been graded:
After an activity has been graded:
FAQs
Can I preview what my students will see?
You can preview the sets of Pause point questions and the different question formats. However, there are a few key differences between what you see when you preview and what your students will see when they watch a movie with Pause Points:
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Students are required to answer each question before they can keep going, while teachers are not required and can continue without answering.
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Student answers will be saved, but teacher answers won’t.
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Students can’t fast forward unless they’ve answered the upcoming question, while teachers can skip around.
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Students don’t see the sample student response for open ended questions, but teachers do.
Can I customize the Pause Point questions?
You cannot customize the question wording or the timestamp of the Pause Points at this time. However, you can choose which set of Pause Point questions you’d like to use with your class. This is by design- to provide a scaffolded movie experience while saving you time!
Which topics have Pause Points?
We’re always adding more Pause Points to our most popular movies on a rolling basis, and new and updated movies will have them. To find a list of movies with Pause Points, just search “Pause Points” in BrainPOP!
If you want to know whether a particular movie has them, just click “Watch Movie” to open the movie page. If the movie has them, Pause Points will be automatically turned on for teachers. If the movie doesn’t have them, you won’t see the Pause Points toggle.
What do the orange slices mean?
The orange slices serve as a friendly indicator of the relative complexity of the different sets of Pause Points. The larger the orange, the more challenging the set.
Why can’t my students fast forward?
The goal of preventing students from fast forwarding while Pause Points are turned on is to help them stay on task while watching the movie. That way, you can ensure students actually watch the entire movie without skipping.
Students can fast forward as normal if they watch the movie without Pause Points.
Why can’t my students see the grade bands?
We only show the recommended grade bands to teachers to avoid making any students feel bad if their teacher wants them to use a set of Pause Points that’s recommended for a different grade band.
I don’t want to use Pause Points! How do I make them go away?
You can turn Pause Points off with the toggle in the bottom right corner of the movie player.

What if my student wants to Draw, Type, and Speak an answer?
Students may submit combinations of the response types for each open ended question if they’d like. For example, students can submit a typed AND drawn response for the same question, but not two drawn responses.
If a student wants to submit multiple response types to a question, they will submit the first response, then the movie will continue playing. Then, they can click back to that Pause Point to submit another response type.
Why can’t I see student submissions in the dashboard?
Make sure your students have submitted the activity. Their work will not show up on the teacher dashboard until they submit it. Students can submit once they’ve answered all the Pause Points and finished watching the movie.
