Tarun Kumar, Author at socrait

Curb your Grading Procrastination with HOGA

Posted on January 13, 2026January 16, 2026 by Tarun Kumar

January 13, 2026

Curb your Grading Procrastination with HOGA

Soundbytes is a weekly newsletter that explores the reality of teaching in an AI world.

Subscribe to receive it in your inbox each week.

It’s a new year, and many of us consider (and quickly dismiss or fail at) resolutions for the year. Here’s a resolution that, if followed, will help you feel more at peace until the end of the school year.

Those of us who teach know that the grading piles up – and the more it piles up, the more guilty we feel. We don’t enjoy our evenings, we don’t enjoy our weekends. We experience a sense of dread that just multiplies the longer we procrastinate the task. The trick is to break the cycle of dread.

One year, a teaching friend and I co-invented HOGA, which stands for Hour of Grading Accountability. We decided to treat grading like participating in a Yoga class or an hour at the spa. We used each other as accountability partners to commit to spending one hour Sunday – Thursday catching up on grading (for a total of 5 hours a week).

To make our experience more pleasant, we sent each other pictures of our “HOGA perks” like a favorite cup of tea, or a dessert to enjoy after completion of our hour. We went to coffee shops. We sat in comfy chairs. We invented things to accompany grading to make it more enjoyable. But every day, we texted each other to say “I did my HOGA today” and that kept us going.

An interesting thing happened. When grading proactively for one hour every day, we paid more attention to what students were learning and to the missing concepts that we needed to emphasize in class. We felt more of a connection to the students. And we stopped feeling the constant dread that there were tons of papers to grade. It felt like we were finally back in control of our lives.

As the CEO of Socrait, I invented a similar practice called “Misery Loves Company” (MLC) – there are various tasks that nobody can bring themselves to just do, regardless of how important they are. For example: reading a patent (blech), writing a Digital Privacy Agreement for a state (double blech), or completing end-of-year tax returns (triple blech).

So we schedule an MLC meeting, where all the meeting participants bring their most-likely-to-be-procrastinated task (we determine the tasks ahead of time). And then we join a zoom and sit in silence, each working on our own hard-to-complete task. Usually, in one hour we are all done with the procrastinated task and wondering why on earth we put it off for so long. If you’re a principal, MLC meetings are very likely going to be your version of HOGA!

I don’t have an “official HOGA partner” this year, but I do still have grading to do. Maybe some of you will join me on TikTok to be my accountability partner for HOGA in 2026. Together we can turn grading into a peaceful daily ritual instead of something we push off for days and then suffer through in marathon grading sessions. And honestly, I’d love to see all your scrappy teacher-creative ways to turn grading into a spa-like experience.

Inbox Serotonin

As a teacher (or principal) sometimes you just need a good laugh about the creativity of our profession. Here’s a TikTok post with 5000+ comments containing “Clever Consequences for Student Behavior” from Mr. Lidd.

The highest comment on the post is from Mrs D in Chemistry: “’I’ve been saying I’m going to tell Santa. They’re high schoolers. They are very offended by this and immediately start acting right 😂 it’s like the password to awakening sleeper agents.”

The post that made me laugh out loud over the holidays was this one about the reality of what this simple childhood toy was really teaching us from knowyourmeme.

New Year, New Socrait Features!

For those of you who are new to Socrait, let me give you a short introduction. Socrait is your classroom companion. It listens to you while you teach and gives you back your data after class, giving your brain time to breathe during the day. After class, Socrait will draft your parent emails, create class summaries for absent students, help you remember where that class left off, and remember your spoken aloud to-dos.

We started the new year by releasing an archive feature so that those of you who are about to have a different set of classes and students can switch over. Archiving will get a class out of the dropdown menu in the phone app, but leave the data available to you to access. If you’re looking to archive a class, you can find it in the Class Editing interface for the class: How to Archive a Class in Socrait.

We also released View All for Reminders – this allows you to see all your to-dos from the classroom in one place. As a reminder, you don’t need to do anything special to populate the reminders list – just “remind yourself” about anything out loud.

Examples that become Task Reminders automatically:

“I need to remember to separate Nathan and Liam on the seating chart.”

“Remind me to move the assignment deadline to Friday.”

“Don’t forget to bring coal for the holiday party tomorrow.”

About the author: Dr. Maria Andersen has been an educator for 30 years in both Higher Ed and K-12 teaching a variety of subjects (math, chemistry, business, ELL, technology, pre-service teachers). She has given hundreds of workshops and keynotes about active learning, curriculum redesign, remote and online learning, effective use of technology, and using AI for teaching & learning. Andersen teaches middle schoolers at a charter school in Utah. She was also the CEO of Coursetune and is currently the CEO of Socrait.

With AI, Teachers Need to Make the Thinking Visible

Posted on December 15, 2025January 16, 2026 by Tarun Kumar

December 15, 2025

With AI, Teachers Need to Make the Thinking Visible

Soundbytes is a weekly newsletter that explores the reality of teaching in an AI world.

Subscribe to receive it in your inbox each week.

Sometimes I think the only reason I’m surviving this moment in education is because I taught for decades before generative AI arrived. I have a strong internal compass for what real student thinking looks like. I know what typical math “show your work” looks like, what typical middle school writing usually contains, and the difference between “I tried my best” and “ChatGPT tried its best.” I cannot imagine being a brand-new teacher today and coming into this cold, with no mental archive to lean on.

In my Technology & Society class, I adjusted to AI by having students give multiple presentations each semester. As we move through each presentation, I try to help them achieve more independence in thinking of what to cover and how to present it. For the earlier presentations, I gave students a set of 10 questions to answer (which becomes their 10 slides). But as we progressed to the third presentation, I wanted to nudge them toward independence — to let them think through how to build a coherent set of slides on their own.

Here’s the problem: if I gave no guidance, I knew exactly what would happen. Most students would go straight to AI and type, “What 10 slides should I use for a presentation on ___?” And while AI can give them a tidy list, that isn’t the point. The point is for students to think about:

what they’ve learned
what gaps remain
how to structure ideas in a way an audience can actually follow

To get there, I had to design a process where their brains and bodies were the most fun tool to use, not AI. So here’s how I did that:

Step 1

I created a list with dozens of slide headers, each with a short description. Students went through the list, crossing out the slides that didn’t fit their topic and circling the ones that did.

Step 2

They cut out the slides they selected and spread them out on the table in front of them. (This step alone changed the energy in the room. Give middle schoolers scissors and suddenly they’re very awake.)

Step 3

Students rearranged the slip-of-paper slides until they found ten that formed a logical, engaging sequence for an audience. Some asked if they could add their own slide into the mix – one of those teacher moments where you feel like you are definitely winning!

Step 4

They taped their chosen slides onto a “design grid” I provided which became their physical template for the real thing.

Step 5

Only then did students open Google Slides. Their job was simply to start by creating a deck with those ten slide headers. If they got stuck, I told them: “Just make the ten slides with headers you already planned. Start with that.” And like magic, they did.

Step 6

Students added images to slides. They have to present with notes (unless, of course, there is some kind of accommodation). And I want them looking at the audience, not their slides, so they have to do their presentation with slides that contain 5 words or less. I’ve found this means they actually learn and practice their topic.

What struck me most was how the physical act of sorting, choosing, and arranging slides held their attention far better than any digital equivalent. These students live in a world where their hands are trained to reach for devices the second their brain hesitates. If we don’t replace that instinct with a physical task that supports thinking, the devices win (and usually not in service of learning).

This little redesign isn’t about stopping kids from using AI. It’s about giving them a reason not to skip the thinking. When the structure is strong enough and the work feels tangible, students stay with the task. They focus. They produce. And most importantly, the thinking is theirs.

Who does the Socrait data belong to?

At Socrait, we believe strongly that Socrait data belongs to the teacher who collected it. The teacher’s voice is the source, and it was the teacher’s choice to press start and stop in order to collect the data.

This belief translates into the product decisions we make. For example, we know that teachers encounter all sorts of weird classroom situations from allergic reactions to that student who asks a question you don’t really feel comfortable asking.

We hope that you always see Socrait as the classroom assistant that “has your back” but if you don’t want to save the data on a given day, we want you to know that there is a “Delete class data” option.

On the Class Dashboard, click the three dots menu (known in the UI/UX world as the “kebab” menu) and you’ll see the option to delete the data. When a teacher uses this, we delete everything for that session. It’s like you never used Socrait during that class.

You may also wonder if administrators have access to the Class Dashboard from a teacher’s class. They don’t. Nobody can see exactly what the teachers see. If a principal wants to discuss data about a class, their best bet is to ask to look at it with the teacher. That’s a better conversation anyways since data lacks the nuance of context.

We will eventually build administrative dashboards, but those will need to have either aggregated data OR teacher permission to share the data with the receiver or the whole school.

Asking a teacher to automatically share all the educational data said aloud in the classroom would be a bit like asking an administrator to share every email they write and send to parents. Neither one would be an appropriate level of sharing. Professionals need to have some degree of autonomy to use their own data appropriately.

Inbox Serotonin

For many of us, it’s School Spirit Week this week and depending on your school, it is either school-wide or a big secret where teachers do silly things every day.

I discovered some schools have an “Anything-but-a-backpack Day” for students, and some of the compilations for these are pretty funny, though it is wicked hard to find the original source material. We think that AmericanHighShorts might have provided some of the clips in that video.

I also appreciated this little gem from Ali Khan about what the real bathroom route looks like for a boy.

Socrait Tip: Okay to Use Other Apps!

Socrait is your classroom companion. It listens to you while you teach and gives you back your data after class, giving your brain time to breathe during the day. After class, Socrait will draft your parent emails, create class summaries for absent students, help you remember where that class left off, and remember your spoken aloud to-dos.

We often get asked “What if I need to use another app on my phone while Socrait is running?” It’s no problem. Socrait will remain streaming until you stop it (or until we detect that you’ve forgotten to turn it off).

Support Teachers in the New Year

There’s a short window of opportunity to ensure behavior management remains sustainable before it piles up for teachers. Behavior tracking, reporting, and parent follow-up can eat into unpaid hours. Socrait can help you start the New Year with a system that listens and tracks it all for teachers, without additional work. Meet with us and learn about the special offers we have for 2026 to support your teachers!

If you’re interested or would like more details, please contact jim@socrait

Have Devices Failed Education?

Posted on December 8, 2025January 16, 2026 by Tarun Kumar

December 8, 2025

Have Devices Failed Education?

Soundbytes is a weekly newsletter that explores the reality of teaching in an AI world.

Subscribe to receive it in your inbox each week.

Stop Giving Task Lists. Start Giving Jobs.

One thing I’ve been wrestling with this year is how often students get “stuck” before they’ve even begun. I’d hand out what I thought was a clear, straightforward task – answer these 5 questions about a video we just watched – and a surprising number of students would stall out.

And this was despite using some best practices:

Before the video:

I use engaging questions to “hook” students on the topic.

During the video:

I pause it and ask them to guess what will happen next or to connect ideas.

After the video:

I give them access to rewatch the video or read the transcripts.

And still, about one minute after passing out the questions, I hear, “Dr. Andersen, can you help me? I don’t know the answer to this question.” After the fifth student, it’s tempting to chalk it up to learned helplessness.

The Mental Movie

But then I saw a session by Sarah Ward at the Pearson ADHD Virtual Conference. She said something that changed my perspective: “You’ve got to give them JOBS, not tasks,” and she explained why. Many students struggle because they lack a strong nonverbal working memory system — the “mental movie” that lets them picture what they’re about to do.

Self-regulation starts when students “mime the idea” in their minds, mentally rehearsing a future action like a “trial and error” run of a task. This mental image is generated by non-verbal working memory. Once the image is created, students can use self-talk (verbal working memory) to direct their actions. In other words, seeing the mental movie comes first, then narrating it to yourself.

Students with weak executive function skills often have reduced visual imagery and disorganized planning. They depend on lists, rubrics, or repeated instructions (verbal working memory) because they can’t picture the finished product. Without a visual anchor, words drift.

When Ward said, “If they can’t visualize the end, the task is just noise,” I felt like she had just summarized a third of my classroom. I finally saw why my detailed instructions were falling flat: those tasks were just fog—no mental movie, no visual anchor, no episodic memory to latch onto.

Suggested Resources:

Read: Ward’s paper: A Clinical Model for Developing Executive Function Skills
Watch: Her presentation on Youtube: Build Executive Function & Time Awareness in Students with Sarah Ward and Kristen Jacobsen.

The Video Comprehension Pain Point

One of the biggest pain points in my Technology & Society class is video comprehension. We watch a lot of real-world explainer videos—how dams work, how wastewater treatment happens, how cargo ports function. The content is fantastic. Yet, getting middle schoolers to remember anything from them sometimes feels like squeezing water out of a textbook.

After watching Ward’s session, I finally understood why: students aren’t watching the video with a visualized job in mind. They have no mental movie of what they are supposed to be doing while the video plays.

“Watch the video” is not a job. It’s an activity with no visible endpoint. Ward’s line — If they can’t visualize the end, they can’t begin — hit me pretty hard. It describes my video problem exactly.

The Shift to Visualizable Roles

As I design my class for next semester, I’m shifting video-watching into a set of visualizable roles, each with a concrete “look” and sample outputs. The goal is to anchor their attention in a job identity, not a vague instruction.

How We Watch Tech & Society Videos as Learners

Now, each role has a visual anchor and a finished “look.” When Ward says students need the mental movie before they can act, this is what she means. And now that I’ve seen it through her lens, I can’t unsee it.

My students don’t need more pausing. They don’t need more transcripts. They need a visible role while the video is playing.

And honestly, I think it’s going to help. When students know who they are during a video, they know what jobs they need to do while watching. It’s not Tik-Tok. It’s the work of learning.

We’re out of videos to watch for this semester, so I’ll let you know how it goes next semester!

Reading: Have Devices Failed Education?

Grab your favorite beverage and take 10-15 minutes and read for yourself: The EdTech Revolution has Failed, by Jared Cooney Horvath.

There are a few quotes in this week’s reading that stopped me in my tracks:

“...students spend 198 hours annually using digital devices for learning purposes, and 2,028 hours annually using those same exact tools to jump around between scatter-shot media content.”

“when using a laptop during class, students typically spend 38 minutes of every hour off-task”

“In order to effectively learn while using an unlocked, internet-connected multi-function digital device, students must expend a great deal of cognitive effort battling impulses that they’ve spent years honing - a battle they lose more often than not.”

As someone who teaches middle school every day, I didn’t need the research cited in this article to tell me that multitasking on devices might be a problem. I see it in real time, in the way my students struggle to tolerate silence, tab-switch to games the second you stop watching them, and flinch the moment they’re asked to do anything that requires sustained thinking. In the last decade, we rebuilt an educational system on the hope that devices would make learning easier. Instead, we handed kids a portal to constant stimulation and called it “engagement.”

I’m not anti-technology. I am building an edtech company that uses AI, for goodness’ sake. But the version of technology we put in children’s pockets — the slot-machine kind that rewires attention and wipes out their nonverbal working memory — has made the real work of learning harder, not easier.

When I read this article, I felt an uncomfortable alignment with what I see every day: students who are bright and curious, but who’ve been raised on tools that undermine the very cognitive skills that learning requires. It’s not their fault. It’s not their parents’ fault. It’s not the teachers’ fault. But it is the reality we have to name and change if we’re going to move forward.

This is exactly the gap Socrait is built to close. Not by adding more screens or more noise, but by using AI to remove the cognitive clutter that’s exhausting teachers. Socrait helps teachers to quantify the distraction patterns of students and then to remediate what they are finding. The Socrait technology steps back from being the center of attention and instead becomes the quiet infrastructure that supports real human teaching — capturing instructions, tracking to-dos, prompting praise, translating classroom moments into insight — we can help teachers to help students to return their attention to the actual work of thinking.

Inbox Serotonin

Last week I found a fun account on Instagram from teach.and.repeat with some excellent teacher humor. I’m not going to give away the jokes, so I’ll just leave you with some image teasers – follow the links for the fun videos.

The Turtles

The Penguins

The Octopus

Socrait Tip: True Believer

We hear from lots of teachers that tell us that Socrait has helped them to finally tackle that “unmanageable class.” Hear from one of them, Jessie Rezba, about her personal experience.

When Behavior Escalates, Data Calms

Posted on December 1, 2025January 16, 2026 by Tarun Kumar

December 1, 2025

When Behavior Escalates, Data Calms

Soundbytes is a weekly newsletter that explores the reality of teaching in an AI world.

Subscribe to receive it in your inbox each week.

It’s never a good day when a student’s behavior escalates to the point where they need to leave the classroom. Recently, I had a student whose behavior reached that point.

It’s the week before Thanksgiving, and the general feeling on our campus is that the middle schoolers are pretty squirrely right now. We’ve been seeing low-level behavior flare-ups across many classes. This particular student came in already more agitated than usual, and no amount of gentle nudging, firm corrections, or reminders to follow norms made a difference. I won’t go into details, but after 12 warnings about behavior in one class, I had to remove the student.

But that’s not really the story.

This was the first time I’d had a removal while also having Socrait running in the classroom—and that turned out to make a meaningful difference in how our staff responded as well as in how I felt afterwards.

As soon as we stepped into the hallway, the student began reframing the details of what happened. I don’t think they were intentionally lying. I genuinely don’t believe most middle schoolers remember what teachers say with any accuracy. 🙃After all, I know how many times I repeat every set of directions!

But, when a student insists on a version of events that’s wildly different from what we recall, it makes us question our memory. And over time, that repeated “gaslighting effect” can make teachers feel like we’re losing our grip on reality.

For the first time, though, I had a data record of my own voice—what I actually said. After class, I could review the sequence of warnings, read through how the escalation unfolded, reflect on where I could have paused or diffused things better, and pass along an accurate account to the next person in the chain.

You might wonder what that data looks like. Here’s an example using my own name with made-up warnings:

[WARNING] Please get to your seat Maria. Class started 2 minutes ago. Sit in your seat please. Thank you.
[WARNING] Alright, Maria. Let’s take the volume down to whisper, okay?
[WARNING] Maria, you’re talking over me. Please pay attention.
[WARNING] Maria, you can’t call other students names. That’s not part of our school culture, okay?
[WARNING] etc.

Imagine twelve of these. The key point: Socrait only collects the teacher’s voice, not the students’.

Socrait also generates a drafted summary email at the press of a button. Again, here’s a fictional example using my own name, but you can see how helpful this kind of neutral, factual summary can be:

I need to inform you about some behavioral concerns regarding Maria in class today. Maria was repeatedly out of their seat and spoke over me despite multiple warnings. Most concerningly, Maria called other students by names in class, which is against our school culture.

These behaviors significantly disrupt the learning environment and affect the well-being of other students. I had to remove Maria from class after numerous warnings. I would appreciate your support in discussing with Maria the importance of respectful communication and following classroom expectations. Please let me know if you would like to arrange a meeting to collaborate on strategies to support Maria in improving their behavior.

These autogenerated summaries have turned out to be incredibly helpful to pass along to other staff on campus who interact with the students (Principals, APs, Special Education staff, Behavioral Technicians) as well as parents..

In the past, situations like this would leave me replaying the incident over and over in my mind. I’d lose sleep. I’d worry about the student, worry about the other kids, and second-guess everything about my memory.

But not this time.

With access to the data record, it was very clear what happened. I could see exactly what I might adjust next time, and I could communicate precisely what occurred to the rest of the team. I was even able to identify the antecedent to the behavior – the student escalating as they ignored social cues from their classmates. With a clear look at the data, our team quickly developed a plan to support the student using supplemental curriculum focused on improving how they read social cues in the classroom.

I left the building without the usual swirl of self-doubt. For me, Socrait provided a level of mental calm before, during, and after the situation—calm that I hope more teachers can experience. Hopefully, the data will lead to better outcomes for the student — both in classroom behavior and in interactions with peers.

Why Students Go Straight to AI for Research Now

This week I wanted my middle schoolers to practice researching for a short 2–3 minute presentation without using AI. Each student has a different real-world topic, all tied to our unit on Transportation Logistics.

Managing a room full of middle schoolers researching different things is… an adventure. I’ve been scaffolding this all year, nudging them a little closer to independence each time. For this round, the “level up” was researching without a provided outline. And, because apparently I enjoy pain, I also decided our first day of research should be done without AI.

Do you have any idea how hard it is now to avoid AI when you do a Google search?

🚨 Stumbling block #1: AI summaries everywhere

Our students use iPads, so I had them start with a simple Google search. Immediately, every kid got a full page of nothing but Google’s AI summary.

I told them, “Scroll down to find websites.”

Blank stares.

“Websites? Google has websites?”

At this point, I felt ancient. These 6th-8th graders have already seen AI summaries for so long that they don’t remember Google as a place to find websites. So we scroll. And scroll. And… it’s mostly ads.

🚨 Stumbling block #2: Businesses dominate the first page

The top “results” are just companies bidding on keywords.

Google does surface good YouTube videos for many topics—but of course students can’t access YouTube without me taking those videos through the approval process (which takes several days).

🚨Stumbling block #3: Students can’t access YouTube for learning

So we move on to the few sites that look promising. Now we’re up against the iBoss filter. Suddenly, the room is popping with “This site is blocked!” alerts like digital popcorn. I encourage the kids to just move on and try other sites.

A few very unlucky souls have to press the “Next” button on Google results. They didn’t know it existed. Honestly, I’m not sure they believed it existed.

🚨 Stumbling block #4: School filters block many legitimate sites

Eventually, most students end up on the only consistently accessible site: Wikipedia.

And now I’m laughing at myself. Remember when teachers said “Never use Wikipedia”? My age is showing.

Still, I think: Great! Problem solved. Wikipedia it is.

But no. When Wikipedia loads, every kid gets a full-screen donation plea with only two choices: “Donate Now” or “Maybe Later.” I tell them to click “Maybe Later,” and then every kid gets a box demanding a phone number or email.

🚨 Stumbling block #5: Ads… so many ads… everywhere

We eventually discover that you can scroll below the Wikipedia donation ad, and … finally … reach actual content. It only took half the class period.

Honestly, I hadn’t realized how hard it had become to do basic web research on school devices without AI. Using AI to learn something new is now at least ten times easier than wading through ads, filters, videos you can’t watch, and pages that aren’t even useful anymore.

We shouldn’t be surprised that students use AI first for research.

If you were them, what would you do?

Inbox Serotonin

Luckily for me, the 6-7 brainrot trend is dying off at my school. But I’ve seen two brilliant 6-7 socials worthy of sharing. Hopefully these will make you laugh out loud too.

First, a brilliant TikTok short piece about a “friend in recovery” who gets tempted by fate from @the.johnsonbrothers.

Second, did you know there’s a new Disney film coming out called “What is 6 7?” There are actually a surprising number of fake 6 7 movie trailers on the Interwebs, but this Instagram “trailer” is the one that looked almost legit. Thanks to @platsa.plousa.gr for this little gem.

Socrait Tip: How Socrait Knows Who’s Absent

Socrait knows who’s present by listening for when the teacher directly addresses a student, but getting absence data is a little trickier. If you’d like Socrait to accurately track absences, you must say something out loud about the student being absent.

‘Write Your Name’ Should NOT Take 20 Minutes. But Here We Are.

Posted on November 17, 2025January 16, 2026 by Tarun Kumar

November 17, 2025

‘Write Your Name’ Should NOT Take 20 Minutes. But Here We Are.

Soundbytes is a weekly newsletter that explores the reality of teaching in an AI world.

Subscribe to receive it in your inbox each week.

An ADHD Expert Explained My Middle School Classroom

I teach an elective that spans 6-8th grades, and I participate in the “grade level” meetings for this age range with my teacher colleagues. One of the particular struggles of this age group is the “Work Pacing Gap” between the lowest and highest performers in the class.

On every single in-class task, I have students who follow directions, get right to work, and finish their assignments in the allotted time. During that same time period, another group of students has barely made it to writing their names on their papers. . . and that required coaxing. My colleagues and I have been commiserating all year because the tried-and-true methods (careful directions, nudging, frequent check-ins) don’t seem to be working with them.

Work Pacing Gap: the classroom phenomenon where students work at wildly different speeds on the same task — with some completing the assignment before others have even written their names. This gap affects classroom flow, transition timing, and teacher workload.

I was stumped and frustrated. Then, several weeks ago, I attended an excellent virtual conference about ADHD hosted by Pearson. The first session of the day lit up my mind with a bunch of new ideas for working with our middle schoolers. It was, quite literally, the best 45 minutes of PD I’ve had in 4 years. Just a warning – this is going to take me several newsletters to fully unpack, so you’d better subscribe if you want all my insights.

In the conference session, Beyond the Checklist: Building Independent Executive Functioning Skills in ADHD, Sarah Ward (co-founder of Cognitive Connections) discussed many of their principles for working with children with ADHD or any child struggling with executive functioning deficiencies.

I can’t share the Pearson conference session with you, but we found a similar session published on YouTube: Build Executive Function & Time Awareness in Students with Sarah Ward and Kristen Jacobsen | GPS

So, let’s dive into the basics. Students with strong executive function can see the end-product, envision the many steps along the way, and decide which parts to accomplish in the time they have. These students quickly get to work on an assignment and most likely finish it in the adequate time allotted for the activity. We could call this group in the Work Pace Gap the Early Finishers.

On the other hand, “waiting paralysis” keeps some students waiting for the perfect space, time, and ideas to start a project. These students struggle with awareness of time. We could call this group in the Work Pace Gap the Delayed Starters.

Executive function weaknesses are a core component of ADHD. What I immediately recognized was that it is not just the middle school kids diagnosed with ADHD who have this problem. Fully half my classes seem to be suffering from some kind of “waiting paralysis” in the face of assignments.

According to Ward and Jacobsen, students need help developing and extending their own “Time and Space Horizon” – how far they can see into the future, both time and space. The capacity to do this varies by age. By around age 11-12, students typically begin shifting from thinking in hours to thinking in days — but not all at the same pace. That’s under normal development. However, research is beginning to show that heavy use of fast-paced, instant-reward digital platforms is associated with shorter attention spans and weaker executive functioning. It’s early research, but the patterns in classrooms match what’s emerging in the science.

Our problem with middle schoolers runs deep. The 6th-8th graders I teach are immersed in a social world where they constantly play games and browse 15-second videos, receiving instant gratification on these platforms. Teachers know something is different. I suspect a strong correlation between the middle schoolers who can’t keep their devices shut and Delayed Starters on tasks. Compared to Roblox, there’s just too little reward between receiving the task and finishing it. The horizon is a distant 20 minutes, and the gap between blank and filled page is too great.

I’m curious about the connections between device-addiction and delayed starters, so I’m going to measure the correlation over this next week. I can use Socrait to track the number of times I have to warn students to close iPads or get back on task, then see if this data correlates with the list of unfinished or missing assignments. For those of you already using Socrait, you could try this too and let me know what you discover!

I’ve barely touched the surface of this topic and will say more about practical changes we’ve been making in middle school classrooms as a result of this ADHD session in a future newsletter. In the meantime, maybe catch up to me by watching Build Executive Function & Time Awareness in Students on YouTube?

Inbox Serotonin: Principal Prank

We have reached that point in the school year when everyone is tired and Thanksgiving is still more than a week away. What would you do if you were the principal and all the teachers texted in an absence on the same morning? Well, here’s what happened when teachers pranked their “very supportive” principal. I don’t know who wrote the excuses, but they sure were creative! Thanks to washington.elemen8 for this one.

Field Notes: You’ve been waiting for this one

I know there was something I needed to do today. What was it? Oh wait, let me check my Socrait Dashboard …

Since the beginning of Socrait, one of the top features teachers have asked for is a to-do list of all the things they remind themselves about in class. We are delighted to announce a new feature: Reminders!

Like all of our features, you don’t have to say or do anything special to activate a reminder. We’ve built the agents to look for anything you might want to be reminded about – from assignment changes to random tasks. Certainly, if there is something you DO want to go on a task list, just say something like:

“I need to remember to separate Nathan and Liam on the seating chart.”

“I’ll move the assignment deadline to Friday”

“I can’t forget to bring in gravel for the lab tomorrow”

We’ll turn your teacher’s voice into a nice list of to-dos – each associated with the proper class.

Socrait Tip: Loud classrooms? No Problem

Socrait is your classroom companion. It listens to you while you teach and gives you back your data after class, allowing your brain time to breathe during the day. After class, Socrait will draft your parent emails, create class summaries for absent students, help you remember where that class left off, and remember your spoken aloud to-dos.

On days when you know that the classroom will be noisy – days like simulations, labs, or project work, – make sure that you’ve got your phone pouch or a microphone on. As long as the mic is close to your mouth, Socrait will catch your teacher’s voice as you walk around the classroom and talk to students. Need a phone pouch?

About the author:

Dr. Maria Andersen has been an educator for 30 years in both Higher Ed and K-12 teaching a variety of subjects (math, chemistry, business, ELL, technology, pre-service teachers). She has given hundreds of workshops and keynotes about active learning, curriculum redesign, remote and online learning, effective use of technology, and using AI for teaching & learning. Andersen teaches middle schoolers at a charter school in Utah. She was also the CEO of Coursetune and is currently the CEO of Socrait.

Students Can’t Stay Seated – Lean In?

Posted on November 10, 2025January 16, 2026 by Tarun Kumar

November 10, 2025

Students Can’t Stay Seated - Lean In?

Soundbytes is a weekly newsletter that explores the reality of teaching in an AI world.

Subscribe to receive it in your inbox each week.

Field Notes: Students can’t stay seated

We promised to give you the rest of the story about classroom warning data this week and here it is. The #2 reason teachers are warning students in the classroom is because they aren’t staying in their seats and aren’t facing forward (or paying attention). This fidgety need to “do something” might be especially true this year, when many states have forbidden phone use in schools and secondary students might be coping with being without a device for the first time.

One common cause of excessive fidgeting or leaving one’s seat is ADHD. Roughly 1 in 9 U.S. children (about 11%) are diagnosed with ADHD, and many continue to have symptoms into adolescence. A hallmark of ADHD is difficulty sitting still – the diagnostic criteria include “often fidgets with or taps hands or feet, or squirms in seat” and “often leaves seat in situations when remaining seated is expected.”

Some are restless because their brains are overwhelmed or under-stimulated by the environment around them. For some, the classroom lights are too bright, the noise too sharp, or the chair too scratchy to focus for long. For others, the opposite is true—they crave more input. These are the students who tap, bounce, rock, or get up just to feel something. What looks like “off-task” behavior can actually be a nervous system searching for balance. You might consider buying a classroom set of chair bands to put “movement” into the sitting position and reduce the amount of chair-tipping and moving around the room.

Many of these kids have sensory processing differences, and some are also navigating ADHD or autism. Their behavior isn’t about disrespect. It’s their body’s way of saying the environment is too much, or not enough, for their system to manage. When we understand that, it changes how we see everything from the squirming student in the back row to the one pacing at the edge of the room.

Keeping students seated is a whole lot easier when they’re actually interested in what’s happening. If we want fewer reminders to “sit down and face forward,” we have to design lessons students don’t want to walk away from. That means teaching in ways that are interactive, unpredictable, and built around curiosity. Instead of fighting short attention spans, we can work with how students’ brains naturally seek stimulation.

Break up long stretches of talk with a quick question, a short discussion, or a poll. Use humor or ask for opinions when the chatter starts—it’s often a sign they want in on the conversation.

Start class with something that hooks them: a surprising demo, a weird photo, a mystery to solve.

Movement can help too. Let students rotate through problem stations, do gallery walks, or stand for a think-pair-share. When movement is part of learning, it stops being a behavior problem. Project-based learning, labs, role-plays, and creative games all get students doing instead of just watching.

A bored teen will make their own excitement, but an engaged teen will stay put because they don’t want to miss what happens next. The real secret to keeping students seated isn’t control, it’s curiosity.

Use AI to Create Movement in the Classroom

We know that getting students up and moving is important for learning and attention, but it’s not always easy to brainstorm an activity that involves movement in the classroom. Here’s one of those places where I love using AI to help me come up with ideas.

I’ve built multiple physical simulations for complex topics using AI for assistance. For example, last month my students simulated being a power grid, each with a different role. I had the seed for the idea last year, but I used AI to help me brainstorm the details of the simulation, to write the role cards, and to help me balance the math in the simulation so that it ran smoothly.

If you don’t have any ideas for what to do, that’s fine too. Here’s a prompt to get started on any set of standards or learning objectives:

Prompt: Help me think of movement-based activities that I could do to help my [insert grade/level] students learn – things like problem stations, gallery walks, think-pair-shares, creative games, simulations, short lab-like activities, or role-plays. Give me at least 5 ideas. The learning objectives/standards for the lesson are: [fill this in]

Now, don’t stop here. If you like one of the ideas, then go deeper on that one, adding your own thoughts – tell the AI what classroom materials you have that might help with the activity and ask it to go deeper into the development of that one activity.

Working with an AI is like having a really creative and knowledgeable TA with no practical experience whatsoever. The ideas will be good, but the execution of those ideas will require your classroom experience. Push back on ideas, tell the AI when it’s wrong and why and ask it to try again.

Inbox Serotonin

I’m not usually a fan of AI-created videos, but I have to say that the Basin Creek Retirement Village account on Instagram is just nailing it with their collection of punny senior Halloween costumes! My favorite? A waste of time.

Also a little good natured poking fun at admins from made2teachtc.

What 1,000 Teacher Voices Reveal About Classrooms In The Age of AI

Posted on November 6, 2025January 16, 2026 by Tarun Kumar

November 6, 2025

What 1,000 Teacher Voices Reveal About Classrooms In The Age of AI

Soundbytes is a weekly newsletter that explores the reality of teaching in an AI world.

Subscribe to receive it in your inbox each week.

Welcome to SoundBytes! A weekly newsletter about the realities of teaching in the AI world. SoundBytes is written by me, Maria Andersen, I’ve been a teacher and science-of-learning enthusiast for 20 years in both K12 and Higher Ed. These days, I teach middle school at Beehive Science & Technology Academy while also co-founding Socrait (a new voice-based class companion for teachers).

Why are Teachers Overwhelmed?

At Socrait, we periodically evaluate the types of warnings we collect from teacher voices. In this case, we looked at a representative sample of 1,000 teacher warnings in classrooms and then human-categorized the warnings – funny that we have to say that now, huh? This week we’re looking at the biggest category, 30% of the data, warnings about talking in class or not listening.

If we could reduce warnings for students who need to stop talking and listen, we could make a serious dent in the “warning” interruptions to learning. Still, it’s worth remembering that not all talking is bad. In fact, when it’s guided and purposeful, student conversation can be a powerful part of learning. The real challenge is helping students understand when and how to talk productively.

In my own classroom, I’ve found that starting with five minutes of boardwork at the beginning of class makes a huge difference. My middle schoolers stand up, move around, and get a quick dose of social time while they work. By the time they sit down, they’ve burned off some energy (and a little gossip) and are much more ready to focus.

If you’re looking for more ways to reduce off-topic chatter while keeping students engaged, here some great resources to spark ideas and strategies for managing classroom talking:

Trouble Controlling Chatter in Classroom from Positive Discipline
How to Manage Constant Chatter in Your Classroom from Teach 4 the Heart
25 Chatty Class Classroom Management Strategies for Overly Talkative Students from Miss Giraffe’s Class
Why You Should Allow Your Students To Socialize In Class from Smart Classroom Management
Research-Based Tips for Optimal Seating Arrangements from Edutopia

Want to guess the next largest warnings category? We’ll share more in next week’s newsletter!
[insert survey: Take a guess at what gets 21% of classroom warnings from teachers.

Disrespect to Others or Rules, Technology Infraction, Not Participating, Disrupting Class, Being Properly Seated]

Teachers need to “feel seen” before Adapting to AI

As a middle school teacher, I’ve found myself increasingly frustrated with the rise of schoolslop, the flood of AI-generated submitted student work that competes with authentic student work and wastes my time and the student’s potential to learn.

When I first read this two-page article from David Wiley, Asking a More Productive Question about AI and Assessment, I felt seen. It gives teachers the language to describe what’s happening to the old reality they are mourning without jumping straight to words like “cheating.” I’ve used this article to kick off multiple PDs on AI in Education and it opens space to talk about the real mourning that teachers are doing for “the way it used to be” with better words for their frustration. Once this reality is recognized and we have better words to discuss it, it’s easier to confront the reality that this genie is not going back into the bottle. We are in a new “messy middle” in education and it might be years before we truly adjust to it.

This article is gold. Take 5 minutes ⏲️from your hectic day, grab your favorite beverage ☕, and just slow down 🦥to read this one. And then pass it to a teacher who is struggling with the new AI reality in education.

Inbox Serotonin

Shoutout to mamakim on TikTok who made me laugh out loud with this post about Introverts, Extroverts, and Crazyverts. I am now self-identifying as a Crazyvert.

Socrait Tip: It’s okay to take a call

Socrait is your voice-based classroom companion. It listens while you teach and gives back your data after class, in a confidential, fully secure manner, giving your brain time to breathe during the day. After class, Socrait can draft your parent emails, create class summaries for absent students, help you remember where each class left off, and remember your spoken aloud to-dos. See Socrait in action here!

Tip: When you’re using Socrait, a phone call can come through to your device. And you can even answer it! Doing this will interrupt Socrait’s streaming. When your call is over, make sure to restart the streaming.

Curb your Grading Procrastination with HOGA

Inbox Serotonin

New Year, New Socrait Features!

With AI, Teachers Need to Make the Thinking Visible

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Who does the Socrait data belong to?

Inbox Serotonin

Socrait Tip: Okay to Use Other Apps!

Support Teachers in the New Year

Have Devices Failed Education?

Stop Giving Task Lists. Start Giving Jobs.

Before the video:

During the video:

After the video:

The Mental Movie

The Video Comprehension Pain Point

The Shift to Visualizable Roles

How We Watch Tech & Society Videos as Learners

Curious Thinkers (all students)

Purpose:

What does this look like?

Engineer (one student in each group)

Purpose:

What does this look like?

Historian (one student in each group)

Purpose:

What does this look like?

Sociologist (one student in each group)

Purpose:

What does this look like?

Collaborators (group of 3 students)

Purpose:

What does this look like?

Reading: Have Devices Failed Education?

Inbox Serotonin

Socrait Tip: True Believer

When Behavior Escalates, Data Calms

Why Students Go Straight to AI for Research Now

🚨 Stumbling block #1: AI summaries everywhere

🚨 Stumbling block #2: Businesses dominate the first page

🚨Stumbling block #3: Students can’t access YouTube for learning

🚨 Stumbling block #4: School filters block many legitimate sites

🚨 Stumbling block #5: Ads… so many ads… everywhere

Inbox Serotonin

Socrait Tip: How Socrait Knows Who’s Absent

‘Write Your Name’ Should NOT Take 20 Minutes. But Here We Are.

An ADHD Expert Explained My Middle School Classroom

Inbox Serotonin: Principal Prank

Field Notes: You’ve been waiting for this one

Socrait Tip: Loud classrooms? No Problem

About the author:

Students Can’t Stay Seated - Lean In?

Field Notes: Students can’t stay seated

Use AI to Create Movement in the Classroom

Inbox Serotonin

What 1,000 Teacher Voices Reveal About Classrooms In The Age of AI

Why are Teachers Overwhelmed?

Teachers need to “feel seen” before Adapting to AI

Inbox Serotonin

Socrait Tip: It’s okay to take a call

Patent Pending 63/753,786

Soundbytes is a weekly newsletter