Vol. I · No. 1 · Formative Insight
WHIT Talk with WHIT
Coming Soon AI-powered academic conversations for formative insight

Hear how students actually think.

Most assessments show teachers what students got right or wrong. Very few help teachers understand how students are thinking, where confusion begins, and what misconception is getting in the way. Talk with WHIT is built to change that.

Teacher-led. Student-voiced. Instruction-focused.
§ 01 — The Shift

The heart of this feature is not AI asking questions. It is AI interpreting verbal evidence in a structured, teacher-centered way. The conversation gathers evidence. The analysis creates insight.

From

“Did the student get it right?”

Toward

“What does this student understand — and where does the confusion begin?”

§ 02 — The Output

Teachers will not just receive a score.
They will see the thinking.

i.

Immediate understanding

What the student grasped right away — before any prompting.

ii.

Prompted understanding

Where the student needed a nudge, and how their thinking moved once it came.

iii.

Likely misconceptions

Specific confusions flagged from the transcript, tied to the moments they surfaced.

iv.

Class patterns

What's shared across the room and what belongs to one or two students.

v.

Next instructional moves

Suggested actions for tomorrow — reteach, small group, extend, or leave be.

§ 03 — A Glimpse

Evidence of thinking, not a verbal exam.

Talk with WHIT is not a high-stakes oral test. It's assessment for learning — a short, structured conversation that surfaces reasoning teachers can act on the next morning.

Below, a lightly annotated excerpt: moments of reasoning are highlighted, margin notes show what WHIT flagged for the teacher.

WHIT
Walk me through your claim about the New Deal. What's the strongest piece of evidence for it? 00:14
Student
Um… the TVA, because it gave people jobs? And electricity. But I'm not sure if that counts as economic recovery or more like a social thing. 00:22
Initial uncertainty — student can name the evidence but not classify it.
WHIT
That hesitation is useful — tell me why you're pulled between the two. 00:41
Student
Because… recovery is about fixing the economy, but the TVA felt more like helping people live better. I think maybe it's both? The jobs part is recovery, the electricity part is the other one. 00:46
Understanding emerged after a single prompt — flag as prompted mastery, not initial.
§ 04 — Why it holds up

Grounded in research, not novelty.

Talk with WHIT is not a generic chatbot wearing a classroom costume. It is shaped by four research-informed principles that give it real instructional credibility — and keep the teacher at the center of every decision.

Formative assessment.

Designed to reveal student thinking in ways teachers can use immediately — actionable evidence, not point totals.

Black & Wiliam · WestEd

Assessment conversations.

Eliciting student thinking, recognizing what the student means, and using that to guide the next instructional move.

Ruiz-Primo & Furtak

Learning through talk.

Dialogic teaching research shows that classroom talk deepens understanding across subjects — assessment through talk is legitimate and powerful.

Alexander · Mercer

Responsible AI design.

Aimed at valid educational purposes, human oversight, and explainable outputs — supporting teacher judgment, never replacing it.

U.S. Dept. of Education

Be there when it opens.

Talk with WHIT is in the workshop. Drop your email and we'll write you the moment it's ready for the classroom.

We'll only email you about Talk with WHIT. No spam, no lists.