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Professional Development Curriculum
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ProofofWork

Proof of Work

AI did not create bad assignments. It revealed them.

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Overview

Assessment redesign
for the AI era.

The Proof of Work Framework is a five-module professional development curriculum for K-12 educators. It does not teach teachers to lock or proctor assessments. It teaches them to design work that requires genuine thinking.

AI exposed it: assignments a language model can complete were not asking for much thinking. POW helps educators see this clearly and redesign from that honest starting point.

The Framework Premise
“An assignment that a language model can complete is an assignment that doesn’t require thinking.”
The fix isn’t to ban AI. The fix is to design assignments that demand what AI cannot provide: personal experience, perspective, process, and accountability for your own ideas.
Curriculum

Five modules. One shift.

01
Diagnose
Activity: Task Autopsy
Educators map their own assignments using a two-column diagnostic — Thinking Required vs. Compliance Features — to identify exactly where AI can bypass learning and where cognition is invisible. The opening activity that changes how teachers see their own work.
02
Redesign
Three Moves
Apply three concrete redesign moves that make tasks AI-resilient — anchoring work to personal experience, visible process, and social accountability. Educators leave with redesigned assignments ready to use.
03
Transparency
Disclosure Frameworks
Build student AI vocabulary and classroom disclosure norms. Educators get practical frameworks for talking about AI honestly with students — and tools for building a culture where transparency is the default.
04
Assess & Respond
Rubrics That Reward Thinking
Design rubrics that reward visible thinking rather than surface compliance. This module addresses how to assess redesigned tasks in ways that are defensible, equitable, and actually measure what they claim to measure.
05
Sustain
Stakeholder Communication & PLC Structures
How to communicate the framework to parents, administrators, and school boards. Includes PLC structures for ongoing calibration, department-level adoption protocols, and documentation for board policy alignment.
Design Principles

What makes an assignment AI-resilient?

Anchored in Personal Experience
Tasks that require the student to draw on their own life, relationships, or direct observations cannot be replicated by a model trained on other people’s experience.
Requiring Live Performance
Oral defenses, in-class demonstrations, Socratic seminars, and structured dialogue demand presence. AI can’t show up.
Process-Visible
Assignments that require the student to show their thinking over time — drafts, revisions, reflections — reveal cognition that a finished product alone cannot.
Socially Accountable
When peers depend on your contribution, you are accountable in a way that private AI use cannot address. Collaborative, interdependent tasks create natural resilience.
Locally Specific
Tasks tied to local data, events, people, or contexts require knowledge that general-purpose AI does not have and cannot fabricate convincingly.
Genuinely High Stakes
When students know their ideas will be examined, presented, or challenged publicly, the cost of outsourcing the thinking rises accordingly.
Who It’s For

Built for the educator in the room.

Teachers
Any K-12 teacher seeking to redesign assignments that require genuine thinking. POW meets educators where they are — no technology background required.
Instructional Coaches
Coaches leading building-level or district-level PD on assessment design. POW provides a structured curriculum with facilitation guides and participant materials.
Curriculum Directors
District leaders building systemic capacity for AI-resilient assessment. POW scales from individual classrooms to full-district PD calendars.
OSIS 2026 · Oklahoma · June
Were you in the room?

You just ran a Task Autopsy. That was the first activity inside Module 1 of a five-module framework called Proof of Work. Everything on this page is yours — the materials, the framework, the next steps. No gate, no login. Take what you need and come back when you're ready for more.

POW
The Line That Stopped the Room
“AI didn’t create bad assignments.
It revealed them.”

Ken Thompson, M.Ed. — Task Autopsy, OSIS 2026

The Diagnostic Framework

Task Autopsy: Two Columns.

Every assignment can be mapped. One column is where cognition happens. The other is everything else. The problem is we usually only grade the other one.

Thinking Required
Where does cognition actually happen?
  • →Forming claims and arguments
  • →Selecting and interpreting evidence
  • →Evaluating sources and credibility
  • →Making and defending judgments
  • →Synthesizing across sources or ideas
  • →Anticipating counterarguments
Compliance Features
Formatting, structure, surface-level requirements
  • –Five-paragraph format
  • –Word count requirements
  • –MLA / APA / Chicago formatting
  • –Grammar and spelling
  • –Citation style and format
  • –Submission deadlines and platforms

Both columns matter. But only one requires the student to think. AI can handle the other one without breaking a sweat.

Worked Example from the Session

Literary Analysis Essay — 9th Grade ELA

Thinking Required
  • Forming a defensible claim about theme
  • Selecting evidence that supports reasoning
  • Interpreting how evidence connects to claim
  • Anticipating counterarguments
  • Synthesizing across scenes
Compliance Features
  • Five-paragraph structure
  • MLA formatting
  • Word count (750 words)
  • Grammar and spelling
  • Minimum 3 quotes
The Problem: All thinking is invisible. We only see polished output. AI can generate this without the student doing any interpretation.
Session Materials

Everything from the room. Open access.

These are the same materials distributed at OSIS 2026. Download them, use them, share them with a colleague who wasn't there.

Presentation Slides
All 16 slides from the session · PPTX
Participant Workbook
Worksheet, worked example, cognitive verbs · DOCX
Sample Assignments
8 cross-curricular practice assignments · DOCX
Master Facilitator Guide
Full script & facilitation notes · For presenters · DOCX
You saw Module 1 of 5

The Task Autopsy was the front door.

Diagnosing the problem is only the beginning. The full Proof of Work Framework walks you all the way through redesigning, building transparency, assessing thinking, and making the shift stick.

01 · You Were Here
Diagnose
Task Autopsy
02 · Coming
Redesign
Three Moves
03 · Coming
Transparency
Disclosure Frameworks
04 · Coming
Assess
Rubrics for Thinking
05 · Coming
Sustain
PLC Structures
Bring the Full Framework to Your District

Bring POW to your district.

Available as a full five-module series, individual modules, or facilitated workshop format. Contact us to discuss what fits your PD calendar.

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