About this project

Where Show Your Work came from

A parent's frustration, a consulting background, and a system that shouldn't have taken this long to exist.

Mary Debus

Founder, Show Your Work | Principal Consultant, sySTEMary

I'm a grant strategy and funding operations consultant based in Columbus, Ohio. My consulting practice, sySTEMary, works with nonprofits, research organizations, and mission-driven companies on funding strategy, communications, and program framing.

I built Show Your Work as a parent, not a teacher. I watched my kid struggle with tasks that weren't designed for how their brain works, and I got frustrated. Not at my child, not at the teacher, but at the gap between what research says about attention and executive function, and what ends up in front of students every day.

I have a background in systems thinking and communications. So I built tools. Free ones, designed to be used in the next class period, not filed away for later.

systemary.consulting | mary@systemary.consulting | LinkedIn

What this system is

Show Your Work is an original tool suite developed in 2026. Each tool follows the same pattern: a teacher describes a real classroom situation, the tool analyzes it against frameworks drawn from ADHD and executive function research, and returns a structured output the teacher can use in the next class period.

The tools are connected. The Attention Load Checker identifies when a task is too heavy. The Note-Taking Fixer restructures how information is captured. The Assignment Directions Rewriter removes ambiguity before students see the task. The Task Start Tool addresses initiation when a student is already stuck. The Behavior Interpretation Tool helps distinguish processing breakdowns from motivation problems. The Teacher Language Converter simplifies verbal delivery in real time.

Together they move from identify to fix, which is the core logic of the whole system.

The research foundation

These tools are built on published research, not trends. The two primary sources are:

Russell A. Barkley, Ph.D. One of the most cited researchers in the field of ADHD and executive function. Barkley's model of ADHD as a disorder of executive self-regulation, with working memory and behavioral inhibition at its core, is the conceptual backbone of how these tools evaluate task demands.

Barkley, R.A. (1997). Behavioral inhibition, sustained attention, and executive functions. Psychological Bulletin, 121(1), 65-94. | Barkley, R.A. (2012). Executive Functions. Guilford Press.

William B. Benninger, Ph.D. Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology at Ohio State University with over thirty years of clinical experience treating ADHD in children and adolescents. His research on working memory training and his work helping educators understand processing-based behavior inform the behavioral and cognitive frameworks used here.

Beck, S.J., Hanson, C.A., Puffenberger, S.S., Benninger, K.L., & Benninger, W.B. (2010). A controlled trial of working memory training for children and adolescents with ADHD. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 39(6), 825-836.

Cognitive load theory. Developed by John Sweller, this framework describes the limits of working memory and how task design either respects or exceeds those limits. Split attention, element interactivity, and redundancy are all factors the Attention Load Checker evaluates.

Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving. Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257-285.

When this was built

Show Your Work launched in March 2026. All six tools were conceived, designed, and deployed at that time: the Attention Load Checker, Note-Taking Fixer, Assignment Directions Rewriter, Task Start Tool, Behavior Interpretation Tool, and Teacher Language Converter. Additional tools are in development.

Intellectual property

The Show Your Work tool system, including the tool architecture, output structures, prompt frameworks, scoring logic, and written content, is original work created by Mary Debus in 2026. All content is protected by copyright.

See the Terms of Use for full details on permitted and prohibited uses.

Questions or feedback

If you're a teacher, parent, school, or district interested in these tools, or if you have thoughts on what would make them more useful, get in touch.

mary@systemary.consulting