Show Your Work gives teachers structured tools to evaluate classroom tasks, reduce cognitive overload, and rebuild assignments so more students can start, stay with, and finish them.
Evaluate how much a task demands from working memory and attention, then show exactly where it breaks down and how to fix it.
K-8 teachers, special education staff, intervention specialists, and school support teams working with students who struggle with attention and executive function.
These tools don't diagnose students. They diagnose tasks. The student isn't the problem to solve.
When a student shuts down, acts out, or stares at a blank page, the instinct is to look at the student. What's wrong with them? Are they trying? Do they care?
The research points somewhere else. Many students who struggle in class are experiencing cognitive overload — the task is asking for more than their working memory and attention systems can give at one time. That's not a character flaw. It's a mismatch between task design and how certain brains process information.
Dr. Russell Barkley, one of the leading researchers on ADHD and executive function, describes the core challenge clearly: students with ADHD don't have a deficit in knowing what to do. They have a deficit in doing what they know, particularly when tasks require holding information in mind, switching between demands, or sustaining effort without immediate feedback.
Barkley, R.A. (2012). Executive Functions: What They Are, How They Work, and Why They Evolved. Guilford Press.
Dr. William Benninger, a clinical psychologist and adjunct professor at Ohio State University with over thirty years of experience treating ADHD, has spent his career helping educators understand that what looks like defiance or laziness is often a processing breakdown. The fix isn't more pressure. It's better task design.
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.
Show Your Work was built on this foundation. The tools here don't treat students as the variable to fix. They treat the task as the variable.
Students with ADHD show consistent deficits in working memory — the system responsible for holding and using information while completing a task. Multi-step instructions, split-attention demands, and fast-paced delivery all hit this system hardest.
Tasks that require students to do two things at once — listen and write, read and answer, watch and take notes — create split-attention demands that significantly increase cognitive load, especially for students with executive function challenges.
When tasks are structured to reduce unnecessary cognitive demands — through chunking, visual supports, and reduced simultaneous processing — students with attention challenges show meaningful improvement in completion and comprehension.
Barkley emphasizes that support needs to happen where and when the student is struggling, not after the fact. Redesigning the task in the moment is one of the most direct forms of intervention available to teachers.
Each tool focuses on a single classroom challenge. Enter a real situation and get a structured output you can use immediately.
Evaluate how much a classroom task demands from student attention and working memory. Get a score, a risk level, and specific fixes you can apply in under two minutes.
Turn overloaded note-taking tasks into formats students can use. Get a student version, guided notes, what to listen for, and teacher delivery fixes.
Paste your assignment directions and get a version students with attention and working memory challenges can follow. Chunked, sequenced, and clear.
Describe a behavior you're seeing in the classroom. Get a structured read on whether it's a processing breakdown, a skill gap, or something else — and what to try first.
For students who can't get started. Identify why initiation is breaking down and get a simple structure that helps the student take the first step.
Paste what you said or planned to say. Get a version that reduces processing demands, removes ambiguity, and gives students a clearer path forward.
No training required. No jargon. Describe what's happening and the tool does the analysis.
Type in what you assigned, what you said, or what behavior you're seeing. Real classroom language works fine.
The tool adjusts its analysis based on developmental expectations for your grade band.
A score, an explanation of what's happening, and specific fixes you can use immediately.
Every output is written to be used in the next class period, not filed away for later.
K-8 teachers who have students struggling with attention, task completion, or following directions and want practical tools that don't require extra training.
Specialists supporting students with IEPs and 504 plans who need structured ways to evaluate and adjust classroom tasks for their caseloads.
Reading and math interventionists where task design needs to be modified to reduce barriers to the actual skill being taught.
School psychologists, counselors, and instructional coaches looking for structured tools to help teachers understand cognitive load and task design.
These tools are built on decades of research into ADHD, executive function, and how task design affects learning.
One of the most cited researchers in the field of ADHD and executive function. Barkley's work establishes that ADHD is fundamentally a disorder of executive self-regulation, with working memory and behavioral inhibition at its core. His research directly informs how these tools evaluate task demands.
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology at Ohio State University and clinician with over thirty years treating ADHD in children, adolescents, and adults. His research on working memory training for students with ADHD demonstrates that structured, targeted interventions improve executive functioning and attention symptoms.
The framework behind the Attention Load Checker comes from cognitive load theory, which describes the limits of working memory and how task design either respects or exceeds those limits. Split attention, redundancy, and element interactivity are all load factors the tools evaluate.
Barkley's research emphasizes that students with ADHD benefit most from support delivered at the exact moment and place where they're struggling — not in isolated training sessions. These tools are designed to produce outputs teachers can use in the next class period, not a week from now.
If you're a teacher, school, or district interested in these tools — or if you have feedback on what would make them more useful in your classroom — send a note.