I just got back from San Francisco, and I’m more convinced than ever that we are in a cognition crisis. When I told the keynote audience that AI companions are evil, I wasn't being hyperbolic—I was protecting my students. If we don't force our students to move away from the 'magic button' and back into the Socratic circle, we are losing their ability to think. Today, I'm sharing the iterative updates to the Mastery Flip that are helping me win that battle every day in room 229
Key Segments:
The Socratic Wall: Why the Mastery Viva is the only “shield” that protects a student’s thinking from being offloaded to a bot.
The Logistics of 30+ Students: A breakdown of the “Clumping” strategy—how to conduct a group Viva for three students in three minutes without losing rigor.
The ‘Pro-Tip’ Signature: Why checking notes and signing them at the door ensures students actually watched the video and didn’t just copy a friend’s work.
Ironman Cognition: Using the metaphor of an Ironman triathlon to explain why “doing hard things” is the only true way to build student self-esteem
You may also want to listen to episode #60 - My Keynote at the Teaching Generation AI-Z conference
A Note for Dr. David Eagleman
David, I heard you speak for the first time this weekend in San Francisco, and while your insights on the brain are fascinating, I have to respectfully push back on one point. I’m not looking for a fight, but as a teacher of 40 years, I see a different reality on the front lines: AI companion ‘sandboxes’ are short-circuiting the very human connections our students were designed for.
In my classroom, I’m fighting this cognition crisis by bringing back the Socratic circle, what I call the Mastery Viva . I’d love to have a robust dialogue with you on the podcast about why ‘friction’ and human connection are the true engines of a thriving brain. Let’s talk about the coin of the new realm
