Frequently Asked Questions

ThinkingEngine is an AI-powered Socratic dialogue platform built for K-12 classrooms. Each session poses a thought-provoking question, then scaffolds a back-and-forth conversation in which the student reasons through the answer while an AI dialogue partner probes assumptions, asks for evidence, and challenges weak claims.

Teachers author or pick the topic, share a join code with the class, and review a reasoning report once students finish. The goal is to make reasoning visible and teachable, not to grade right-or-wrong answers.

ThinkingEngine is designed for classroom teachers in grades 4-12 across subjects — English, social studies, science, philosophy, and select electives. It fits anyone who wants students to defend claims with reasons and evidence rather than recite facts.

School librarians, instructional coaches, and district curriculum leads also use it for small-group discussion and professional learning. Students do not need accounts — they join with a teacher-issued code from any modern browser.

Most teachers run their first dialogue within ten minutes. Sign up at /teacher, create or pick a topic, generate a join code, and share it with the class. Students join from any device with a six-character code and a first name or pseudonym.

If you want richer topics, you can paste in curriculum text and let the topic-generator draft Socratic questions for you, or browse the built-in fallacy-hunting templates. No training, install, or IT setup required.

A student opens a join code, sees the topic, and types a first response to the opening question. The AI replies in character — pushing back on assumptions, asking follow-ups, and naming the reasoning moves the student is using.

The conversation continues turn by turn until the student signals completion or the time cap is reached. Most sessions take 10-20 minutes and produce a transcript of 6-12 exchanges.

Each completed dialogue produces a per-student reasoning report with sub-scores for claim clarity, evidence use, consideration of alternatives, and responsiveness to challenges. The full rubric lives at /scoring-guide.

Reports come back to your teacher dashboard with quotes from the transcript, so feedback is anchored in what the student actually wrote. Teachers can override any score and add private notes for next steps.

No — ThinkingEngine is one segment in a lesson, typically 15-20 minutes, not a whole-class replacement. It works best as a warm-up, an exit ticket, or the discussion portion of a longer lesson where students normally debate.

Many teachers use it for preview before a Socratic seminar, or as a revision step after an essay draft. You bring the curriculum; we provide the structured reasoning practice that often gets squeezed out of a busy week.

No. We use Anthropic for dialogue generation under their API terms, which prohibit using API inputs or outputs for model training. Student transcripts are not shared with any third party for training purposes.

Full details — including retention windows, subprocessors, FERPA alignment, and parent-request workflows — are in our /data-privacy and /security pages.

The free plan includes up to 30 student dialogue sessions per month, the full built-in topic library, and access to the reasoning report dashboard. You can author unlimited custom topics and reuse them term over term.

There is no trial clock on the free plan. When your classroom grows past 30 sessions a month, the Pro plan unlocks unlimited dialogues, exportable gradebook reports, and priority email support — see /pricing for the side-by-side comparison.

Upgrades happen from your teacher dashboard under Account → Plan. Pro is billed monthly or yearly per teacher and takes effect immediately; unused free tier sessions do not roll over.

You can cancel anytime from the same screen — your account downgrades at the end of the current billing period and your existing dialogues, topics, and reports remain visible.

Yes. We offer site and district licenses with a single sign-on option, a shared topic library across teachers, and a district-level reporting view. Pricing scales with teacher count and we work with procurement timelines.

Email hello@thinkingengine.org with your district size and roll-out window, and we will send a scoped quote within two business days.