Teach thinking, not just content
The Dojo gives your students a structured environment to practice metacognition and critical thinking with AI — while respecting their privacy.
The Challenge You're Facing
AI as a Shortcut
Students use AI to get answers without engaging with the material. Learning suffers even as outputs improve.
Hard to Assess Process
You can evaluate final work, but it's difficult to see whether students actually thought through problems or just accepted AI suggestions.
Skills That Transfer
Content knowledge fades. You want students to develop thinking skills they'll use for the rest of their careers.
How the Dojo Helps
The Dojo creates friction where friction helps learning, while still letting students leverage AI's capabilities.
Structured Metacognition
The Sensei guides students through their thinking process with questions. Students practice awareness of how they're approaching problems.
- ✓UMPIRE framework for problem-solving stages
- ✓3Cs checkpoint for decisions
- ✓DIKW pyramid for knowledge depth
Cognitive Challenges
Sparring Partners challenge different aspects of thinking — ensuring students can't passively accept AI outputs.
- ✓The Framer: Problem definition
- ✓The Auditor: Decision rigor
- ✓The Challenger: Assumption testing
- ✓The Reflector: Self-assessment
Process Visibility
Students can generate summaries of their sessions with The Reflector, capturing their thinking process for review.
- ✓Goal achievement self-assessment
- ✓Creating-Consuming balance
- ✓Strengths and growth areas
Privacy by Design
Students' conversations stay private. You can ask them to share summaries, but you never have access to their raw conversations.
- ✓Client-side architecture
- ✓Students use their own API keys
- ✓No server-side data storage
Using the Dojo with Students
Students Get Free API Keys
Each student creates a free API key from either provider:
- Groq (recommended): ~14,400 requests/day at console.groq.com
- Google Gemini: ~15 requests/min, ~20 requests/day at Google AI Studio
For extended practice sessions, Groq's higher rate limits work better for students.
Assign Challenges
Direct students to use the Dojo for specific assignments:
- Practice Dojo — Recommend this for students new to Symbiotic Thinking. Structured, guided experiences help them learn the fundamentals.
- Free Exploration — For students bringing their own challenges, you can suggest which Sparring Partners to activate or which construct to use.
Request Summaries
Ask students to use @reflector at the end of sessions and share the generated summary. This gives you insight into their process without accessing raw conversations.
Assess Thinking, Not Just Output
Use summaries to evaluate metacognitive engagement, not just final deliverables. Did they frame the problem well? Consider alternatives? Verify their reasoning?
Ready to try it with your students?
The Dojo is free and open source. Test it yourself, then share with your class.