Real teachers, real problems, real classrooms. See how educators use Superstructures to solve specific instructional challenges.
Eighth grade history teacher Kristi H. already had an outstanding end-of-unit assessment. To capstone the Early Republic unit, her students planned a Dinner Party incorporating key figures from the first four presidencies. They set up a seating chart and explain why they placed certain people next to each other, showing what they understand about the political alliances, personal relationships, and conflicts that defined the era. The assessment was creative, rigorous, and genuinely fun.
But there was a problem: the students didn't actually think deeply. "In the past," Kristi said, "they've put Dolly Madison next to Sacagawea and said, 'Well, they're women, so that's fine.' I'm like, 'No, you're so wrong.'" She showed her students positive and negative exemplars. She gave feedback. It wasn't enough. The students could identify a bad example when they saw one, but then they would turn around and do the exact same thing themselves. She decided to turn this individual writing assignment into a group presentation, but those changes alone wouldn’t be enough.
Kristi began to wonder if Superstructures could help solve her problem. She knew the tool - she'd already used a Dot Plot to help students compare constitutional compromises, and had seen it help students who struggled with how to structure a comparison. She'd even gone so far as to share it with her staff. What she needed was to figure out how to aim it at a specific problem.
So, this year, Kristi incorporated Superstructures directly into the Dinner Party Assessment. She worked with the Superstructures team to co-design a new Dot Plot targeting her core instructional dilemma: getting better feedback into students' hands before they decided to seat William Henry Harrison and Tecumseh together because they'd enjoy talking about the Battle of Tippecanoe.
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Kristi's New Dot Plot
Customized Badges in Kristi's Dot Plot
In her new activity, students plotted pre-selected pairs on two axes — how much the two figures would have to discuss, and whether they'd get along or not — earning badges as they worked. The custom badges included one called Dig Deeper, designed specifically to push back against surface-level connections. The Dot Plot was a required brainstorming step before the final presentation began.
Kristi urged students to earn as many badges as possible. The badges became the first-line feedback students needed, freeing Kristi to circulate and actually teach. "When I could start with 'tell me what badges you have,' that cut to the chase," she reflected. She had time to give better feedback, manage interpersonal conflicts, and redirect students who weren't following directions (including a few who tried writing their ideas in a separate document first and then kept stumbling over Superstructures' built-in block against copying and pasting text).
The quality of the final presentations reflected the deeper thinking the Dot Plot had prompted. Kristi noted that all of her changes contributed — the group format, the presentation requirement, the overall redesign. But she saw the Superstructure's role most clearly in the quality of the thinking itself. The badges had pushed students toward specificity. When she sat down to grade, she opened Teacher View and wasn't surprised by what she found. "It confirmed what I knew from their presentations," she said. The strongest presentations had earned the most badges in the planning phase. The weakest had not.
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Harrison & Tecumseh pairings
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A student entry earning all badges
Kristi is planning to keep the redesigned assignment going forward. She's also taking on English next year alongside History, and she's already looking at what Superstructures has available for that content area. The Dinner Party is still her assignment. It just works better now.
