Are we measuring what matters - or just going through the motions? In Testing Testing, we dive deep into the heart of education’s most controversial terrain: assessment.
Join us as we challenge outdated practices and explore bold new ideas for a more equitable, future-ready approach to learning. Whether you're a parent, teacher, or just curious about how education really works, Testing Testing will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about what it means to “pass” or “fail.”
Because the real test isn’t multiple choice - it’s whether students are prepared for their future.
What does a 1897 women's college in Massachusetts have to do with Silicon Valley hiring algorithms, grade inflation, and the total breakdown of the high school transcript? In this episode of Testing Testing, host Kent Lui traces how administrative shorthand turned into a high-stakes currency—and why grades are failing both students and universities.
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
The Sorting Trap: Why K-12 schools shouldn't spend endless energy acting as unpaid screening agencies for higher education.
The Real-World Signal: How modern employers evaluate portfolios and screening trials rather than high school report cards.
4 In-Class Assessment Solutions: Concrete moves teachers can make tomorrow—like class-average context, live defenses of learning, and error audits—to restore honesty to grading.
👉 Hit 'Follow' or 'Subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you never miss a Monday drop!
Download accompanying resources at realsciencechallenge.com.
14 Sept 2026
#13 - Newton’s Apple & Bored Games
What does Isaac Newton sitting in a 1665 orchard have to do with Silicon Valley tech executives, screen-free parenting, and a classroom full of students who finished a test 15 minutes early? In this episode of Testing Testing, host Kent Lui traces the Great Plague to modern ed-tech to explore a lost cognitive superpower: the ability to be bored.
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
The Tech Pioneer Paradox: Why the architects of digital feeds strictly limit screen time for their own children.
The Science of Consolidation: How boredom activates the brain's internal processing network to turn short-term learning into long-term memory and original creativity.
4 Low-Tech Classroom Routines: Practical, non-digital routines—like tabletop "bored games" and wander notebooks—that teachers can use tomorrow to manage post-test downtime.
👉 Hit 'Follow' or 'Subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you never miss a Monday drop!
Download accompanying resources at realsciencechallenge.com
7 Sept 2026
#12 - From 1884 TV to Modern AI Equity Trap
What does an 1884 mechanical television invention have to do with assigning AI homework in 2026? In this episode of Testing Testing, host Kent Lui traces the early mechanical TV to the 2012 "flipped classroom" - exposing why supercharging home learning with AI creates a massive equity trap for vulnerable students.
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
The Flipped AI Fallacy: Why sending AI home as an automated tutor widens achievement gaps instead of closing them.
The Research Reality: What West Point data reveals about offloading core instruction to domestic environments.
4 In-Class AI Strategies: Concrete, low-prep moves teachers can use tomorrow to keep AI fair, visible, and effective inside the room.
👉 Hit 'Follow' or 'Subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you never miss a Monday drop!
📄 Download accompanying resources at realsciencechallenge.com.
31 Aug 2026
#11 - From Arkwright's Mill to the Attendance Trap
What does a 1771 English cotton mill have to do with modern high school report card penalties, parent-excused debate trips, and post-pandemic absenteeism? In this episode of Testing Testing, host Kent Lui traces the birth of factory punch clocks to modern school policy - exposing why using grades as a behavioral whip backfires on vulnerable students.
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
The Industrial Legacy: How 18th-century factory timekeeping corrupted modern grading by treating physical seat time as the primary metric of student success.
The Exemption Loophole: Why threat-based grade deductions fail disengaged teenagers while creating administrative loopholes for supported families.
4 Concrete Classroom Moves: How to implement a 3-absence outreach trigger, process-driven learning, decoupled transcripts, and low-stakes "welcome back" entry routines.
Are your school's attendance policies building classrooms worth attending, or just running an 18th-century compliance test?
👉 Hit 'Follow' or 'Subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you never miss an episode!
Connect with us on Instagram (@testingtesting_podcast) and Youtube (@realsciencechallenge.com) and access accompanying resources at realsciencechallenge.com.
24 Aug 2026
#10 - Montessori vs Traditional - What MRI Scans Reveal about Grading
When a student freezes or skips a question on a test, it isn't just a lack of preparation—it is a learned neural response to a culture that treats mistakes as penalties. In this episode of Testing Testing, host Kent Lui breaks down MRI brain-imaging research comparing traditional and Montessori, process-oriented students to reveal how grading practices physically shape a child's error-monitoring system.
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
The Hesitation Trap: Why process-oriented students make more active mistakes but achieve vastly higher problem-solving efficiency than traditional students who run out of time.
The Silent Brain: How traditional assessment trains a child's brain communication pathways to go completely silent when an error occurs.
3 Steps to Re-Engineer Assessment: How to reward audit trails, eliminate penalties for early trial-and-error, and shift to immediate self-correction.
Are your daily routines teaching students to freeze up in fear of being wrong, or wiring the brain to actively learn from mistakes? Listen now and share this briefing with your district leadership team!
Connect with us on Instagram (@testingtesting_podcast) and Youtube (@realsciencechallenge.com) and access accompanying resources at realsciencechallenge.com.
17 Aug 2026
#9 - Going Analog Without Burning Students Out
Technology promised to save students time, but on the ground, high schoolers are experiencing a hidden explosion in workload. In this episode of Testing Testing, host Kent Lui breaks down the phenomenon of "workload creep" in the age of AI and why panic-pivoting to high-stakes standardized testing harms student mental health.
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
The Tax of Innocence: How honest students are burdened with defensive administrative labor—from screen-capture typing to managing version histories—just to prove they didn't cheat.
The Standardized Exam Trap: Why weighing 30–40% of a final mark on a 3-hour exam contradicts "process over product" and penalizes kids with test anxiety or language barriers.
3 Rules for Going Analog: How district leaders can implement low-stakes, in-class analog assessments that protect mental health and academic integrity.
Are you an educational leader ready to stop student burnout? Listen now and share this episode with anyone interested about learning!
Connect with us on instagram (@testingtesting_podcast) and youtube (@realsciencechallenge.com) and access accompanying resources at realsciencechallenge.com.
10 Aug 2026
#8 - Your AI Training Is Broken: Why Teachers Need Behavior Change
With a median teacher age of 41, half of today’s educators developed their study habits, cognitive strategies, and teaching models in an analog world. When district AI training consists of surface-level software tutorials or tips on catching plagiarists, it misses the real issue: our assessment models are still grading compliance in a world where AI is a master of compliance.
In this episode of Testing Testing, host Kent Lui breaks down why prompt engineering won't save your staff and how applying behavioral design principles can transform district professional development from policing technology into building AI-resilient classrooms.
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
The Generational Disconnect: With a median teacher age of 41, roughly half of educators developed their study habits and teaching models in an analog era and naturally "teach the way they were taught"—creating a deep pedagogical divide when faced with AI-native students.
The Pillars of Behavioral Change (And How to Implement Them): How to move past surface-level software tutorials by targeting three behavioral levers: reducing cognitive friction (using CRAFT and FRAME prompt frameworks), shifting default mindsets (embedding the Human-AI-Human workflow), and restoring teacher self-efficacy (designing AI-resilient assessments).
Ready to transform your district’s approach to AI professional development? Listen now and share this briefing with your instructional coaches, principals, and curriculum coordinators.
Subscribe to our podcast, connect with us and download accompanying resources at realsciencechallenge.com.
3 Aug 2026
#7 - It’s Not Digital Literacy, It’s Just Literacy: Why Tech Skills Are a Trap
When AI usage rockets from 35% in Grade 8 to 70% in Grade 10, one-off digital literacy workshops won't protect your students. In this episode, host Kent Lui breaks down why siloing tech instruction into standalone classes fails, offering a concrete roadmap for district leaders to embed AI evaluation directly into cross-curricular literacy frameworks—from Math to Foods class.
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
The Usage Cliff: Survey data from 600 students revealing why academic pressure triggers AI offloading by Grade 10—and why Grade 8 is your district's critical window of opportunity.
The Silo Trap: Why standalone "digital literacy" modules suffer from a transfer problem, creating a one-and-done mentality that fails in subject-area coursework.
It’s not digital literacy. It’s just literacy - for all subject areas.
Are you an educational leader ready to transform your district's tech strategy? Listen now and share this briefing with your instructional coaches today.
Subscribe to our podcast, connect with us and download accompanying resources at realsciencechallenge.com.
20 Jul 2026
Ep6 - AI Didn’t Ruin School. Our Lazy Assessments Did.
When 73% of high school students use generative AI for schoolwork, changing your district's firewalls won't protect their learning - redesigning your report cards will. In this 14-minute briefing, classroom teacher and host Kent Lui reveals how traditional checklist rubrics are fueling a "cognitive offloading" crisis by grading compliance instead of actual human thinking. Listen now to get a concrete roadmap for restructuring district gradebooks into AI-resilient competency bins that force students to face the struggle where learning actually happens.
[Read More]
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
The Problem with Substitution: A look at a 2026 study revealing why students who offload the "struggle" of learning score 17% lower on subsequent performance quizzes.
Deconstructing Compliance: Why traditional output metrics - like rigid word limits or checkbox criteria - are turning schools into perfect AI compliance machines.
Kill the Homework Bin: Why checking off homework for completion marks is a metric of obedience, and why it's time to officially eliminate it from your marks book.
Building Better Bins: How to restructure district gradebooks into intentional, AI-resilient Competency Bins focused on modern literacy (Develop & Evaluate, Comprehension, Communication, and Applying).
Are you a superintendent, principal, or educational leader ready to transform your district's assessment model? Listen to the briefing and share this specific episode with your curriculum directors today. Let’s start building better bins.
18 Dec 2025
#5 - The Hidden Math Gap: What Parents, Teachers, and Policy Makers Must Do
In this episode of Testing Testing, we uncover a surprising truth: many students say they understand math, yet fail to meet grade-level expectations. Ontario’s latest standardized test results reveal a troubling gap - 68% of Grade 6 students believe they “get” the math, but only 51% actually perform at or above the provincial standard. That means in every classroom, about five students think they’re on track - but aren’t.
Why does this happen? And more importantly, how do we fix it? We’ll explore why this gap exists, why it matters, and what teachers, parents, and policymakers can do to close it.
26 Nov 2025
#4 - "Six Seven" - Finding the Sweet Spot for Learning
In this episode of Testing Testing, we explore the science behind the perfect level of challenge for learning. Researchers have discovered that the ideal success rate for rapid growth is about 85% - not too easy, not too hard, just right. We break down what this might look like in classrooms, how teachers can apply it to differentiate instruction, and why managing emotions like frustration and embarrassment is key to success. Tune in to learn how this simple rule could transform the way we teach and learn.
12 Nov 2025
#3 - 60% A’s? Harvard, We Need to Talk
Dear Harvard, we need to talk.
Grade inflation isn’t just a Harvard problem - it’s everywhere. In this episode, we dive into Harvard’s skyrocketing A grades, explore why traditional grading systems are failing, and share a bold solution: Pass/Fail grading.
If you care about academic integrity, student motivation, and the future of higher education, this conversation is for you. And Harvard - if you’re listening - call me!
29 Oct 2025
#2 - AI Isn’t the Problem - Our Assessments Are
Teachers use AI to save time and spark ideas. Students use it to study smarter. So why is one celebrated and the other questioned? In this episode, we unpack the double standard, explore the real fears behind student use, and ask: Are we testing student thinking - or just what AI can do? Let’s rethink assessment for a world where creativity matters more than memorization.
16 Oct 2025
#1 - Canada Tests. Finland Trusts.
In this episode of Testing, Testing, we explore two very different classrooms - one in Calgary, Canada, and one in Tampere, Finland. One student is prepping for a high-stakes exam. The other is designing a wellness program for their peers. What do these stories tell us about how we assess learning?
We explore how Finland’s trust-based, student-centered approach compares to Canada’s structured, exam-driven system. Are we preparing students for life - or just measuring how well they take tests? And what would it look like to design assessments that are both fair and meaningful?
Whether you’re a teacher, parent, or just curious about the future of education, this episode will get you thinking.
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