Why We Built Braide: A Journey Toward a Better Teaching Experience
As a parent I (and many others) hold two, at a time, conflicting beliefs:
My child is unique and special, and…
My child is going to fall behind
As a parent, the stakes of getting your kid’s education experience right is very high. You don’t get any do-overs. My journey to building Braide began in a moment of parental worry. I had just listened to Sold a Story and our parent-teacher conference was coming up. It was basically like watching Jaws before going to the beach.
And from the teacher’s perspective, it is equally scary. To quote one of the first teachers we talked to:
“Being a teacher is like being a dentist and having your patients blame you for their cavities. So much of being effective is being able to build on what is happening at home.”
The Parent-Teacher Conference
Our daughter’s teacher was great, but parent-teacher conferences always feel a little fraught. They risk becoming emotionally charged experience, where the line between constructive feedback and concern for feelings can blur. I wanted an objective assessment of my daughter’s progress — not influenced by my feelings or the teacher’s perceptions of how we might respond.
This need sparked an idea: What if I could use technology to get an unbiased understanding of her learning?
Creating an Objective Assessment Tool
I set to work building a custom GPT and fed it some of my daughter’s writing. I asked for an assessment. It showed that my daughter was right on track and even excelling in some areas. I showed it to her teacher, and she was blown away. She thought the assessment was spot on and the feedback insightful.
The experience of building that GPT led me to think more deeply about the role of AI in education. My co-founder and I started looking at all sorts of different applications within education. But I have one friend - she became a teacher mid-career - and had just quit the classroom after 10 years of teaching. She started describing her nights and weekends, specifically in grading and assessments.
Understanding the Teacher's Perspective
We immediately started talking to as many teachers as we could find. We found what in hindsight is obvious to anyone who knows a teacher: Teachers often face the challenge of assessing students and providing timely and actionable feedback with complete fairness. They know it is important for their students BUT it is not feasible when you have 5 sections and 125 kids to grade. And, consistency and fairness are impossible for a human to deliver when grading 100+ submissions on the same topic. Blood sugar levels change, fatigue sets in, the student’s personality is a factor, the topic the students choose to write on, etc, all play a role in diminished accuracy and fairness.
The challenge of teachers’ heavy workload is compounded by the tools most schools and districts provide. They are frequently outdated, built to serve the school and district’s needs first, and not focused on improving teachers’ work experience. Once the software is bought, schools and districts frequently don’t provide sufficient training on the use of these new tools. Once teachers get comfortable using them, they are faced with the reality that a procurement or budget decision could take away a critical tool overnight.
Enter Braide: AI-Powered Grading Assistance for Teachers
For that reason, the workload and the current tools for teachers are why we are building Braide. Braide is more than just a grading tool; it’s an AI-powered teaching assistant designed to give teachers the freedom to manage their time as they see fit. Teachers can use Braide to streamline the grading process, saving valuable hours that they can then reinvest in themselves, their students, or their loved ones. Whether it’s time for personal relaxation, family gatherings, or extra moments spent on lesson planning and student engagement, Braide’s mission is to provide teachers with control over their time.
Why We’re Focusing on Teachers First
Freedom for teachers to use that time, no matter how they want, is why we decided to build Braide specifically for teachers, not because schools and districts don’t matter, but because I believe teachers should have a say in the tools they use daily. Teachers deserve tools that help them with their work and are not subject to shifting school policies or district procurement decisions. By starting with teachers, we’re empowering them to control their workflow and their time, helping them avoid the “one-size-fits-all” approach often seen with institution-mandated tools.
Fair and Consistent Feedback for Students
In the end, Braide isn’t just about saving time for teachers. It’s also about creating a fairer, more consistent grading and assessment experience for students. Students deserve personalized learning feedback that is both accurate and timely, without the unpredictability of whether they have a “hard” or “easy” grader. With AI-powered grading, students receive consistent, actionable feedback and every student has an opportunity to improve based on unbiased feedback.
A Vision for the Future
Braide started as a parent’s quest to understand their child’s progress, but it has grown into a mission to redefine the teacher’s role in education - to give teachers tools that improve teacher productivity and quality of life. With Braide, teachers can focus on what truly matters: Supporting, guiding, and inspiring their students while also having the time to recharge and get their personal lives back. And as Braide continues to evolve, we’re committed to creating tools that make education fairer, more consistent, and ultimately, more human-centered.
