TeachFX is an excellent post-lesson report. Pencil Spaces is a full AI coach inside the live online classroom — real time and after.
Built into the room where teaching already happens, the coach reads the whole session — talk, the work on the board, documents, chat, and engagement — and gives feedback while the lesson is live, not just after it.
10M+ sessions taught
Real-time + post-session coaching
COPPA · FERPA · HIPAA · SOC 2 · GDPR
Last updated June 2026
Inside the classroom
A full AI coach native to the live lesson: real-time signals during class and rubric-based scoring after, with playback of the exact moments.
On top of the classroom
A research-backed AI coaching layer that records class audio and emails a post-lesson report on talk-time, questioning, and wait time.
The short answer
TeachFX is a coaching layer; Pencil Spaces is the classroom with the coach built in. TeachFX records your class audio and emails a post-lesson report on teacher-vs-student talk, questioning, and wait time — and it does that well, in any room, including in person. Pencil Spaces is a full AI coach that lives inside the live lesson: it reads talk plus the work on the whiteboard, the documents, the chat, and engagement, and it coaches both in real time and after.
Real time and after. Live engagement signals during class, full rubric scoring once it ends.
Sees the whole lesson. Not just audio: the board, the work, the chat, the engagement.
Native, not bolted on. No separate recorder, app, or voice sample to set up.
Four rubric dimensions. Engagement, content accuracy, instructional clarity, talk-time balance.
Works in person too. The same coach covers face-to-face sessions, not just online.
Built for education. COPPA, FERPA, HIPAA, SOC 2, and GDPR, inside one teaching platform.
Buyer education
Give TeachFX its due: it pioneered AI feedback on classroom talk, it is research-backed, and it is deliberately teacher-private. It turns a recording of the room into a clear read on talk-time, questioning, and wait time.
But that read only ever lands after class — and only from a transcript.
Pencil Spaces is a full coach. It works live and after: it flags engagement while you can still act, then scores the whole session once it ends. And it studies far more than the words — the whiteboard, the chat, the work, the entire room — on a rubric you customize to how your team teaches. Tutors and coaches love it because it finally reflects the real lesson, not a transcript of it.
TeachFX reads the transcript, after class. Pencil Spaces reads the whole room, while you teach.
A full coach
TeachFX is built around the post-lesson report: you teach, then you reflect. That loop is valuable. But the moment a student disengages is the moment you can still do something about it — and it is gone by the time a report lands.
During the lesson
Pencil Spaces
Live engagement, attention, and participation signals as the session runs
See when momentum dips — while you can still change course
Already in the room with the tools to act: switch the board, pull a resource, prompt Sparky
TeachFX
Records the audio in the moment; feedback is delivered after the lesson, not during it
After the lesson
Pencil Spaces
AI Coach scores the session: engagement, content accuracy, instructional clarity, talk-time balance
Plain-language explanations with instant playback of the exact moments
Leaders track rubric trends over time; fully customizable to your model and rubrics
TeachFX
Emailed class report: teacher, student, and group talk, questioning, wait time, academic vocabulary
Click any point to read the transcript; coach and teacher can leave time-stamped comments
Playback is the audio transcript at a timestamp — not the full lesson
TeachFX can tell you what happened. Pencil Spaces is there while it happens.
Context
TeachFX specializes in classroom discourse, and its talk-time and questioning metrics are deep and research-validated. But because it only hears the room, the rest of the lesson is invisible to it: the diagram a student could not finish, the doc everyone was stuck on, the chat going quiet.
Sees the whole session
Talk and the whiteboard work, the shared documents, the screen, attendance, and live engagement — because the coach is inside the classroom, not pointed at it from outside.
Hears the room
Who spoke, for how long, what questions were asked, how long the silences were. A precise, focused picture of talk — and only talk.
This is why Pencil Spaces scores more than participation. Talk-time balance shows whether students' voices are being heard — the same thing TeachFX measures — but the AI Coach also reads content accuracy (was the work correct and on-target?) and instructional clarity (were examples, scaffolding, and transitions landing?). Those judgments are only possible when the coach can see what students were working on.
Side by side
Checked straight. Where TeachFX leads, it is marked plainly — and a dash means the capability is not part of that product's job, not that it is broken.
Your question
Room + coach
Coaching layer
The basics
Does it give feedback on my teaching?
Yes. A built-in AI Coach scores every session.
Yes. This is exactly what TeachFX does.
Is it research-backed?
Yes, with a rubric you customize to your own instructional model.
Yes — published research with Harvard and Stanford.
Is it built specifically for online teaching?
A purpose-built virtual classroom.
Setting-agnostic; not specific to online teaching.
AI coaching & feedback
Do I get a post-lesson report?
Yes.
Yes, emailed after class.
Do I get real-time feedback I can act on mid-lesson?
Yes. Live engagement and attention signals while class runs.
Feedback is delivered after the lesson.
Does it measure talk-time balance?
Yes.
Yes — its core specialty.
Questioning and wait-time metrics?
Yes.
Yes, deep and validated.
Does it see beyond audio (the work, the board, the chat)?
Yes. The whole lesson, not just talk.
Audio only.
Does it score content accuracy and instructional clarity?
Yes, alongside engagement and talk-time.
Focused on discourse metrics.
Instant playback of the exact moments?
Yes, from the full lesson.
Audio transcript at a timestamp.
Customizable to our own rubric?
Yes, to your policies and instructional model.
A focused, fixed metric set.
The teaching environment
Is the coaching native, or a separate tool to run?
Native. Nothing to add.
Download the app, record a class, set a voice sample.
Does it work in in-person classrooms?
Yes. The coach covers in-person sessions too, not just online.
Yes — it records the room.
Does it overlay any platform I already use?
It is the platform.
Yes, it rides on top of any setting.
Infinite, persistent whiteboard?
Yes
Not a teaching surface.
50+ built-in teaching tools?
Yes, including Quizlet and IXL.
Not part of its job.
Breakout rooms and live co-browsing?
Yes
Not part of its job.
AI for teaching
AI lesson planning?
Yes, with Sparky, in seconds.
Not part of its job.
AI grading and feedback on student work?
Yes.
Not part of its job.
AI question generation?
Yes.
Not part of its job.
Operations & platform
Scheduling, attendance, and matching?
Yes, built in.
Not part of its job.
Lesson recordings?
Yes, including recording with the student off camera.
Audio recording for analysis.
API, SDK, and embeddable?
Yes.
Not a developer platform.
White-label, on your branding and domain?
Yes.
Not part of its job.
Safety & compliance
COPPA, FERPA, HIPAA, SOC 2, and GDPR?
Yes, the full certified stack.
Privacy-conscious; full stack not published.
Teacher background checks and content blocking?
Yes.
Not part of its job.
Strictly teacher-private, non-evaluative by design?
Configurable by your organization.
Yes — a deliberate strength.
Comparison reflects publicly available information about TeachFX as of June 2026 (FAQ, How It Works, and product pages) and is intended as buyer education. TeachFX is a research-backed AI coaching tool; Pencil Spaces is a virtual classroom with a built-in AI coach.
Played straight
TeachFX is a focused, well-built tool, and there are a couple of cases where its narrow approach is the simpler choice. Here is the split.
You coach across all your teaching — online classrooms and in-person sessions alike
You want coaching in real time and after the lesson, not only a report
You want the coach to read the whole lesson — the board, the chat, the work — not just the talk
You want a rubric you customize, inside one platform: classroom, coach, scheduling, and compliance
You want a lightweight, audio-only talk tracker bolted onto tools you already use
You want one narrow metric — talk-time — and nothing else attached
The split is simple: TeachFX is the narrow, audio-only, after-the-fact option. Pencil Spaces coaches the whole lesson — online or in the room, live and after, on a rubric you own.
Who it is for
High-impact tutoring
Consistent coaching quality across many tutors, with rubric trends leaders can track, inside the room where sessions already run.
Online tutoring
Raise the floor on session quality at scale — live engagement signals plus post-session scoring, with no extra recorder for tutors to manage.
Virtual schools
One platform for live classes, AI coaching, scheduling, and a full COPPA, FERPA, HIPAA, SOC 2, and GDPR compliance stack.
Teacher development
Coach the whole lesson, not just the talk — with playback of the exact moments and a rubric customized to your instructional model.
Voices
プレースホルダー
Replace with a real quote from a tutoring lead about catching disengagement live, before the lesson was over.
プレースホルダー
Replace with a real quote from an instructional coach about reviewing the full session with playback, not just an audio transcript.
The proof
sessions taught on Pencil Spaces — the classroom the coach runs inside
coaching phases covered: real time during the lesson and rubric scoring after
rubric dimensions scored: engagement, content accuracy, clarity, talk-time
extra recorders, apps, or voice samples to bolt on — the coach is native
See a full AI coach that reads the whole lesson and works in real time as well as after — on your branding and your domain.
Built for online teaching, and trusted by tutoring teams, schools, and districts.
FAQ
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