Agent skill

Teach Back Evaluator

by GarethManning in GarethManning/education-agent-skills

The learner teaches the concept to the AI, which plays a curious novice peer and identifies gaps through authentic questions.

Custom licenceAuto-check passedAI & LLM Engineering

Install Teach Back Evaluator

skills CLI
$ npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill teach-back-evaluator -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install GarethManning/education-agent-skills teach-back-evaluator --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/student-learning/teach-back-evaluator .claude/skills/teach-back-evaluator && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
teach-back-evaluator
GitHub stars
840
Token cost
~4.1k tokens
SKILL.md length
1,120 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
160
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
Custom licence

At a glance

The learner teaches the concept to the AI, which plays a curious novice peer and identifies gaps through authentic questions.

  • Works in 4 steps: The teach-back evaluator requires the AI… → Roscoe & Chi (2007) found that… → The scoring dimensions are approximate… → …
  • The learner wants to test their understanding — teaching forces a different kind of organisation than studying
  • SKILL.md covers What This Skill Does, Evidence Foundation, System Prompt and Example Transcript, plus 1 more section
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Teach Back Evaluator is an agent skill from GarethManning/education-agent-skills. The learner teaches the concept to the AI, which plays a curious novice peer and identifies gaps through authentic questions. Use when the learner wants to test their understanding — teaching forces a different kind of organisation than studying.

Its SKILL.md is about 4.1k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in AI & LLM Engineering. The repository describes itself as: 165 evidence-grounded AI skills for teachers, school leaders and EdTech builders—pedagogy, learning science, curriculum, assessment and regeneration. Claude, Codex and Hermes.

When your agent uses it

  • The learner wants to test their understanding — teaching forces a different kind of organisation than studying

Example prompts

  • “/teach-back-evaluator”

Workflow steps

4 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. The teach-back evaluator requires the AI to maintain two distinct modes: novice peer and evaluating coach. Inconsistency between these…
  2. Roscoe & Chi (2007) found that knowledge-telling (recitation) is the default mode for most peer tutors. Without the novice questions…
  3. The scoring dimensions are approximate and require subject-domain knowledge. "Misconception risk" in particular requires the AI to know…
  4. The teach-back format is more effective for some content types than others. It works exceptionally well for conceptual material with clear…

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 6bbbce4. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Teach Back Evaluator loads about 4.1k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 67 tokens; SKILL.md has 1,120 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~67
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~4.1k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

Its licence (Custom licence) doesn't allow us to republish the file, so here is its outline and opening line. It has 1,120 words (~4,088 tokens).

“The learner teaches the concept to the AI, which plays the role of a curious, slightly confused peer who has not studied this material. The AI asks clarifying questions from the novice perspective — probing gaps in the explanation, asking…”

— opening of SKILL.md by GarethManning, Custom licence
name
teach-back-evaluator
disable-model-invocation
false
user-invocable
true
effort
medium
skill_id
student-learning/teach-back-evaluator
skill_name
Teach-Back Evaluator
domain
student-learning
domain_number
20
version
1.0
audience
student
evidence_strength
moderate

Read the full SKILL.md on GitHub

Files

Just SKILL.md in skills/student-learning/teach-back-evaluator of GarethManning/education-agent-skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 6bbbce4

Compare with similar skills

Teach Back Evaluator next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Teach Back Evaluator compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Teach Back Evaluator this skillGarethManning/education-agent-skills840—~4.1kAutomated safety check: PassCustom licence
Agent BuildershareAI-lab/learn-claude-code78k4 repos~1.2kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Add Uint Supportpytorch/pytorch104k2 repos~2.3kAutomated safety check: PassCustom licence
LLM Benchmarking with lm-evaluation-harnessOrchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLs13k8 repos~3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Segment Anything Model GuideOrchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLs13k8 repos~3.3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
1passwordtrpc-group/trpc-agent-go1.9k14 repos~656Automated safety check: PassApache-2.0

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Questions about Teach Back Evaluator

What does Teach Back Evaluator do?

The learner teaches the concept to the AI, which plays a curious novice peer and identifies gaps through authentic questions. Teach Back Evaluator is an agent skill from GarethManning/education-agent-skills. The learner teaches the concept to the AI, which plays a curious novice peer and identifies gaps through authentic questions.

When should I use Teach Back Evaluator?

Teach Back Evaluator fits situations like: the learner wants to test their understanding — teaching forces a different kind of organisation than studying.

How do I install Teach Back Evaluator in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill teach-back-evaluator -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/student-learning/teach-back-evaluator in GarethManning/education-agent-skills) into .claude/skills/teach-back-evaluator in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Teach Back Evaluator in Codex?

Run `npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill teach-back-evaluator -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/student-learning/teach-back-evaluator in GarethManning/education-agent-skills) into .agents/skills/teach-back-evaluator in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Teach Back Evaluator in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill teach-back-evaluator -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/teach-back-evaluator, .gemini/skills/teach-back-evaluator, .github/skills/teach-back-evaluator and .opencode/skills/teach-back-evaluator in your project.

What does Teach Back Evaluator need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Teach Back Evaluator is instructions for the agent only.

Does Teach Back Evaluator access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Teach Back Evaluator safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Teach Back Evaluator use?

Teach Back Evaluator has a licence file (the repository's licence) that doesn't match a standard licence. Read it on GitHub before reusing the skill.

How many tokens does Teach Back Evaluator use?

About 4.1k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 16k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Teach Back Evaluator?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Teach Back Evaluator: Agent Builder (shareAI-lab/learn-claude-code, 78k stars), Add Uint Support (pytorch/pytorch, 104k stars), LLM Benchmarking with lm-evaluation-harness (Orchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLs, 13k stars) and Segment Anything Model Guide (Orchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLs, 13k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Teach Back Evaluator?

GarethManning (a GitHub user) maintains it in GarethManning/education-agent-skills, which has 840 GitHub stars. The repository holds 160 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on August 28, 2026.

Source: GarethManning/education-agent-skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.