089: Designing Uncheatable Learning With Story, Agency, And Real Audiences with Michael Hernandez

What if students did work they couldn’t fake and didn’t want to? 

We sit down with award-winning educator and author Michael Hernandez to rethink assessment, culture, and the role of technology by anchoring learning in agency, responsibility, and authentic audiences. Instead of building classrooms around compliance and bans, we explore how trust and clear boundaries create a sandbox where creativity thrives, and cheating loses its appeal.

Michael walks us through a step-by-step PSA project that turns SEL from a talking point into a daily practice. Along the way, we dig into assessing for impact, originality, and courage; teaching ethical research and credibility; and using phones, mics, and cameras as microscopes and telescopes for inquiry. We also talk about oral histories as a powerful listening-first approach that builds digital literacy, empathy, and real communication skills.

The conversation widens to film festivals, cross-school collaboration, and policy shifts away from standardized tests toward portfolios and a portrait of a graduate. We frame the classroom as a think tank with real deadlines and audiences, where feedback and iteration are the norm, responsibility has consequences, and students learn to navigate ambiguity with confidence. If you want practical, human-centered strategies that make learning relevant, rigorous, and public, this one will spark ideas you can use tomorrow.

EPISODE RESOURCES: 

• Connect with Michael via his website, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• Check out Michasel's books and online courses!

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to season five of SEL in EDU. This is a space for educators who believe social emotional learning isn't an add-on. It's part of how we teach, lead, and show up every day. I'm Dr. Crystal Leigh, and in each episode, we'll explore real stories, practical strategies, and the human side of learning that helps schools grow with intention. In this episode of SEL and EDU, I'm joined by Michael Hernandez, an award-winning educator and author whose work focuses on authentic learning, digital literacy, and student agency. Michael partners with schools, nonprofits, tech startups, and organizations like Apple, PBS, and National Geographic to help rethink how learning shows up for students and communities. We explore what it looks like to design learning that students can't and don't want to cheat, especially in a world shaped by AI and how storytelling, real audiences, and clear boundaries create trust and meaningful SEL skill practice. If you're searching for ways to make learning feel relevant, rigorous, and deeply human, this conversation will resonate. Hello, SEL and EDU family. Welcome back. I am here with Michael Hernandez, author of Storytelling with a Purpose. And I am so excited to dig in because this book has SEL skills, ways for students to practice these skills to find relevance and meaning in their own work. And so, Michael, thank you so much for your time. I'm excited to learn from you today.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah, thanks for having me, Krista. I'm excited for the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

One of the first questions that I asked is what were you seeing that influenced you to write this book?

From Control To Trust In Classrooms

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Yeah, I've been a high school teacher for 26 years and really noticed not only my students, but some colleagues struggling with keeping students engaged, and more recently with cheating, even before artificial intelligence was around. And this need to make school relevant and to have a relationship with students, a trusting, professional relationship, then a top-down follow-the-rules culture. And I really felt passionately about the type of nonfiction multimedia research projects that I was using with my students to get them engaged not only with the curriculum, but with the community and getting them to make connections between their lives and what they're learning in school. And I think a lot of the challenges that teachers are facing and have been facing for a while is this disconnect between what happens in the classroom and what happens in real life. And that's just gotten worse now that we started to implement phone bands and social media bands, and teachers are not trusting students because they think they're using AI to cheat and all of these things. I don't want to go to work distrusting the people around me and trying to catch them at something, and them trying to sneak around, trying to figure out ways to work around my system. I want to work together and have fun. And learning is hard and it's not always pleasant, but the world isn't static and school can't be static either. We have to adapt, and that's really hard for a lot of folks. So I wanted to say, I get it, I see you. I'm in that same classroom space that you are. How about if we try this? What if we do it this way instead and think about it this way and make it reasonable and actionable and not have to be a lot of extra time or extra money to do it?

SPEAKER_01 3:42

One of the foundational pieces that has resonated with me that you're sharing is you have a relationship with students that is based in trust. And I honor that so much because who wants to be looking out for the worst in somebody? And let's just assume that we all have good intent. You said, what if we try it this way? How about soliciting their insights and their feedback in the process of learning? And oftentimes that's referred to as having a bi-directional relationship. You mentioned that in the very beginning, that it's not something that's top-down.

Building Agency With Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of this has to do with these concepts of agency. Like a popular phrase for a long time was choice and voice. I prefer agency and responsibility. And so that our students, especially I worked in secondary, but this is true of younger students as well. Trust is definitely part of it in saying, you know what? You have certain boundaries and things that you are responsible for completing. But within that, I trust you to do what you need to do to get there. And it doesn't mean a free-for-all. Absolutely not. But can we create a sandbox with firm established boundaries that we can all agree upon about why they're there as well, not just because I said so, but say, let's come to an agreement on what we're here to do, what we're here to discover and find and explore. And let's work together to figure this out. Some of the most rewarding times have been we have these open-ended assignments where there is no one right answer that's predetermined. And there are ways to do that. Obviously, there are certain facts in the world, like the earth is round, climate change is real. That's a yes or no answer. But within that, like what is the solution to climate change, for example? And we work together to develop something new. And I love being surprised. I love learning from my students and have them even analyzing films that we are that we're studying. It's oh, I never thought of it. That's a really unique perspective. I never consider that. And here I am, this 40-year-old man who studied film has a degree in it, and you surprised me with something. And I love that that I can have an assignment that is joyful, not just for the student, but for me. And I can give back to them and say, you elevated me and made me better because of your uniqueness and your originality and your creativity and your thought. And speaking of trust, like, how does that feel when think back to experiences you had when teachers not only complimented you, but maybe trusted you to do something? Like how that was empowering and how you felt more responsible for quality work and following through on something. And I feel like so much of it is about relationships and establishing that culture of trust. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

You were talking about boundaries and there being a sandbox. When you were working with students, what did that look like or sound like for them?

Open-Ended Work And Joyful Surprise

The PSA Project Framework

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Absolutely. So one of my favorite projects, and I have this in the book as well, is the public service announcement or PSA project. And we're all familiar with PSAs, usually on television, but there's print ads as well to encourage socially responsible behavior, anti-bullying campaigns or anti-smoking campaigns, right? Trying to advocate for a change of behavior or mindset that we want to see. And so one of the projects that I have is at the end of the first semester for my intro class on cinema is PSA. And I give the students a choice of a couple of different big topics, like climate change, for example, and then teach them how to do like high-quality research with primary sources, which I've never done before in many of them. And then from there, they take the most unusual, inspiring, or surprising findings from the research to then transform into what will become the script. And then they develop the script out, and there's plenty of creative choice in that, like how you phrase a sentence or eventually when they shoot this project, which is on video, like how you frame the shot and how you edit, and all of those things. So there's a lot of voice in there. But the things that are sort of standardized are okay, it's got to be in the end, this long. You're limited to 30 seconds of video. You must have primary source research, and this is all scaffolded, right? So we go through step by step. First phase is like research. And they go up in front of the class and they pitch their idea. Here's my research, and this is what I'm gonna do. What do you think? And everybody's responsible for giving feedback. Okay. Every step along the way, the script, the storyboards, the raw footage, the final edit, and then revised edits, all along the way, it's not just a high-stakes one and done kind of thing. Come back in two weeks with a finished product. That's gonna be a disaster. I can see the progress the students are doing and all of that. How do we grade using these rather than standardized tests? Is the test or the assessment is going to drive everything? So some of the criteria are not just technical. Like, for example, in a language arts class, you have grammar. In cinema, we have the grammar of filmmaking. There's a language of film. It's not just understanding the mechanics, but also something that's much bigger and about the purpose, like why we're here to begin with, which is do you have courage? Do you have something that's original? Have you had an impact on other people in some way? Isn't that what life is about? Isn't that what scholarship is about? And this isn't just about checking boxes that some random teacher at a random school decided was important, or somebody a statehouse decided was important, and I'm checking the box, jumping through hoops, and I don't really care. This is okay. If you're telling me that I'm graded on impact, what do I need to do? It's all about impact. And so quickly this changes your class from something about memorizing facts and completing tasks to something that's more about ethical decision making and critical thinking. And that's really the foundation of any good learning.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

One of the pieces that stuck out to me in the book was that you have a responsibility to represent the community, your ideas and your research ethically and truthfully. Are they a reliable and valid storyteller? How are they being accountable for what they're putting out there to people?

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Absolutely. So, you know, the saying, all politics is local, all learning is personal. So, how can you make it connected to that student's experience and say this is why this matters and why you should follow through and do good work and be accurate? And so there's a lot of like framing of this with the students. Who do you trust? Isn't it like who do you trust to like what restaurant you go to or what's going to be on the test next week in that class? Because they have that teacher also. And wouldn't it be a drag if they lied to you or they just made something up that didn't work? And like, how do you build friendships? Like people that you know, there's certain people you hang out with because they're funny, but you can't trust them for the test questions. But these other people like are know what they're doing, and so you rely on them, and then you scale that up. Okay, who's gonna put the braces on you or fix the brakes on your car or those kinds of things? And like you are part of this as well, and so that's where the real-world connection comes in. If our assignments just end up in the trash and they're just a throwaway exercise that nobody cares about, not even the teachers, that sends a very powerful message about the value of student work and our curriculum. And so instead, if we want to be respected as educators and we need our students to respect the process of learning when no one's looking and there's no grade on the line, to value learning with proper citations and good research, then we have to model that and we have to walk the walk, not just talk about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

My mind immediately went to these two big boxes of art projects from both of my boys when they were little. What if we as educators approached student output and evidence of their learning as if they were our kids' artwork? Where I wouldn't want to throw it out, where I would want to keep it up and have the whole world see it.

Assessing For Impact Over Compliance

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Yeah, I think not only that personal passion or love of that student, because we see students come and go if you teach long enough, but why not make it going back to my assessment of impact, right? Why not have these be published publicly in some capacity? So I'm not making them for the teacher. I am making them for this group of older folks at a home. Or I'm making this in order to advocate for installing a stop sign at an intersection in my community, or I'm doing this to clean the water in the estuary around the corner. It's not just an exercise just because, and I'm trying to please the teacher, and the teacher throws it out. Whether it's art or whether it's scientific research or whether it's historical precedent and analysis, whether it's writing and literature and poetry and fiction, I'm publishing a book that will be going on the Apple bookstore that anybody in the world can then access. Why limit it to just you, the teacher? We're not in spy school. We're not asking students to make projects for your eyes only. And that's a big piece of it, too, is the publishing piece, the authentic publishing and display of it, not in the classroom, but made for an audience or end user. So I'm trying to think of like different scenarios. So language arts, social studies, it's often something that's written or video project or art classes, a design project, but you can also design systems, right? You can also design advocacy events and things like that. There's a lot of ways that you can do it. Just a little bit of a tweak on how we perceive what we're here to do and who this work is made for.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

You shared the students, weren't just pitching their idea to you, they were pitching it to the class. And that microcosm before it goes out to the broader community is so powerful because the students are learning to give respectful feedback to each other. It broadens the immediate audience.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

I was just talking to a school district recently, and they their district banned students from publishing work. And I'm like, why? That's the whole point. They block the ability to publish. And I'm like, that is the whole point, is these like humans who want to be self-actualized and make an impact. Students actually do want to make an impact. We just got to get out of the way. Let them do it and make it for other people. Don't make it for the school. So we started a film festival. And initially, some of the parents who are like my booster club, they're like, Oh, we should have a showcase of all the student work. And I'm like, Yeah, but it's hard to find really great ones. There's a lot of mediocre ones because they're learning and only a few standouts. And I said, the real thing that we need to do here from a curriculum standpoint is show students what they don't know and bring in other schools so they can see other ways of doing this. Because everybody gets caught up in their bubble and they think they're the best because that's what the kid did the last year, and that's the example that I showed. But having a variety of different schools from different states, eventually we move this into an international competition, and they got selected to screen in. It was great as an opportunity to collaborate also with people beyond their school and their city and their state. And I think that again, one of those really important eye-opening experiences is like there's more than one way to do things. There's more than one culture, and it's not yours. Yours might not be the best. Let's learn from other people, and we do that by working together and sharing these opportunities to build something together. And I think that's important. That's what's great about team projects as well. It's a little challenging sometimes, but nice to clay off of that. But yeah, absolutely having impact beyond the classroom is super important.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

How can we help students see what is possible for them beyond where they're at geographically? As much as people want to bash and take on technology, there are some really positive attributes that allow people to be seen and heard and have a voice.

Ethics, Accuracy, And Audience Trust

Publish Work Beyond The Classroom

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Absolutely, yeah. And so much of school has been for a long time, but increasingly now, with a lot of pushback on technology and social media, is this culture of control and compliance, right? They want to control everything, and you can't do this. Everything's banned and locked down. There's no way to learn. You can't learn to swim by reading a textbook. You can't learn to ride a bike by reading a textbook or hearing a lecture about it. You've got to do it. And whether it's media literacy skills, digital literacy skills, AI literacy skills, whatever it happens to be, you've got to embrace it and use it. And the other piece to this too is again going back to this idea of what kind of culture you're establishing. If you're creating a culture where A, it's not any fun to come to school, it's not any use, like I don't see the purpose behind it because I'm just doing these worksheets and I have to like sit in rows quietly and whatever. We're developing a really poor relationship between the act of learning and our students. And that's ultimately what they're learning. Yeah, it's just really problematic. And yeah, there's so many opportunities and reasons why we should be embracing technology, and not for everything necessarily or all the time, but it's in the book we talk about how we can use the cameras on devices like iPad or your phone to document student work, to create projects like the public service announcement, and use the camera and the microphone that are built into these devices. It's not an extra cost for free to use cameras and microphones like telescopes and microscopes to investigate the world, to record and document and then reflect and critically think about it, as well as create. And if your teachers are graded themselves or evaluated on test scores, there's no one doing PSAs on the standardized state test, are there? Until now. So did you hear recently state of New York has now abandoned standardized tests for their exit exam and is moving towards portrait of a graduate. And there are other states that are doing this too. So for so many reasons, equity, all the research that says standardized tests are not a good form of learning or assessment. It's just faster and easier for us who are counting numbers, but moving towards authentic, you know, evidence of learning. And how can students create some kind of project or multimedia research project or some kind of system or some kind of learning artifact that is authentic and original and that might actually have purpose beyond the classroom? And so I'm I feel like technology is part of that solution. In fact, we're listening to it right now. If you're listening to this podcast, you're using your device right now to learn, aren't you? So why would we ban students from doing that? Or creating their own podcast, which is what my students did. I have a one of the projects in the book is called Oral History Project. And it's not just for social studies. You can use that in any subject area, right? Investigating, interviewing people, listening to stories. In fact, The most important skill of storytelling is listening. It's a type of research, right? It's qualitative research. Some people call that rich data as opposed to quantitative, which is numbers. So why ban all this stuff? And I at the end of the day, I want to be respected by my students and I want them to like respect my content in my class and want to show up. And so I need to give that respect back. And that means that I'm not pretending that school is in a vacuum. And while you're here, the real world doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

A couple days ago, I was working in a middle school and a teacher was talking about how one of her students is not coming. And the parents said, But it's not fun. And the teacher said, When I was that age, my parents didn't care. They just said sometimes you need to do things you don't want to do and you just have to suck it up and go. And part of me was like, you know what? Sometimes things in life aren't fun. However, learning should be fun. It should be relevant. It doesn't have to be boring and awful. And that's what I feel like people always default to books back when I was growing up. And I'm like, back when we were growing up is totally different. It is a completely different society for a very large number of reasons. And so we can't compare.

Film Festival And Wider Perspectives

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Like 100%. And I was that way too when I started teaching. I'm like, you guys are going to read a bunch of pages in this textbook because I was using a textbook when I first started. I was new to teaching and I wanted to be legitimate in the eyes of my colleagues and the parents. But it's got to be hard, otherwise, it's not good learning. And you guys, it's the same mindset. You just gotta learn stuff. And it's true in life, there's stuff you just gotta slog through. And we're not saying at all, we're advocating for this, that kids can do whatever they want and that every moment will be fun and joyful and rainbows and unicorns. That is absolutely not true. My journalism students work harder than any student on campus who's memorizing for a test because they have to go out into the world and stick a microphone and a camera in someone's face, like the mayor of the city, or the police chief, or the superintendent of the schools, and ask them why they made that mistake or what are they going to do to fix this problem. That's hard. Going to an adult and challenging them and then publishing it. Wow, and that gets published. But guess what? They earn respect, they get stronger, they make an impact, things get better because of their work. This is about, and so I'm not saying at all that things should be easy and just fun. Again, going back to the analogy of sports and being a musician, you know where you're going. There is a goal. We have a game that's coming up in three weeks. That means you've got to hit the weight room, you've got to run laps to do cardio workout, we're gonna run drills. That's a throwaway, put it in the trash, like worksheet kind of thing, right? We're gonna run drills to scrimmage and practice plays and stuff like that. But you know why you're doing it. And you're doing it because you're working a collectively as a team. So there's friends that you have going through the shared traumatic experience that you build those relationships, and we know that we're doing it for this purpose. And if we lose the game, we lose the game and we're bummed about it. But we're all doing it because we're passionate about it. So, can we frame our classrooms the same way? Instead of calling them a classroom, can we call them workshops or design studio? And it's like you have writers' workshops, you have think tanks for social studies and business, right? So let's make my class a think tank. You guys, we're gonna publish this report or this video documentary or this series of Instagram carousels to inform our audience about good financial management with your funds, with your finances, or any other kind of choices we should be making for the kinds of foods that we eat or something like that, and make this like an end goal target. And so all that hard work has to be high level because we know it's going somewhere. You've decided who your audience is, you've decided what topic, subtopic of this big topic that we're gonna be studying, and there's a whole point behind it. So, yes, and to all of that, and I think you're right, just this the framework of I did it this way when I was like 30 years ago or 20 years ago or even 10 years ago in school, and that's fine. I get that, but we also need to be learners and we need to model good learning for our students and say, you know what, I learned this, and now that fact is no longer relevant, or this new process has come out that maybe is more efficient, and so maybe I should embrace this. And I'm learning with you guys, teach me how this works. Like I've tried these prompts. Have you guys used Chat GPT? Tell me how what you're doing to come up with these things and help me get better so I can make better lessons for all of us and be a co-learner rather than again this top-down dictator, which is something that is the side, what we're learning on the side is something we might not want to have happening. But anyway, there you go. Soapbox number seven.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

As we've been talking, I just want to make it really explicit is the SEL skills. We don't just learn them by talking about them.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

A lot of these programs are like, let's talk about what we would do in this scenario, which is not a bad start. But the kids need to be actively practicing them and through the processes that you share about in your book, through storytelling and allowing students to bring who they are to the learning allows them to actively practice all of these skills. And I also want to tie in one other piece that you bring in is that there has to be space for reflection and iteration and feedback because that's what leads to growth.

Ban Culture Vs Authentic Tech Use

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Yeah, absolutely. There's so much there. So this is the thing. So all of these skills and these mindsets are taught organically. It's not like a separate add-on that the teacher's gonna have to figure out, make a new lesson for. No, this is if you're doing a team project, you're organically going to have to talk about, you know, conflict resolution and how do you talk to each other. And if you're reaching out to experts in the field or a stakeholder on a topic that you're researching, you organically have to learn how to write an email or have a conversation that's not on text, which my students didn't do. Many of my high school students had never written an email before. They started doing some of these projects. Media literacy is not a separate class. It's just when we allow our students to use media and to publish, then you're gonna have these conversations about privacy and law and copyright just organically. And it doesn't seem like a separate add-on. And I feel like we try to break everything down into these ridiculous silos, and the students don't see the connection between media literacy and their lives, and they don't see the connection between primary source research and their lives. And it's like we're working on this project and we've got to do all these things together at once so that you can make this project. And I feel like that's super important. Now, the social emotional learning piece that some people for some reason have an issue with, this is just talking about being a good human. And I know some people, some leadership has problems with being a good human, and I have a problem with that. So it's like, how can I be not only a good student, but how can I be a good teammate? How can I be a good partner, a good voter, an active citizen who is well informed, who is looking out for the welfare, not just of themselves, but of other people and understand the connections. And I think that's where we start building those foundations of good citizenship is when we allow students to have authentic projects that have an impact beyond the classroom. They can see what happens when people see their work or listen to it or see it and understand, hey, I can contribute, I can make a difference. One person or this one small team can make a difference. And I can't tell you how many times my students have actually changed policy at our school and our district from the projects that they did, and also in the community with like the police department and things like that. There's a lot of different situations because um I allowed them to publish publicly because they got to use their cameras and their microphones on their devices, and it wasn't locked down and they didn't take a standardized test. But yeah, social emotional learning skills are super critical. Um, and if you look at you know, the World Economic Forum always posts their job skills of the future, and the most recent one, like SEL skills are at the top. It's what do they call it, social intelligence or something like that? It's creativity, it's flexibility, it's all of these things. And so all of these projects that we're talking about help foster those skills of intellectual agility and emotional flexibility. Because as we know, especially lately, the only constant is change. And how do we get the kids ready and okay with change and okay with ambiguity? How can I manage an ambiguous situation where there isn't a clear path and I don't have things laid out for me step by step? And one of the things I really noticed in the last five to 10 years teaching was fewer and fewer students were able to manage a project on their own. They needed everything delineated step by step. And what a tragedy because they're gonna go off into college on their own and not know how to do their laundry. Right?

SPEAKER_01 29:24

One of my son's roommates seriously did not know how to do his own laundry. And his mom paid for a laundry service to come every week and do his laundry. And I was like, Oh, I just so for those of you who are listening, I taught my boys how to do their laundry when they were in business. I'm like, it's time for you to start doing this. Is how it works, this is how you separate. And yes, did they always they had dirty clothes sometimes? I'm like, what? You know what? That's gonna stink. Let's spray it down with something because you gotta wear it. There's natural logical consequences sometimes when you don't take care of responsibilities that you have, but it's not the end of the world.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

That's right, and it's called responsibility. And the flip side of responsibility is consequences. So, what happens if you don't follow through on your assignment or you don't do it at the quality that we talked about and trained for and have set expectations for? What happens when you let people down, like your teammates or that principal who's expecting a whole load of PSAs and got everybody ready and excited for that? So, yeah, again, it's agency and responsibility, is how I'm framing it, as opposed to choice and voice.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Thank you. People can access and purchase their book, but you also have a variety of online resources that people can purchase. Can you talk a bit about that and how people can get a hold of you if they want to connect and learn more?

SPEAKER_00 30:46

Absolutely. So I'm very active on LinkedIn. Just search for Michael Hernandez on LinkedIn and I'm also on Instagram at ChangingTheNarrative. And yeah, I'm sure in the show notes you'll have my email. People can reach out that way. My book is really a great resource for anyone getting started. You can pick that up anywhere you find books. It's also available for my publisher, ISTE and ASCD, through bulk purchasing. So you get a discount on that. And then the courses that I have are Uncheatable Assessments and SlideFluence. Slide Fluence is new, but you can just do a search for those and those should pop up for you.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

And I will put them linked into the comments. Thank you so much, Michael. I appreciate your time. And I hope that you'll come back on again so that we can continue digging into more of your work.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

I'd love to. That would be great.

Shifts Away From Standardized Tests

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Thank you for being part of the SEL in EVU family. As you move into the rest of your day, I invite you to notice one small way social emotional learning showed up in your thinking, your relationships, or your work. Until next time, take care of yourself and keep making space for meaningful connected learning.