Technology Essentials in Education Episode 6:
Creating Uncheatable Assessments in the Age of AI

Hello there. My name is Monica Burns and welcome to Technology Essentials and Education. On today's episode, we're tackling the challenge of creating uncheatable assessments in the age of AI. My guest is Michael Hernandez, a fellow ISTY and ASD author, an Apple distinguished educator, and a former classroom teacher based in California. We dive into a practical conversation about what it truly means to support students in a learning environment where AI tools are at their fingertips. This episode is a must listen if you're looking for strategies to design assessments that measure student learning. Let's go ahead and dive in.

This episode is brought to you by Jotform. Jotform provides an all-in-one solution to streamline administrative tasks, enhance community engagement, and foster innovation. Using their no code, drag and drop forms and workflows, your teams can securely collect and store data, automate tasks, and collaborate on team resources. Educational institutions are also eligible for a 30% discount on Jotform Enterprise. Head to their website to learn more jotform.com/enterprise/education.

Welcome to the podcast, Michael. I'm so excited to talk about creating uncheatable assessments in the age of AI. Before we get into all of that, would love for listeners to hear a bit about your role in education. What does your day-to-day look like?

Yeah, so I'm Michael Hernandez. I am a former high school teacher in the Los Angeles area where I taught for 26 years teaching journalism and digital storytelling. Now I am leaning into consulting and speaking, talking about my books and published works to help other educators manage and survive these challenging times. Whether that's AI or student engagement, I take best practices I've learned and that other teachers are doing to support what teachers are doing in the classroom right now.

Amazing. We're going to talk about assessments, particularly uncheatable assessments, which is a term from the title of one of your publications. Before we get into that piece, would love to hear a little bit about your thinking on assessment. How has your thinking about assessment evolved as AI tools have become more accessible to students and even to teachers?

Yeah, I mean when I first started teaching, teaching is all about assessment. So much revolves around that and that's the worst part of teaching honestly. You're afraid you're going to make a mistake or hurt someone's feelings. The kids are motivated or deflated by the grades they get. We always struggle to find a way that's meaningful and accurate, and you can never really win. It's always been a challenge and now with online searches, cameras from cell phones, and now artificial intelligence, the landscape of traditional assessments is changing. It kind of has to.

Instead of looking at it as an existential threat to our identities as educators or careers we've built around how to do this, we've become very efficient and good at what we do. In my classroom, it was an opportunity to re-evaluate what I really mean by assessment and if it's really working in the first place. We get into the rhythm of doing something for so long that you take it for granted that this is the one and only way to do it and it's hard to see opportunities and possibilities. So it's forcing us to take a good hard look at what is the best way to assess all students in a way that's equitable, rigorous, and aligned to standards.

I've really been drawn to the idea of more student-centered kinds of learning based on agency, student inquiry, asking questions, and engaging with the world. That's the kind of learning I like to have. I don't like someone to just drop a PDF and say memorize this and take a test disconnected from my life. I want the effort I put into the work to have meaning and purpose to me and the people around me. Our students are no different; they want to make a difference in the world and care what their friends, family, and community think.

If we're going to ask them to put in all this effort, energy, and stress over assignments, shouldn't it be for a good purpose? Shouldn't we be able to say, 'This is the reason you're doing it,' and show how it's having an impact on others? That's a big shift for many of us because it's hard to manage that in the classroom and standardize it. The crux of the problem is trying to quantify learning and put a number on everything. We're kind of forced to do that by standardized test companies, policymakers, and how schools are evaluated. Parents look at test scores to decide which school to send their kids to, not other evidence.

I want to create an experience for my students that is meaningful and rewarding, something I would want to do. Mixed in there is the idea that we conflated pain and suffering with good learning. We say rigor but really mean it's painful or you just have to slog through it. Learning has to be a struggle; there's no way around that. It has to be wrestling with ideas or concepts and figuring them out, but it doesn't have to be pain and suffering just for the sake of it.

The analogy I like to use is if you're an athlete, musician, or professional, think about the hours of training, weight training, conditioning, drills, scrimmages, maybe spraining an ankle or breaking an arm. Why would you put yourself through all that stress and pain? Because you're passionate and care about it. How might we borrow some of that passion for the assignments we give our students? That's what I've been working on and put into my book Storytelling with Purpose, and then took a chapter on assessment and spun it into an online course called Uncheatable Assessments, helping educators walk through the mindset and logistics of what it looks like in a classroom.

That shift in thinking many educators are starting to have on what it means to get strong data that informs instruction is the whole point of assessing. We think about it from classroom practice, but there are many external factors influencing it. I need a number or something specific to measure how kids are progressing, but it's much more complicated to get the full picture.

When you talk with educators navigating these disruptions, AI sounds like a scary word but it is disruptive. What concerns around AI and assessment come up most often when you talk to other educators? What are you hearing?

Yeah, it's a really tough time to be a teacher right now for many reasons, and then throw AI into the mix and it's overwhelming. Any class assessing students primarily on text-based assessments like essays, reports, worksheets is under direct threat with AI, but not only those because AI can solve math problems using your camera. I taught journalism, so photography and images can also be faked and created. It's everything.

What I'm hearing from many educators is concern about cheating. Kids aren't going to do the work; they'll take shortcuts to turn something in. That's the biggest concern and it's absolutely true. We have to acknowledge that. Let's pull back and ask what do we mean by cheating and why would someone cheat? Instead of thinking of cheating as moral depravity or that a student is a bad person, maybe we should think about cheating as managing scarce resources.

How many times have you cut corners? Like speeding because you were in a hurry or using AI to draft an email. Many times in life we cut corners not because we're bad people but because we have to navigate something important. Kids are overwhelmed with work, overscheduled, facing high pressure assessments, peer and family pressure, and college applications. We need to start with that.

In the course, I talk about two pieces that make an assignment cheatable: students cheat by incentive, meaning there's a reason or desire to cheat, and the assignment itself is designed to be cheatable. If your assignment asks students to come up with the exact same answer at the same time, you've set yourself up for cheating because the answer is sharable or searchable. We have to reconfigure that towards assignments that are original, one-of-a-kind artifacts that can't be faked or copied.

The other piece is fundamental because students have cheated since the beginning of time and always will. What can we do to minimize or disincentivize cheating? I've had luck with creating assignments students want to complete or see value in. I'm not saying do whatever you want, but can we make a sandbox with clear boundaries and say these are expectations and within that you have agency to do what you want to get the result we need?

That's what we're talking about: scaffolding and creating cultures where students are trusted with ideas and information, trusted to come up with something unique and original. In my assessments, criteria include originality, creativity, and impact. Does this artifact affect other people? Borrowing from the real world, the measure of success for a business is not following rules but finding an original path to success and creating a product that helps others.

How can we sculpt assignments to address both cheatable by design and cheatable through incentive? Those are great ways to unpack the term because for educators, especially secondary and elementary, generative AI is just a click away on devices at school or home.

A quick note from the presenter of today's episode, Jotform. Jotform lets you build forms in minutes: student surveys, homework submissions, online quizzes, and more. You can start from scratch or use free templates designed for teachers, schools, and districts. Educational institutions can get a 30% discount on Jotform Enterprise. Learn more at jotform.com/enterprise/education.

Could you give an example of what a project or assessment might look like from your classroom experience or course? What does it look like to set up kids for success with an original artifact of their learning?

Sure. Anytime we ban or tell kids they can't use something is problematic and creates an antagonistic relationship. I want trust with my students, not policing and wasting energy trying to catch them. Instead, spend energy encouraging them to produce something constructive. Start with what feels appropriate for your grade level, resources, and school year. Embrace these tools to acknowledge the real world exists and your class has relevance.

Kids come to school and it doesn't look like the real world; everything is sanitized. We need to embrace that. Practically, what's an original artifact? A simple pivot I have in my book is if students create a class presentation, which most teachers do, have them use an app to record the presentation with their voice over. Same curriculum, content, and slides, but now you have a recording of their unique voice and design. That artifact is sharable.

Instead of making assignments just for the teacher like spy school for your eyes only, challenge students to create an artifact that can be shared and published for others to see or use. That adds purpose because otherwise, it's just for a grade and students do the minimum to get by. Instead, they have a choice to make this for an audience, adding incentive and disincentivizing cheating. It's an easy pivot we're already familiar with.

I love that example because it feels attainable for listeners who might say, 'Oh yeah, we do presentations or kids make something in a Google Doc where they can hit screen record and talk through their work.' In disruptions where things feel like gray areas or less control, that can help someone take a practice they already do and add an extra layer.

I was working with educators in New York talking about AI and daily practice. We spent time thinking about the process students go through, not just the final product. We want to celebrate the product but also lean into the process. What strategies help students document their thinking or workflow so teachers can see how learning unfolds in addition to the final product?

I wrote about this in a recent newsletter: re-label your learning space from classroom to workshop or studio. I don't mean bring in glue or saws or 3D printers, but think of a writer's workshop or a think tank in social studies or science. Reframe it as a mission to come up with new solutions or a quest for knowledge rather than memorizing facts and taking tests. Think about learning as a means to help somebody else.

The fear of gray areas and letting students do their own thing is real, but set up a sandbox with limitations and expectations like quantity, time, accuracy, or certain facts or processes that must be demonstrated, then give them space to do that. In a workshop format, there are different steps throughout the process.

I go into this in the book starting with ideation, deep research whether qualitative like conversations or traditional research with annotated bibliographies. Students find interesting pieces, come up with an idea or prototype, run it past peers for feedback, and document all this in Google Docs or similar. You trace and track progress and see how they pivot and change with feedback.

This removes high stakes pressure to come back in a week with a finished video or essay. Instead, students feel empowered and comfortable with the learning process. We're scaffolding how to be a good learner in the wild where no one is watching and there's no grade on the line. Isn't that the point of school? We want durable skills like critical thinking, giving and receiving constructive feedback, and modifying work incorporated in this workshop model.

In my book, I talk about steps like designing explainer videos, recorded class presentations, podcasts, or digital books published in language arts classes like literary magazines. Different things fit different contexts. The step-by-step progress is really important as teachers navigate options and challenges with assessments, especially with AI.

I appreciate you giving listeners small wins and big ideas they can try or bring to conversations with colleagues when planning new units or projects. So many layers to consider.

Where can people connect with you or learn more about your work?

I'm on LinkedIn a lot and my website michaelhernandez.net. I share ideas, resources, workshops, articles, and love working with schools to develop these mindsets. Looking forward to doing that in the next year or so.

Thanks for having me, Monica. It was lots of fun chatting today.

Let's make this edtech easy with a few key points from the episode. AI is forcing teachers to rethink traditional assessments and what they measure. Assessments become harder to cheat when students create original personal artifacts. Giving students authentic audiences increases motivation and reduces shortcuts. Banning AI isn't realistic; teaching students to use it responsibly builds trust and relevance.

Check out the show notes for a full list of resources from today's episode, including ways to connect with Michael Hernandez. A big thank you to Jotform, the presenter of today's episode. To learn more about Jotform and how educational institutions can get a 30% discount on Jotform Enterprise, head to jotform.com/enterprise/education.