I’m seeing plenty of calls for institutions to reform their assessments in the face of generative AI (see here, for example). Which is fine, I suppose. Nothing wrong with assessment reform.
But changing assessment practices without reforming the system in which it operates is just painting over the cracks. Or to put it more crudely, we’re putting lipstick on a pig. It’s still a pig.
I’ve touched on this before, when I thought we were focusing our attention on the superficial aspects of learning and teaching, rather than changes in infrastructure. Higher education has a history of tinkering on the edges of the problem without committing to the more difficult, but more meaningful changes.
Assessment reform seems to be what we want. But education reform is what we need.