A look at postsecondary education’s imperfect relationship with standardization: Editorial

In a new article for The EvoLLLution, St Francis Xavier University Director of Centre for Online Learning & Professional Studies Jack Rice reflects on the education sector’s relationship with standardized curriculum and assessments. Rice discusses the limits of the “imperfect relationship” between educational standards and how students are evaluated against them, and how technological developments may disrupt how institutions rely on standardized evaluations and their proxies. “The standardization of education into terms, semesters, credits, departments, lectures, midterms, finals, papers, and grades matched well with a society where all learners were 18 – 22 and diversity, equity and inclusion were observations rather than guiding principles,” writes Rice. “But in today’s world when there are so many ways to connect … have we considered that we may not need these proxies at all?” Rice concludes by expressing hope that technology will help higher education to release its hold on obsolete models and enter into a new age of teaching and learning.