Volume 1 No. 1.
Editor’s Note
Jonathan W.L. Salvacion
OBE’s Meaning, Essence, and Evolution from Transcending ‘Educentrism’ to Empowering Learners’ Futures
William G. Spady
Abstract
Outcome-Based Education (OBE) is widely misunderstood to be the various accountability, accreditation, and evaluation practices and models prevalent throughout the world. It is none of those. They are expressions of education’s, timebased, curriculum-based, and credentials-driven paradigm. This paper describes the foundational philosophy, principles, concepts, and history that have defined authentic Outcome-Based thinking and practice for nearly six decades. Starting with the pioneering insights of Carroll and the instructional model of Bloom, OBE has challenged educators to create and implement conditions in classrooms and institutions that foster successful learning for all students. The practices and configurations of these ‘conditions of success’ have taken four major forms over the decades–initially Academic, then Applied Performance, then Life-Engagement, and ultimately Self-Empowerment–each based on increasingly more complex, future-focused, and empowering modalities of qualities and abilities that institutions have defined as their ‘Exit Outcomes’ for graduates. Hence, authentic outcomes are not scores, numbers, percents, averages, or ratios; they are tangible demonstrations and encourage, document, and honor continued improvement. The paper contains many such outcome frameworks that embody and balance futurefocused rational/technical performance roles with essential interpersonal abilities and intrapersonal capacities. OBE’s evolution reveals two mega-paradigms of education: ‘INpowerment’, which is adult-driven, system-focused, and ‘educentric’; and ‘EMpowerment’ which is learner-centered and awakens and activates innate potentials, intrinsic motivations, and special talents. OBE’s evolution and future both represent a pathway for humanity toward ever-greater EMpowerment and conscious, creative, collaborative, competent, and compassionate learning and living.
Defining and Aligning Outcomes, Assessments, and Credentials of Significance: Concerns, Principles, and the Numbers Game
John Strohl, William G. Spady
Abstract
Tomorrow’s world is not the world of our forefathers. We will need lifelong learners and learning empowered by OBE’s Life-Performance Outcomes as keys to both survival and fulfillment. OBE has evolved enormously since its founding but retained three fundamental principles – significance, alignment, and authenticity, each embodied fully in its Outcomes, its assessments, and its substantive credentials. No matter how the rationales for determining outcomes are stated – as skill-sets, life engagement, professional requirements, social expectations, philosophical principles, or all of the above – they explicitly or implicitly represent cultural values, priorities, and customs that must be taken into account if implementation efforts are to succeed. OBE’s acceptance or resistance hangs in the balance. Since Outcomes of Significance are demonstrable and matter well after students graduate, they must be described in action-oriented terms, include performance tasks, embody definitive Measures of Effectiveness (MoEs), and be practiced and continually reinforced in realistic contexts. Recognizing that the significance and authenticity of any outcome defined now can only be ultimately validated at some undefined future point, educators must be willing to adapt and revise how outcomes are fostered and assessed in light of evolving external contexts. This is key to keeping outcomes relevant and empowering, which most conventional learning contexts cannot do. Ultimately both Authentic Assessment and Credentialing must replace and transcend the formidable, intrinsic failings and pitfalls of numerical or symbolic assessments, grading, record keeping, and Credentialing systems that provide constituents and future employers with the illusion, rather than reality, of student abilities and qualities.
Implementing Authentic Outcomes-Based Education: A Personal Perspective Based on First-Hand Experience
Des Collier
Abstract
To date, Outcomes-Based Education has always been ahead of its time and has been variously and fundamentally misunderstood at best, and intentionally misconstrued and distorted to suit various non-educational agendas at worst. The purpose of this article is to alert political leaders and educational authorities to recognize the main components of any existing education system that they must be willing and able to change in order to implement authentic Outcomes-Based Education. This article is a personal account based on first-hand experience of attempts to implement Outcomes-Based Education, while working directly with Dr William Spady, the acknowledged founder of Outcomes-Based Education, and includes reference to Futures Studies. It is argued in this paper that the fundamental premise that aptitude is not a fixed ability to learn but a pace of learning, makes this system the antithesis of traditional education systems and leads to fundamental changes in educational paradigm, leadership, outcomes, learning opportunities, learning styles, delivery, assessment, and the roles of learners and educators.
Framing Education Research using Outcome-Based Education as a Theoretical Lens
Jonathan Macayan
Abstract
Theoretical framework serves important functions in any scientific research endeavor. It is an explicit structure that critically undergirds conceptual positions and procedural implementations of scientific inquiry. Outcome-Based Education (OBE) offers a very strong theoretical backbone that can hold and sustain the research process from ideation, execution, to conceptual and practical resolutions. This article intends to elucidate important theoretical paradigms, premises, and principles of OBE. Discussions about the important theoretical standpoints of OBE on who the learners are, what learning is, and how the learning takes place are given emphasis. These conceptual and theoretical elements should serve to correctly and effectively use OBE as theoretical underpinning in doing education research.
Book Review
Jasmine Nadja J. Pinugu
Volume 2 No. 1.
Development of an Outcome-based Learning Guide and Portfolio in the Hospital Dietetics Practicum
Veronica F. Balintona
Milagros L. Borabo
Celeste C. Tanchoco
Abstract
The shift to an Outcome-Based Education (OBE) approach in the Philippines is mandated by legal bases to ensure quality education and prepare Nutrition and Dietetics graduates for international recognition and labor mobility. In an OBE approach, all decisions are based on the learning outcomes that require assessments to ensure that the required learning outcomes are achieved. The study aimed to develop an Outcome-Based Learning Guide and Portfolio for the Hospital Dietetics Practicum course. Data collection followed a three-stage sequential research design. Stage l involved exploratory sequential mixed methods to determine the learning outcomes for the course. Stage 2 used focus group discussion to establish the lea ming activities and modes of assessment. Stage 3 surveyed the extent of the participants’ agreement on the content and constructive alignment (CA) of the learning activities and assessment to the learning outcomes. Qualitative data analysis was done using manifest content analysis and quantitative data analysis through statistical analysis. The study found that the learning outcomes determined through the exploratory-sequential stage were highly valid. The participants’ reported a high degree of agreement to the content of the Learning Guide and the CA of the learning activities and assessment to the learning outcomes. Their high degree of agreement on the content and CA of the learning activities and assessments to the learning outcomes indicated their confidence in the Learning Guide that may serve as a valuable curriculum material to help students achieve relevant learning outcomes in the Hospital Dietetics Practicum course.
Assessing the Effectiveness of the Fully Online Mode of Teaching and Learning in the Attainment of Course Outcomes: Implementing Outcome-Based Education Framework in Readings in Philippine History Classes
Geoffrey Rhoel C. Cruz
Abstract
The delivery of quality education in the Philippines has been tested in the last decade as educational programs and curriculums were revised in response to the implementation of the K-72 educational framework. Moreover, the Covid-79 pandemic made adjustments even more challenging as it forced the immediate shift to on line mode learning beginning March 2020.Mapua University responded to the challenge by switching immediately to the fully online mode of learning, characterized by the combination of synchronous and asynchronous sessions, and adopting the principles of an outcome-based education framework to ensure the continuous delivery of quality education. As such, this study assesses the effectiveness of a fully on line mode of learning by assessing the feedback of students by answering the central question, “Can the online mode of learning effectively achieve the identified course outcomes in Readings in Philippine History (GED703). a general education course?”. Using a quantitative analysis of data obtained through the use of Google Forms for Survey, the findings of the study showed that pedagogy is the one constant factor between traditional face-to-face and on line modes of learning. The study likewise suggests that the principles of the outcome-based education framework if adopted appropriately can contribute to the effectiveness of the online mode of learning in achieving desired course learning outcomes.
Commentary: Navigating Education 4.0 through the Lens of Outcome-Based Education
Jonathan V. Macayan
Jasmine Nadja J. Pinugu
Edward Jay M. Quinto
Abstract
Education 4.0 is the logical response of schools to the challenges and opportunities posed by Industrial Revolution (4.0). The modern-day industries expect new sets of outcomes, i.e., knowledge, skills, and competencies, that professionals entering the workplace must possess. How would schools then keep up with these new sets of expectations? How would schools then prepare students towards attaining the necessary outcomes relevant to the needs of industries, and of the local and global societies? This paper discusses the trends, issues, and concerns surrounding Education 4.0, and how the Outcome-Based Education framework can be used to constructively align curricular experiences to the desired outcomes of the real world.