Outcome-based education: curriculum alignment and assessment design

¶ … Education

Definition method of teaching that focuses on what students can actually do after they are taught, is known as outcome-based education. All teaching and curriculum decisions are made on the basis of how can the students be best facilitated to obtain the desired outcome.

The Backward Mapping

By its objective, the planning process of an outcome-based education is in reverse of a traditional educational plan. In the former, the desired outcome is selected first and the curriculum is secondarily created to support that intended outcome. It can be understood from the library instructions very well in the sense that librarians want students to have specific information seeking skills (e.g. The ability to use online card catalogs, etc.) as an outcome of library instruction.

Curriculum Alignment

Assessment

The outcome-based education process specifies that assessments should be developed after the definite and authentic tailoring of outcomes for their subsequent assessment. Therefore outcome-based education entails that the educators must develop assessments that are original, authentic, and performance-based, and then should link them to specific outcomes. (Gail Furman, 1994. p. 429, 430)

Fundamental Beliefs - The Theories on Outcome-Based Education

Spady and Marshall

There needs to be a "clarity of focus" in Outcome-Based Education for the planners and teachers to know exactly what they want their students to be able to do successfully.

"design down" construction should be followed in the curriculum, keeping the desired exit outcomes initially, and all instructional plans to root from there (Spady and Marshall, 1994).

Floyd Boschee and Mark Baron

Outcomes are future oriented, centered towards the learner. They are publicly defined and focus on life skills and contexts. High expectations of and for all learners characterize this, making "outcome" the source from which all the educational decisions flow.

Learning is carefully facilitated towards achievement of the outcomes. The appropriateness of the outcome to the developmental level of each learner characterizes this, making it active and experience-based (Boschee and Baron, 1994).

Mastery Learning - Helping the Teachers for Overall Improvement

There are many applications of outcome-based education, the most important of which is the application in the planning process. Concentrating on outcomes rather than grades, outcome-based education allows teachers to focus on teaching the skills that are most important to their subjects. By clearly focusing on what they want the student to learn, and by creating observable outcomes for assessment, teachers can make a curriculum that teaches the outcomes. This process improves instructions by forcing teachers to reconsider what and how they teach, leading to better incorporation of skills into the curriculum for the academics.