ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING

MODULE 1

Shift of Educational Focus from Content to Learning Outcomes

Education originated from the terms "educare" or "educere" which meant "to draw out".
Ironically, however, for centuries we succeeded in perpetuating the belief that education is a
"pouring in" process wherein the teacher was the infallible giver of knowledge and the student
was the passive recipient.
The advent of technology caused a change of perspective in education, nationally and
internationally. The teacher ceased to be the sole source of knowledge. With knowledge
explosion, students are surrounded with various sources of facts and information accessible
through user-friendly technology. The teacher has become a facilitator of knowledge who
assists in the organization, interpretation and validation of acquired facts and information.
CONTENT BASED LEARNING
“Content Based Learning is a study of both language
acquisition and subject matter. Instead of teaching language
in isolation, the target language becomes the medium in
which important information can be learned. When the
students are studying a content area of interest (i.e. snakes,
the Holocaust, immigration, etc), they are more intrinsically
motivated to learn both the content and the language
simultaneously. The students are actually able to use their
new language.
Content Based Learning is most appropriate at intermediate and advanced proficiency levels.
“Content based activities extend student vocabulary and knowledge, giving students words to
use when they speak or write, extending vocabulary and speaking and writing skills. In other
words, students learn new words with every activity, and create a base of words built on the
activity.
What can be considered ‘content’?
There are many things that can be considered ‘content’; what is important is that what is being
taught or discussed through the language not be language instruction related. Aspects of the
curriculum, discussions about current events and world cultures or even general topics of
interest are all valid ‘content’ options.

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 Imagine you are teaching the past tense to your students.
Brainstorm and write down 10 'content' subjects that are
related to your target language that you could use to practice
this grammar concept (i.e. Teaching about a historical event).

How can CBI be used in the language classroom?

It is not enough to simply integrate content into the language classroom, it must be done
effectively. Stoller (2002) lists eight practices that allow for natural content integration:
1. Extended input, meaningful output, and feedback on language and grasp of content
2. Information gathering, processing, and reporting
3. Integrated skills (using reading, writing, speaking and listening in natural classroom
activities)
4. Task-based activities and project work, enhanced by cooperative learning principles
5. Strategy training (to produce more metacognitively aware strategic learners)
6. Visual support (ie. Images, graphic organizers, language ladders etc.)
7. Contextualized grammar instruction
8. Culminating synthesis activities (knowledge is displayed in writing and orally)

What is Outcome-based education?

Outcome-based education is a model of education
that rejects the traditional focus on what the school
provides to students, in favor of making students
demonstrate that they "know and are able to do"
whatever the required outcomes are.
OBE reforms emphasize setting clear standards for
observable, measurable outcomes. Nothing about
OBE demands the adoption of any specific outcome.
For example, many countries write their OBE standards so that they focus strictly on
mathematics, language, science, and history, without ever referring to attitudes, social skills,
or moral values.The key features which may be used to judge if a system has implemented an
outcomes-based education systems are:
Creation of a curriculum framework that outlines specific, measurable outcomes. The
standards included in the frameworks are usually chosen through the area's normal political
process.
A commitment not only to provide an opportunity of education, but to require learning
outcomes for advancement. Promotion to the next grade, a diploma, or other reward is granted
upon achievement of the standards, while extra classes, repeating the year, or other
consequences entail upon those who do not meet the standards.

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Standards-based assessments that determines whether students have achieved the stated
standard. Assessments may take any form, so long as the assessments actually measure
whether the student knows the required information or can perform the required task.

OUTCOMES
The emphasis in an OBE education system is on measured
outcomes rather than "inputs," such as how many hours’
students spend in class, or what textbooks are provided.
Outcomes may include a range of skills and knowledge.
Generally, outcomes are expected to be concretely measurable,
that is, "Student can run 50 meters in less than one minute"
instead of "Student enjoys physical education class." A
complete system of outcomes for a subject area normally
includes everything from mere recitation of fact ("Students will
name three tragedies written by Shakespeare") to complex
analysis and interpretation ("Student will analyze the social context of a Shakespearean
tragedy in an essay"). Writing appropriate and measurable outcomes can be very difficult, and
the choice of specific outcomes is often a source of local controversies.
Each educational agency is responsible for setting its own outcomes. Under the OBE model,
education agencies may specify any outcome (skills and knowledge), but not inputs (field
trips, arrangement of the school day, teaching styles). Some popular models of outcomes
include the National Science Education Standards and the NCTM's Principles and Standards
for School Mathematics.

APPROACHES TO GRADING, REPORTING, and PROMOTING

An important by-product of this approach is that students are assessed against external,
absolute objectives, instead of reporting the students' relative achievements. The traditional
model of grading on a curve (top student gets the best grade, worst student always fails (even
if they know all the material), everyone else is evenly distributed in the middle) is never
accepted in OBE or standards-based education. Instead, a student's performance is related in
absolute terms: "Jane knows how to write the letters of the alphabet" or "Jane answered 80%
of questions correctly" instead of "Jane answered more questions correctly than Mary."
Under OBE, teachers can use any objective grading system they choose, including letter
grades. In fact, many schools adopt OBE methods and use the same grading systems that they
have always used. However, for the purposes of graduation, advancement, and retention, a
fully developed OBE system generally tracks and reports not just a single overall grade for a
subject, but also give information about several specific outcomes within that subject. For
example, rather than just getting a passing grade for mathematics, a student might be assessed
as level 4 for number sense, level 5 for algebraic concepts, level 3 for measurement skills, etc.

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This approach is valuable to schools and parents by specifically identifying a student's
strengths and weaknesses.
In one alternate grading approach, a student is awarded "levels" instead of letter grades. From
Kindergarten to year 12, the student will receive either a Foundational level (which is pre-
institutional) or be evidenced at levels 1 through to 8. In the simplest implementation, earning
a "level" indicates that the teacher believes that a student has learned enough of the current
material to be able to succeed in the next level of work. A student technically cannot flunk in
this system: a student who needs to review the current material will simply not achieve the
next level at the same time as most of his same-age peers. This acknowledges differential
growth at different stages, and focuses the teacher on the individual needs of the students.
In this approach, students and their parents are better able to track progress from year to year,
since the levels are based on criteria that remain constant for a student's whole time at school.
However, this experience is perceived by some as a flaw in the system: While it is entirely
normal for some students to work on the same level of outcomes for more than one year
parents and students have been socialized into the expectation of a constant, steady progress
through schoolwork. Parents and students therefore interpret the normal experience as failure.
This emphasis on recognizing positive achievements, and comparing the student to his own
prior performance, has been accused by some of "dumbing down" education (and by others as
making school much too hard), since it recognises achievement at different levels. Even those
who would not achieve a passing grade in a traditional age-based approach can be recognized
for their concrete, positive, individual improvements.
OBE-oriented teachers think about the individual needs of each student and give opportunities
for each student to achieve at a variety of levels. Thus, in theory, weaker students are given
work within their grasp and exceptionally strong students are extended. In practice, managing
independent study programs for thirty or more individuals is difficult. Adjusting to students'
abilities is something that good teachers have always done: OBE simply makes the approach
explicit and reflects the approach in marking and reporting.

DIFFERENCES WITH TRADITIONAL EDUCATION METHODS

In a traditional education system and economy, students
are given grades and rankings compared to each other.
Content and performance expectations are based
primarily on what was taught in the past to students of a
given age. The basic goal of traditional education was to
present the knowledge and skills of the old generation to
the new generation of students, and to provide students
with an environment in which to learn, with little
attention (beyond the classroom teacher) to whether or
not any student ever learns any of the material. It was enough that the school presented an

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opportunity to learn. Actual achievement was neither measured nor required by the school
system.
In fact, under the traditional model, student performance is expected to show a wide range of
abilities. The failure of some students is accepted as a natural and unavoidable circumstance.
The highest-performing students are given the highest grades and test scores, and the lowest
performing students are given low grades. (Local laws and traditions determine whether the
lowest performing students were socially promoted or made to repeat the year.) Schools used
norm-referenced tests, such as inexpensive, multiple-choice computer-scored questions with
single correct answers, to quickly rank students on ability. These tests do not give criterion-
based judgments as to whether students have met a single standard of what every student is
expected to know and do: they merely rank the students in comparison with each other. In this
system, grade-level expectations are defined as the performance of the median student, a level
at which half the students score better and half the students score worse. By this definition, in
a normal population, half of students are expected to perform above grade level and half the
students below grade level, no matter how much or how little the students have learned.

OBE Principles and Process

OBE Principles
There are different definitions for outcome-based
education. The most widely used one is the four principles
suggested by Spady (1994).
An OBE curriculum means starting with a clear picture of
what is important for students to be able to do, then
organizing the curriculum, instruction and assessment to
make sure this learning ultimately happens. The four basic
principles are (Spady, 1994):
• Clarity of focus
This means that everything teachers do must be clearly focused on what they want students to
know, understand and be able to do. In other words, teachers should focus on helping students
to develop the knowledge, skills and personalities that will enable them to achieve the
intended outcomes that have been clearly articulated.
• Designing down
It means that the curriculum design must start with a clear definition of the intended outcomes
that students are to achieve by the end of the program. Once this has been done, all
instructional decisions are then made to ensure achieve this desired end result.

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• High Expectations
It means that teachers should establish high, challenging standards of performance in order to
encourage students to engage deeply in what they are learning. Helping students to achieve
high standards is linked very closely with the idea that successful learning promotes more
successful learning.
• Expanded Opportunities
Teachers must strive to provide expanded opportunities for all students. This principle is
based on the idea that not all learners can learn the same thing in the same way and in the
same time. However, most students can achieve high standards if they are given appropriate
opportunities.

OBE Process
Constructive alignment' is the process that we usually follow when we build up an OBE
syllabus. It is a term coined by Professor John Biggs in 1999, which refers to the process to
create a learning environment that supports the learning activities appropriate to achieving the
desired learning outcomes. The word 'constructive' refers to what the learner does to construct
meaning through relevant learning activities. The 'alignment' aspect refers to what the teacher
does. The key to the alignment is that the components in the teaching system, especially the
teaching methods used and the assessment tasks are aligned to the learning activities assumed
in the intended outcomes.
• Defining Curriculum Objectives and Intended Learning Outcomes
• Designing Assessment Tasks
• Selecting Teaching and Learning Activities
• Tips: Reviewing your Program-level Outcomes
• Tips: Writing Intended Learning Outcomes
• Tips: Choosing an Appropriate Outcome-based Assessment Tool and Method
• Example: An Outcome-based Assessment Marking Scheme

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