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INDEX
S.NO TOPICS PAGE.NO

Week 1
1 NATE 4
2 NBA Accreditation 15
3 Outcome Based Education 37
4 Self Assessment Report 54
5 Education, Teaching, Learning, Instruction, and Assessment 71
Week 2
6 PEOs and POs (1-5) 90
7 A) POs 6-9) 116
8 B) POs 10-12) 129
9 PSOs 140
10 Taxonomy of Learning 150
Week 3
11 Cognitive Processes 1 173
12 Cognitive Processes 2 186
13 Categories of Knowledge 1 204
14 Categories of Knowledge 2 220
15 Taxonomy Table 235
16 Affective and Psychomotor Domains 248
Week 4
17 Course Outcomes 1 264
18 Course Outcomes 2 276
19 Tagging Course Outcomes 291
20 Computing Attainment of COs 305
21 Computing PO and PSO Attainment 331
1
Week 5
22 ‚ÄúCourse Design‚Äù Component of Teaching as per Fink‚Äôs Model 353
23 ISD and ADDIE Models 369
24 ADDIE - Analysis Phase 1 386
25 ADDIE - Analysis Phase 2 401
Week 6
26 ADDIE - Design Phase 414
27 Technology for Assessment; Setting Targets 434
28 Assessment Plan and Assessment Instruments 452
29 Item Banks 470
30 ADDIE- Development Phase 492
Week 7
31 ADDIE - Implement Phase 1 512
32 ADDIE - Implement Phase 2 527
33 Exit Surveys 1 542
34 Exit Surveys 2 559
35 ADDIE - Evaluate Phase 577
Week 8
36 Instruction An Overview 587
37 Instructional Situations 604
38 How Brains Learn 621
39 Instructional Components 643
40 Principles of Instruction Design 664
Week 9
41 Direct Instruction ‚Äì 1 682
42 Direct Instruction ‚Äì 2 699
43 Project Based Approach to Instruction 718
44 Problem Based Approach to Instruction 741
45 Instruction for Design thinking 760
2
Week 10
46 Simulation Approach to Instruction 779
47 Instruction for Metacognitive Learning 797
48 So, What Should the teacher do? 820
49 NBA Criterion 1 Vision, Mission, PEOs -1 836
50 NBA Criterion 1 Vision, Mission, PEOs -2 854
Week 11
51 NBA Criterion 2 Teaching-Learning Processes-1 871
52 NBA Criterion 2 Teaching-Learning Processes-2 889
53 NBA Criterion 3 -1 COs and POs 914
54 NBA Criterion 3 -2 COs and POs 936
55 NBA Criterion 4 Students' Performance 957
56 NBA Criterion 5 Faculty Information and Contributions 978
Week 12
57 NBA Criterion 6 Facilities and Technical Support 1006
58 NBA Criterion 7 Continuous Improvement 1020
59 NBA Criterion 8 First Year Academics 1032
60 NBA Criterion 9 Student Support Systems 1042
NBA Criterion 10 Governance, Institutional Support and Financial

61 Resources 1063
62 Summary 1083
3
NBA Accreditation and Teaching – Learning in Engineering (NATE)
Professor N. J. Rao
Department of Electronics Systems Engineering
Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru
Lec 01
NATE
Greetings and welcome to the course NATE. NATE is NBA Accreditation and Teaching-
Learning in Engineering.
(Refer slide Time: 0:46)
This course will combine both NBA Accreditation and Teaching and Learning as well. The
accreditation is a process of quality assurance and improvement undertaken by a designated
4
agency. Here it happens to be National Board of Accreditation. You should note that several
reforms have taken place in the area of higher education in India in the recent past. National
Board of Accreditation is an agency responsible for accrediting undergraduate and
postgraduate programs in engineering, pharmacy programs, management programs, MCA
programs and diploma programs in engineering.
The NBA identified 12 program outcomes that all graduates of UG programs in engineering
should attain. The NBA since 2015 requires that all UG programs should demonstrate that
graduates of their program have attain these Pos (POs are Program Outcomes) and are
continuously improving their attainment. That is a requirement of the accreditation. At
present most of the higher education institutes offering UG programs (UG and PG programs)
in engineering want their program to be accredited by the NBA, because of several
advantages associated with it.
Even the Draft National Education Policy - 2019 requires that all programs and institutions
are accredited by 2022. Teachers of engineering colleges should be aware - the context in
which they are operating and also of the requirements on the accreditation. The programs in
engineering are described in terms of what we call learning outcomes. Learning outcomes are
what the student should be able to do as a result of learning. These outcomes should be
observable and measurable.
All teaching and learning activities in an engineering program should be planned and
conducted to attain a set of well-defined outcomes. Teaching to ensure that their student
attain these outcomes, is a new requirement from the teachers since 2015. This is now known
as Outcome Based Education. Teachers of engineering colleges should now meet the
requirements of the NBA accreditation and the Outcome Based Education.
5
The course NATE is designed to enable (the teachers of engineering) teachers in engineering
programs to facilitate their students to become good engineers. The course is meant for
teachers of engineering programs and the course aims at facilitating the teachers, so that they
can do a better job of their teaching-learning and make their students to become good
engineers. Also the course aims to facilitate teachers understand their role in getting their
programs accredited by the NBA. That is a purpose of this course.
The course is offered in three modules. It is a three credit course and has three modules as per
the requirement of NPTEL. Module 1 presents the NBA and OBE framework in detail. It
facilitates, writing outcomes in the framework of revised Bloom's Taxonomy of learning and
also presents a method of computing the attainment of outcomes.
Module 2 presents a systematic method of designing and conducting an engineering course as

per ADDIE instructional system design model that facilitates the students to attain stated
outcomes. Module 3 presents some methods of instructions; it also discusses the element of
all the 10 criteria of self-assessment report of NBA and points out many proactive activities
that the teachers can undertake that can lead to better to accreditations scores.
This course is offered as a MOOC through NPTEL. The course is offered as about 60 units of
about half-hour videos. Some resource materials will also we made available. As per the
requirements of NPTEL, there will be weekly assignments. All the assignments and
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examination will have only MCQ that is multiple choice questions or multiple selection
questions and fill in the blank type of items.
The course will be useful to working teachers in engineering colleges. The main designated
audience or attended audience are the working teachers in engineering colleges. It will also
be very useful to academic administrators including principals, HODs, controllers of
examinations, deans, IQAC coordinators, and registrars, who are really responsible for
supervising or overseeing the all the activities related to accreditation as well as constantly
improving the quality of learning.
The course will also be useful to aspiring teachers those who are outside that maybe they
have completed their post graduate program and they want to become teachers in engineering
colleges, it will also be useful to them. Then some graduate student who wish to make their
careers in education technology. They can enrol for this course and get all features of
accreditation and conducting a course.
It will also be useful to companies, offering education technologies and training programs to
education institutes, teachers, students and corporates. These days we have several companies
that are coming to offer such services, this course can also be useful to these companies.
7
Let us be clear, as outcome is a basis of all courses. So, we also have (outcomes) course
outcomes for the course NATE. At the end of this course that is after 3 modules the learner
should be able to understand the requirements of accreditation of UG engineering programs
by the NBA and the nature of outcome based education.
Next outcome - understand the revised bloom's taxonomy of learning, and the three domains,
of learning which includes cognitive, affective and psychomotor domain. CO3 - write
outcomes of a course in an engineering program and identify the program outcomes and the
program specific outcomes addressed.
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CO4: Design a course in an engineering program in the instructional system design
framework of ADDIE. CO5: Design assessment that is in good alignment with course
outcomes. Then in module 3: Design instruction for attending the course outcomes ensuring
good alignment between outcomes, assessment and instruction. And finally CO7: Understand
the NBA accreditation criteria.
We bring it to your attention there are several technical words that we have included in this
but each one of them will be elaborated in detail when we come to the appropriate point. So,
presently please accept like, what is ADDIE? What is program specific outcomes? What is
alignment? These are words that are used with a specific meaning in this context.
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As the 4 year BE programme aims at training graduates of 12th standard into engineers, it is
necessary to understand what engineers to do or expected to do after they graduate. The
teachers should communicate this in great detail to their students. Engineers - what do they
do? Engineers architect, plan, design, develop, manufacture, test, install, operate and maintain
technological products and systems.
They are unlikely to do all of them at the same time but at different points of their career,
engineers are going to be involved with two or more activities of this type. Engineers also
provide services using technological products. Some groups of engineers and non-engineers
work together to solve socially relevant complex technical problems. Typical examples are
traffic, water, for example, any issue related climate change or a disaster and so on.
These complex technical problems can only be solved by groups of engineers and non-
engineers working together. Engineers are also required to operate and behave as per well-
defined professional and ethical standards. These are the things that engineers do or required
to do.
10
We want to train our students as good engineers. Who are good engineers? The
characteristics of a good engineer considered important by industries. We will say industry or
organisations who employee our graduates. We should really ask these people to say whom
do they consider as a good engineers? A survey of these industries shows that practically all
of them agree to these main characteristics of good engineers. A good engineer should have
sound knowledge of engineering science and technologies.
They should have ability to solve well defined or ill-defined problems. All the time problems
will not be like end of the chapter problems, they will all be ill-defined problems. that means
one of the activities an engineer has to do is convert an ill-defined problem into a well-
defined problem. Good engineers have awareness of customers’ needs and market trends, and
they have an interest and awareness in all facets of engineering activities.
More importantly, their ability to work in a team. That is because no engineering activity is
done out in the industry by any single person, they always will have to work in a team. They
should also have ability to document, plan and communicate effectively. Lastly, they should
have willingness and ability to learn on the job. Because technology changes all the time
what you learnt in the undergraduate program will not be sufficient and you have to
constantly learn. So, these are the characteristics of good engineers.
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Then, we should also understand, what is the nature of formal programs? Why we need to
emphasize? Some people consider teaching and learning is a kind of open ended free activity
and so on. For example, methods that work when the number of students in a class are small
and when the cognitive abilities of the students are very high like you have NIT or IIT
students or when you have gifted teachers, that means very highly qualified, proven,
experience in research and teaching and so on, such things do not scale up. You cannot create
too many such institutions in a country. When the numbers are large – the only successful
model is a formal program.
It is necessary to understand the nature of these formal programs. Higher education formal
programs are of two to four years duration; Offered as two semesters per year; Carry
predefined credit load; Have well defined curricular components; Have predefined
assessment procedures; and have predefined methods of grading. In India we have further
restrictions that do not exist elsewhere in the world.
Most of our engineering colleges are non-autonomous, and a large number of colleges are
affiliated to a single university. This is unique to India, nowhere else it exists. Most of the
academic activities, therefore as everyone knows are centralised. The centralisation brings its
own limitations and also conveniences. This situation is not likely to change much in the near
future, despite many people wanting otherwise. On many platforms people will keep saying
that all colleges should become autonomous but somehow it does not get translated into
increasing the number of autonomous institutions.
12
All undergraduate engineering programs are required two important knowledge, skills and
attitudes that facilitate graduates of 12th standard to acquire the characteristics of a good
engineer. The boards of studies decide what knowledge, skills, and attitude need to be
imparted. These decisions generally are strongly tempered by the experiences of the members
of boards of studies. The characteristics of good engineers expressed as Program Outcomes
by the NBA are the only things that every program should demonstrate their attainment.
So, at present the only thing that is common and is rather imposed you can say or defined or
identified by National Board of Accreditation are the twelve program outcomes, which we
will be dealing with in great detail in the later part of this course. Other than that each
university or each autonomous institution depending on the experiences or opinions of the
members of the Boards of Studies will define what kind of knowledge and skills and attitude
to be imparted in an undergraduate engineering program.
13
(Refer slide Time 20:19)
In the next unit, we will be introducing the NBA accreditation process. This will not be done
in great detail but the purpose of the next unit is to really sensitize to all the teachers to - what
are the stages or what are the processes involved so that they do not feel some kind of
imposition is coming on them.
Thank you very much for your attention.
14
NBA Accreditation and Teaching - Learning in Engineering (NATE)
Professor N. J. Rao
Department of Electronics System Engineering
Lecture No 02
NBA Accreditation
(Refer Slide Time: 0:19)
Greetings and welcome to Module 1, Unit 2 of the course NATE - NBA Accreditation and
Teaching Learning in Engineering.
15
In the earlier unit, we understood the nature and outcomes of the course of NATE. The main
reason why we are interested in this course is, teachers of engineering colleges need to
understand the requirements of NBA accreditation, and their role in the process of preparing
for accreditation. Because the new NBA accreditation process requires all faculty concerned
with that program to participate in one way or the other.
Also teachers are required to conduct teaching learning activities from the perspective
outcome based education. So, the purpose of this course is, teachers to understand the
processes associated with NBA accreditation and to conduct their teaching learning activities
from the perspective of Outcome Based Education; that is the purpose of this course.
16
In this unit, we attempt to understand the nature of NBA accreditation process and the
conditions under which accreditation is awarded to an engineering program. At this point, we
will look at the entire process a bit superficially, so that we get the framework in mind and
then will start working on the details as we go along. So, in this unit do not expect answers
for all the questions that you have on the NBA accreditation process.
Now, first thing is engineering programs in India have to be offered by institutions which are
permitted to offer by All India Council for Technical Education. That means every college or
institution offering engineering programs on a standalone basis (not as a part of a university
as of now); they have to get permission from AICTE. AICTE gives permission when the
institution fulfills certain requirements as specified by AICTE, if they do not fulfill AICTE
will not permit.
These are offered by two types of institution as NBA recognizes. One is called Tier 1, which
is academically autonomous; Tier 2 is academically non-autonomous. There are two types of
institutions. The academically autonomous institution can be part of a university (either a
private university or deemed to be University) and that means they are academically
autonomous means they are responsible for their curriculum; are responsible for conducting
the examinations and are responsible for declaring the results.
If it is university, they do not have to go anywhere else. But when academically autonomics
institution which is affiliated to another university, then the University awards the degree but
they are expected to be academically autonomous. Whereas tier 2 institutions, are
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academically non-autonomous, and they are certainly affiliated to an university. Non-
autonomous means all the major academic activities; other than classroom instruction, and
internal evaluation; that is a curriculum design and conducting of examinations and declaring
the results are all done centrally by the university.
At present, more than ninety percent of engineering colleges are academically non-
autonomous that is tier 2 institution, while people have been complaining about it, but
somehow converting non-autonomous institution to autonomous institution has been going on
at a very very slow pace.
Now, let us look at a little bit of NBA history as we are directly concerned with National
Board of Accreditation. We need to understand a little history of this. The NBA was
established in the year 1994, under the section 10 (u) of AICTE Act. When it was established,
it was an integral part of AICTE. That means, the head of NBA directly comes under the
chairman of AICTE. And NBA became autonomous in January 2010. That means almost 16
years after its inception, it became autonomous but still it was operating out of NBA, possibly
with the budget coming from AICTE.
In 2013, a memorandum of association and rules of the NBA were amended to make it
administratively as well as financially independent of AICTE. What it means? It has more
than a new building. They are responsible financially for themselves, and also they
administer themselves. However, any institution like that will have several committees. The
committee/the one that governing board will have members or the chairman of AICTE as ex
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official member in that, so it is linked to AICTE, but only as with respect to policies,
whereas, day to day activities of NBA are not supervised by AICTE directly.
India became a permanent member/signatory to the Washington Accord (we will presently
talk about Washington Accord) in 2014. And then, since 2015 NBA requires that engineering
programs are conducted in the framework of outcome based education. This is a direct
consequence of becoming a signatory to the Washington Accord.
Becoming a signatory to the Washington Accord has a long history. We need not follow that.
We right now we do not have with concerned about it. But in 2014, we became a signatory.
Having signed the Washington Accord, it brought new responsibilities to the NBA. The
accreditation processes had to be brought in alignment with those recommended by the
Washington Accord. The NBA accreditation process was defined initially for tier 2 institution
and announced in 2015 because they constitute the dominant portion of engineering
institutions. It was first announced in June 2015. The accreditation process were defined for
tier 1 institutions in 2016.
Washington Accord is an international accreditation agreement for undergraduate

professional engineering, academic degrees between the bodies responsible for an
accreditation in its signatory countries and regions. It was established in 1989. The full
signatories as of 2018 include Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Japan,
Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Africa,
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Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. These eighteen
countries are signatories to the Washington Accord.
The Washington Accord covers only the undergraduate engineering degrees under the
outcome based education approach. Only qualification awarded after the signatory country or
the region became part of the Washington Accord are recognized. That means, outside these
eighteen countries, if somebody has awarded a degree (engineering degree,) the other
countries may or may not recognize it as equivalent to engineering program.
The Washington Accord recognizes that there is a substantial equivalence of programs

accredited by those signatories. It is roughly equivalent to this - first of all, it is a four year
program, so all the signatory countries will have four year program. They are offered in two
semesters a year. And they have certain features which broadly commander it is not exactly
something is imposed. But in the spirit of whatever criteria Washington Accord has written
down, the countries are expected to be conducting their programs.
Periodically, Washington Accord committee will send a group to kind of inspect how the
accreditation processes in the signatory countries are happening. They will only come and
observe, they will not interfere with the accreditation process that is going on. And they just
report back to the head office of Washington Accord. It is called Washington Accord because
(this is signed,) accord is signed in Washington.
There are other accords like that which were signed in Sydney and another accord signed in
Dublin and so on. Graduates of accredited programs in any of the signatory countries are
recognized by the other signatory countries as having met the academic requirements for the
entry to the practice of engineering. As of now, Washington Accord recognizes the
engineering graduates from tier 1 institutions only, strictly speaking. Because all the
autonomy of the academic process will have to be with the institute.
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Now, let us look at what is this accreditation process? Accreditation is a process of quality
assurance and improvement, whereby a program in an approved institution is critically
appraised to verify that the institution or program continues to meet under exceed norms and
standards prescribed by the regulator from time to time. That is a very formal sentence. What
it means is? An engineering college or an institution offering engineering program is a social
institution, and it has several stakeholders. any institution like that will have several
stakeholders.
You have to periodically reassure the stakeholders that what you are doing is of acceptable
quality. When somebody is accredited, it does not mean that it has achieved the highest
standard or anything. You are only achieved the minimum standard that is prescribed by the
accrediting agency. And these standards will keep changing from time to time, but of course
after the due consultations with the whole community. So, when an institution is accredited, it
is a kind of recognition which indicates that program or institution fulfills certain standards;
actually one can replace certain by the minimum standards.
Normally people do not wish to use word ‘minimum standard’, but strictly it is ‘minimum
standards’ that you need to fulfill. What are those minimum standards we will presently see
for each institution. It is the programs, (here program would mean any four year engineering
program is a program like BE in Mechanical Engineering, BE in Computer Science is a
program) and not educational institutions are considered for accreditation by NBA.
21
For example, in a given institution, one department may get accreditation, another program in
that institution may not get accreditation for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons is - you
may not be getting enough number of students into the program or there may not be adequate
faculty in that particular department and so on. So such things can happen. So, it is a program
that is considered for accreditation by NBA.
We should also look at what accreditation is not. People used to have a still some institutions
have that the committee that comes for accreditation is only there to find faults with what is
happening there? So, the purpose of accreditation is - please note not to find faults with the
institution, but to assess the status ante of the performance. It is only trying to say this is
where you are trying to comment on, this is where you are. And it is not to denigrate the
working style of the institution and its programs but to provide feedback on their strengths
and weaknesses.
So, a visiting committee actually, should not and does not comment on the working style of
the institution. Each institution is different, different people are managing, so, the working
styles can be different. And the purpose is also not to demarcate the boundaries of quality, but
to offer a sensitizing process for continuous improvement in quality provisions. So, that is the
one that we will see, how do you plan for continuous improvement in the quality of learning?
Also purpose is not to select only institution of national excellence, but to provide
benchmarks of excellence, and identification of good practices. When the committee
comes/visits, they find some good practices in an institution. They can bring it to the attention
22
of the NBA headquarters, and NBA can bring it to the attention of all the institutions. So, that
is also a process for setting benchmarks as well.
What are the benefits of accreditation? If I do not get accredited what happens? That choice
may not be there anymore. But if you are getting accredited, first accreditation requires,
several processes to be put in place. These processes serve as a reference for most of the
academic activities (and they facilitate). Once you have a process, then we ourselves will get
an idea how to improve that process.
So, they facilitate continuous quality improvement. When an institute gets the accreditation
from the NBA, it demonstrates accountability to the public. As I already said, it demonstrates
to the stakeholders that they are doing an acceptable job of teaching and learning. It also
improves the staff morale, when somebody says you are doing well, the entire staff (both
faculty and support staff and administrative staff) feel very happy that somebody has
recognized them.
It is also a recognition of achievements and innovations. As NBA requires extensive

documents, particularly in electronic form, it greatly facilitates information sharing, with all
the concerned both in and outside the college which is a great way of learning from one
another. If they put these relevant documents on their website, faculty from other institutions
can look at it and learn from that. Several funding agencies will also consider proposals only
from accredited institutions.
23
Periodic accreditation helps the institution know its strengths, weaknesses and opportunities.
And the department based on the visiting committee report can initiate some innovative and
modern methods of pedagogy. Because once you get into the mode of outcome based
education and that is where various pedagogical methods can be brought into the regular
teaching-learning activities. And also accreditation promotes intra and inter institutional
interactions. That is what the benefits of accreditation. Though it is a bit of documentation
sometimes people feel as overload, there are several advantages and once you get into the
habit of properly documenting, subsequently it does not become the kind of burden.
Now we come to find out what are really the outcomes? Because we are talking of outcome
based education, what are the outcomes? An outcome of an education is what the student
should be able to do at the end of a program, a course or an instructional unit. It is a very
simple one. Now, outcome is nothing but is stated from the student perspective, from the
student point of view.
That means we do not say what the teacher should teach in a particular unit of instruction or
in a particular course. It is what the student should be able to do as a consequence of what do
you call attending the classes are teaching learning process. So, the outcome of education is
measured in terms of the, what the student is able to do? So, outcome based education simply
is an approach to education in which decisions about the curriculum are driven by the exit
learning outcomes that the students should demonstrate at the end of a program.
24
That means, your curriculum now is defined in terms of exit learning outcomes. If you take a
four year program, first thing that you have to do in outcome based education, you have to
define what kinds of things the student should be able to do at the end of four years? You
have to start from there. We will see that how exactly that is tackled. Then in order to attain
this, what kind of courses should be offered, and what should be the outcomes of those
courses or whatever other core activities that the student has to perform will also come as a
consequence of identifying the outcomes at the end of the program.
And when you write the outcomes at various levels of the program, they will also make a
wonderful platform for interacting with the stakeholders. If we want to discuss with an
industry, instead of vaguely talking on some ill-defined aspects of that, you can put on a piece
of paper, these are the program level outcomes and these are the course level outcomes, and
that could form the basis for one to one interaction with industry.
Having talked about outcomes, now let us talk about what are the levels of outcomes.
Because it is not like one statement that you write that this is the outcome of the program.
There are actually three levels of outcomes. First one is program educational objectives.
What are they? PEOs as we call them are broad statements that describe the career and
professional accomplishments in four to five years after graduation, that the program is
preparing the graduates to achieve.
For example, the purpose is like this, if I am offering a program in BE in Civil Engineering,
after graduation, I would like to go and find out where my alumni, where are they working,
25
and what kind of jobs are they doing? That is where, you right I expect my graduates after
four or five years to be doing certain types of activities. If they are not doing that, then there
is no link between what we teach and what the students are doing?
If every one of the Civil Engineers/graduates or going into their management or into some IT
program, a software job, which has nothing to do with Civil Engineering, then the program
has no meaning at all. Yes, they get a degree, they get the job also, but the entire program has
no meaning to the graduates. So we write program educational objectives, a few of them
some 2 to 5 we can write, and we keep observing what is happening to our graduates. We will
come to that much later in great detail, what is the role of PEOs and how to write them? And
we look at samples and all that.
Then comes - at the program level, you have two, one is set of Program Outcomes and
another is a set of Program Specific Outcomes. Program Outcomes (POs) are statements that
describe what the students graduating from engineering program should be able to do at the
time of graduation. As you can seewe are not talking about a specific engineering program.
So, these program outcomes are common to graduates of all the programs that means, it is
discipline non-specific outcome. These can also be called so called professional outcomes.
That means, every engineer will have to do certain things. It is not as if only certain type of
engineers have to do. Who defines this program outcomes? These are defined by the National
Board of Accreditation itself. So, at any program level, the Board of Studies does not have
any choice with regard to choosing POs. So, the boards of studies will have to design their
program to ensure that these program outcomes are attained.
Programs specific outcomes are discipline specific and they are statements that described
what the graduates of a specific engineering program should be able to do at the time of
graduation. These are generally about 2 to 4 that you write, which exactly describes - if they
are Electrical Engineers, at the time of graduation, what kind of Electrical Engineering
related activities they should be able to do?
Then come the courts outcomes - COs are statements that describe what the student should be
able to do at the end of the course? So, you have three levels of outcomes and we will be
talking about them much more in detail later.
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Now, coming to this engineering education as practiced until recently that is recently means
until 2015 or even by institutions which have not yet gone for accreditation. If you look at the
graduates of 12th standard enter into the engineering program. When we say institutions
offering undergraduate engineering programs, institution is defined by the management,
faculty and certain academic processes. Many of them are influenced by the university it is
part of; state government; AICTE and NBA and also parents, industry and technology that
you use all of them will influence the activities of this institution.
And they produce engineering graduates, only passing certain examinations as conducted by
the program, either by the University in a centralized manner or by autonomics institution.
And what do these graduates do? Seek either placement or go to higher education and a small
number will become entrepreneurs. But this process of seeking these, is greatly influenced by
market factors, economic factors and social factors.
For these factors the college cannot be responsible, it has to generally keep track of this and
take some initiatives, so that the graduates of engineering programs do get placement or go
for higher education. But now, this has changed in the OBE framework, what are the changes
that have taken place?
This part is the same - 12th standard graduates will come here and they produce as influenced
by these agencies. Engineering graduates with defined abilities, these abilities are defined as
POs, PSOs and COs which we have just now described. They seek placement - it is the same
which are influenced by social factors, economic factors, and market factors as well. And
now these engineering graduates are involved after four years in activities identified by
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program educational objectives. So, we keep monitoring our alumni what they are doing to
make sure that whatever we teach is of relevance to the careers of their graduates.
When we seek NBA accreditation, how does the college communicate, what kind of
information does the college provide to the NBA? They prepare what is called as self-
assessment report, which will be quite comprehensive. And based on that, there are several
follow up activities take place. But what is this a SAR? SAR is a compilation of such data
and information pertaining to a given program for assessment identifying your own strengths
and weaknesses, vis-a-vis accomplishment of NBA defined POs and PSOs by the program.
So, that is the record of to what extent you have been able to attain your POs and PSOs. And
now SAR has two parts. Part one, seeks institutional and departmental information - this is
only just what is the name of this, what is the name of the department and so on, what kind of
programs your department runs, that is pure institutional/departmental information, which
you just have to provide information whatever that has been asked for.
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Then part two, seeks information on ten criteria. These include program educational
objectives, program outcomes and program specific outcomes, program curriculum, students’
performance, faculty contributions, facilities and technical support, academic support units,
teaching learning process, governance, institutional support, financial resources, continuous
improvement in attainment of outcomes. We will see each one of them in detail at a later
stage.
Now, what happens having written the report, NBA through a committee that is specially
constituted and sent to your institute will come and reconfirm or differs from the assessment
of the institution using a mechanism of peer review in its evaluation report - that is what SAR
is all about.
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Now, these are the criteria. Here there are some differences between tier 1 and tier 2
institutions. Like for example, vision, mission and program educational objectives. Actually
this marking system is meant for first time accreditation that means after 2015 or 2016 when
an institution is going for the first time for accreditation these marks are applicable. As we
are still in the early period after the 2016 when second time an institution goes for that, this
marking system will slightly differ. Please note that.
The marks are distributed along all these criteria. We will not go through the specific
numbers now. You have program level criteria - there are seven of them; and there are
institute level criteria - there are three of them. Because any program is dependent on all
these three. So, there is something like if you have about 220 marks out of 1000 are
institution level criteria. But mind you, if a program is not accredited, they would not blame
the first, the department or faculty responsible for first year academics, they will only blame
the department.
So, faculty of the department have to be concerned with these activities as well. You may or
may not have much say with regard to this governance, institutional support and financial
resources. Now, as you can see, depending on what NBA considers what is more important
than the others marks are accordingly adjusted, we will come to that later. So, these are the
ten criteria of NBA.
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Now, let us briefly spend a little time on the nature of these criteria. The criteria can be
broadly classified into academic processes and information on the status of the institute. So,
the criteria 1, 2, 3, 7 and 8 are related to vision and mission of the institute and department,
design of curriculum, teaching-learning activities, attainment of outcomes and the processes
for continuous improvement.
So, take a look at 1, 2, 3, 7 and 8 - these are the academic processes that are concerned. And
criteria 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10 are related to data on student performance. You have to collect
information after something is done, as well as how many faculty you have, what are their
qualifications, what is their experience and the facilities you have, what student support
systems you have, and what is the nature of governance and management in the institution?
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As you can see, these are different set of criteria. The SAR has to present all these
information to be presented for two graduated batches. Exactly which you have to present
that we will see later. But the data will have to be collected over five years, and that
information has to be integrated and certain conclusions have to be drawn based on that data.
Now, these are numbers only. How do you award accreditation? In the tier 1 institution is
different than tier 2 institution. Here for each criterion, you have four categories Y, C, W, D.
Y means no concern, C means there is some concern, W means there is weakness and D
means there is a deficiency. So, there are certain marks for each criterion, one needs to earn
and if it is greater than or equal to 75 percent then there is no concern - nobody is expecting
100 percent. And if it is between 60 and 75, it is area of concern. And if it is weakness means
40 to 60 percent and deficiency means less than 60 percent.
A institution will get full accreditation for six years, if number of Y’s is greater than seven
that means, out of 10 criteria with regard to 7 criteria, you got more than 75 percent marks.
And concerns are less than or equal to 3, weaknesses should be 0, deficiency should be 0. In
addition, at least 30 percent of the required faculty shall be PhDs. And also the enrollment of
students shall be more than 75 percent. If all these conditions are satisfied, that program will
get full accreditation for a period of six years.
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Sometimes, you may be falling short a little bit. So, after the peer committee visit, they give
you a short period like three months if there are small things that can be corrected. So,
without concern still greater than 7; concerns less than 2; weakness is less than 2; deficiency
is 0. In addition, the criterion 7 - faculty information contribution cannot have any weakness.
Under 2 or less weaknesses, it cannot be criterion 5.
Then provisional accreditation for 3 years without concern - greater than 4, deficiency - less
than 2. In addition, the criterion 5 - cannot have any deficiency and department should have
at least two professors, or one professor and one Associate Professor, available in the
respective department. You cannot call anybody as a professor and Associate Professor as per
the specifications of AICTE.
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As you can see, if D is greater than 2, Y is less than 4, you cannot get accreditation and also
followed by if any of these conditions are met or you fall into that you have no accreditation.
Now, tier 2 institutions are slightly different because quite many factors related to running of
the institution are centrally controled elsewhere. So, you go with the marks here, full
accreditation is 750 out of 1000 points, minimum 60 percent points in criteria 4, 5 and 6; 30
percent of the required faculty shall be PhD holders. Provisional accreditation for 3 years,
minimum 600 out of 1000 points with minimum 40 percent marks for the faculty information
and contributions and also the availability of at least one Professor or one Associate Professor
as per AICTE qualification in the respective department.
34
No accreditation is obviously less than 600 points. Again if it is 40 percent marks less than in
the faculty criterion 5 you will not get accreditation. And non-availability of at least one
professor or one Associate Professor also you will not get in a tier 2 institution accreditation.
Generally, these criteria - we will see as a process there is some eligibility criteria. If you
fulfill the eligibility criteria you are unlikely to fall into those things. Now, it is a brief
description of what is a process for NBA accreditation. Fill-in initial registration details at the
indicated website to get login credentials. Fill-in a complete registration details and submit
registration fee, which is a small fee, which is a college has to pay, generate application and
35
upload AICTE approval letter. There is an AICTE approval letter that you have to get before
you apply for NBA accreditation, that approval letter will have to be uploaded.
Fill-in the pre qualifier form, pay 10 percent fee and get the approval from NBA. If pre
qualifier form which is separately given, we will talk about that later. They will verify that
and then NBA says, now you can submit your SAR. If you do not fulfill that you are only
losing the 10 percent fee. Submit SAR online in the prescribed format and pay 90 percent fee.
Coordinate with the NBA for the visit of visiting team.
Visiting team submits evaluation report to the NBA. And there are several processes that take
place after that. So, after due processes, NBA communicates its decision to the institute. The
institute if it has any reservations can appeal to NBA with clarifications. Roughly, this is the
sequence of steps that one goes through for NBA accreditation. The more details of that all
conditionalities and all that are presented as a kind of flowchart on the NBA website.
So, that is a brief on the NBA accreditation process, why it has come into existence and what
is its purpose and how one should go about doing it. In the next unit, we will try to present
what outcome based education is, in the context of undergraduate engineering programs.
Why is this important? The very fact that India has become a signatory to the Washington
Accord, it is compulsory that we conduct our efforts in the framework of outcome based
education. Thank you very much for your attention.
36
NBA Accreditation and Teaching-Learning Engineering (NATE)
Professor. K. Rajanikanth
Retired Principle- MSRIT
Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.
Lecture 03
Outcome Based Education
Greetings, welcome to module one, unit three on Outcome Based Education.
In the previous unit, we understood the nature of NBA Accreditation Process and the
conditions under which accreditation is awarded to an engineering programme.
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In this unit, we will look at the outcome based education. As we saw in the last unit NBA
requires all programmes to be designed and implemented within OBE framework now. So in
this unit, we will look at the OBE framework in an overview fashion. And we look at the
details of the OBE implementation in later units. So the outcomes for this unit are understand
the origins of outcome based education; understand what an outcome is; and its most
important features.
How did OBE start? Since 1970s, there has been an interest in understanding “what is the
extent to which students are actually learning in schools?”. Many of these schools are funded
by the public and the funding agencies are interested in knowing what has been the impact of
such funding? So policy makers and stakeholders in several countries have been emphasising
since 1970s on the need to develop instruments to obtain comparable information on what
students actually learn across schools and higher education institutions.
The term outcome based education was first presented by William Spady in 1994 through his
book, Outcome Based Education, Critical Issues and Answers. This was published by
American Association of School Administrators. It is interesting to note that the concept of
OBE first started in the context of school education. In fact, even the Blooms taxonomy, as
we will see later, first arose in the context of school education.
Subsequently ABET, in 1997, adopted Engineering Criteria 2000 or EC2000, which shifted
the focus away from the inputs, what material is taught to the outcomes - What students learn.
And subsequently, most of the countries in the world have adopted the outcome based
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education framework, even for higher education institutions and India since 2015, NBA
requires all programmes to be designed and implemented within the OBE framework.
What is the central tenet of OBE? Williams Spady in his remarkable book, states that
outcome based education means clearly focusing and organising everything in an education
system around what is essential for all students to be able to do. The key word is ‘do’,
successfully at the end of their learning experience.
This means starting with a clear picture of what is important for students to be able to do; and
then organising curriculum instruction and assessment to make sure this learning ultimately
happens. As we noted Spady’s focus was school education and with any academic
programme, the three key issues are curriculum, instruction and assessment and Spady’s idea
was that the curriculum, instruction and assessment must emerge from a clear definition of
the ultimate outcomes that the students are supposed to achieve and demonstrate.
Essentially, a clear picture of what is important for students to be able to do that should be the
starting point. And his focus was school education and he visualised the OBE as the design
organisation of curriculum, instruction, and assessment to ensure the outcomes consumed at
this start to be attained by the students or the learners.
39
Outcomes of learning are referred to in the literature in a variety of terms. We will use the
word learning outcomes, course outcomes, programme outcomes, programme specific
outcomes in our unit. But in the literature, you will find several other equivalent words like
intended learning outcomes, instructional objectives, educational objectives, behavioural
objectives and so on. But what ever be the term primarily we are looking at what the student
should be able to do at the end of learning experience.
So, what really is an outcome? An outcome is what the learner will be able to do or perform
as a result of some learning experience. In the context of formal education an outcome is
40
what the student should be able to do at the end of a programme, a course or an instructional
unit. A programme means, in the case of undergraduate engineering it is a four year
programme. So, at the end of the four years, what are the competencies that the student can
demonstrate? What the students will be able to do at the end of the four year undergraduate
engineering programme?
A specific course, which spans one semester - at the end of that course, what are the things
that the students will be able to do? Or it can be even one instructional unit, which generally
focuses on one particular outcome or competency. So we can say that an outcome is what the
students should be able to do at the end of a programme, a course or instructional unit in the
context of formal education. And the outcomes provide the basis for an effective interaction
among all the stakeholders.
Outcome based education is an approach to education, in which decisions about curriculum,

instruction and assessment are driven by the exit learning outcomes that the students should
demonstrate at the end of a programme or a course. So, the starting point is actually the end
point. We begin with what should be the exit learning outcomes and from them we derive the
curriculum, instruction and assessment.
So, in outcome based education product defines the process. The exit learning outcomes
determine the curriculum, the instruction as well as the assessment. It is the opposite of input
based education, where the emphasis is on the teaching and the system is happy to accept
whatever is the result.
41
So the focus is on providing inputs in the form of physical infrastructure, in the form of
learning resources, in the form of human resources. The focus is on providing good inputs
and then accept whatever is the final result. Whereas in OBE, we start with the exit learning
outcomes and from that point of view, we work out the curriculum, instruction and
assessment to ensure that those exit learning outcomes are attained by the learners.
There are several advantages of OBE and these advantages are now been realised, in practice
also by several Institutes. First is clarity, an explicit statement of what the educational process
aims to achieve. Clarifies the curriculum for both students and teachers and provides a focus
for teaching and learning. The outcome statements become the focus for teaching as well as
learning and it provides a framework.
Outcome based education provides a robust framework for integration of the curriculum.
Guide for assessment: The outcomes provide the framework for student examinations. The
assessment is to really assess whether the intended learning outcomes have been attained by
students and thus the outcomes provide the framework for student examinations also.
Facilitates curriculum evaluation: The outcomes provide a framework against which
curriculum can be judged. We can compare two different curricula also by looking at the kind
of outcomes that these curricula intend to achieve.
42
Of course, there are also reservations about OBE, there are views that it is against the spirit of
education. Education should be a free enterprise providing an opportunity for learners to
explore the world of knowledge in practically unrestrained fashion that is one view. Some
people also believe that the OBE is a straightjacket. We will see that actually these two are
not all that valid. They are somewhat misplaced perceptions about OBE. As we move along
this course, will see that OBE does provide considerable freedom to the faculty. While
implementing the OBE faculty can innovate can think of novel methods of instruction, novel
methods of assessment, none of this is prevented by OBE.
So, OBE is not a straitjacket and given the limited resources and limited time in which the
programmes have to be run, particularly the formal programmes. OBE does provide a very
convenient framework to ensure quality learning by the students. We will see that it is not
even against the spirit of education. But the third reservation that there is a ‘documentation
overload’ is to certain extent justified.
OBE does require proper documentation of all the plans, the activities; the implementations,
the feedback, the mechanisms for improvement, all these things need to be documented and
some faculty do seem to feel that this is an overload. In later units we will examine how
realistically one can make the documentation less of a burden by using appropriate
information and communication technology tools. But certainly OBE does require certain
additional amount of documentation for the processes to be implemented properly. So, there
43
is some justification in this reservation, but it can be certainly overcome through appropriate
use of tools.
What are the features of an outcome statement? An outcome statement should unambiguously
state what the student should be able to do or perform at the end of the learning experience.
At the end of an external unit or a course or a programme - What is it that the student should
be able to do or perform that must be stated unambiguously. What the students do or perform
are observable and measurable. The way they the outcome statement is formulated the
actions, the demonstrations by the students must be observable and measurable.
We need to know the extent to which the intended outcomes are being attained by the
learners. We need to measure the extent of attainment of the outcomes. So, the way the
outcome statement depicts the action; it must be observable and measurable. That is the
second important feature of an outcome statement - What the students do or perform are
observable and measurable.
Students should be able to understand what it means - comprehensible. That is, state the
outcome in terms which make easy sense to the students so that the students understand what
really, they are expected to be able to do at the end of the learning experience. So, it is easy
for the students to connect to the outcome statement.
The outcome statement should be able to provide guidance to students in planning their
learning. It should help them in planning their learning. So the statement must clearly state
44
what the students are expected to do, demonstrate at the end of the learning experience (it
must help them in planning their learning) and what they do must be observable and
measurable. These are the features of a good outcome statement.
As per OBE ‘students learn well’, when the three conditions stated here are met, this has been
empirically observed and validated in any number of learning situations. When the learners
are clear about what they should be able to do at the end of a course. Assessment is in
alignment with what they are expected to do. And instructional activities are designed and
conducted to facilitate them to acquire what they are expected to achieve. These three
conditions must be present for students to learn well.
One, a clear statement of the outcomes communicated to the students so that the students are
clear about what they should be able to do at the end of a course. Assessment must be in
alignment with the outcomes, ‘what the students are expected to do’. And instruction must be
designed and conducted in such a way that it helps the learners acquire the competencies
which they are supposed to demonstrate at the end of the learning experience. So
instructional activities are designed and conducted to facilitate the learners acquire, what they
are expected to achieve. When all these three conditions are present, students learn well.
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Now, let us look at the levels of outcomes. The formal engineering programmes in India as
per the NBA requirement, have outcomes at three levels. At the highest level, we have
programme educational objectives; notice that the word here is objective, in fact is the only
place where they would object to appears in the NBA documentation. At the next level is
programme outcomes and programmes specific outcomes. At the next level, we have course
outcomes.
Very broadly, programme educational objectives are statements that describe the career and
professional accomplishments in four to four years after graduation that the programme is
46
preparing graduates to achieve. In other words, this is a kind of a promise that we are making
to the learners, students or their parents that three to four years after graduation our students
now alumni of course, would be in such and such a position or their achievements will be so
and so.
So, essentially, these are broad statements that describe what the graduates would be
accomplishing three to four years after graduation. So, we are talking of a scenario down the
road three to four years after they complete their formal four year engineering programme. A
sample for this could be solve problems of social relevance, applying the knowledge of
Electrical and Electronics Engineering and/or pursue higher education and research. This
could be the PEO for a BE programme in Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
This is just an overview in this unit. We are looking at it in a very broad perspective. In later
units, we look in detail how the PEOs have to be arrived at? What is the process by which
PEO have to be determined and how they should be validated? We look at these issues in a
later unit. But in a broad sense PEOs describe the carrier and professional accomplishments
four to five years after graduation.
The programme outcomes are the statements that describe what the knowledge, skills,
attitudes, students should be able to demonstrate, at the time of graduation from an
engineering programme. While PEOs state what the graduate should be accomplishing four
to four years after graduation. POs state what the graduates are capable of demonstrating just
at the time of graduation after completing the four year programme. So POs are statements
47
that describe what are the competencies of the graduates just after completing the four year
programme. There are twelve programme outcomes, which have been identified by NBA and
they are applicable to all UG engineering programmes.
Independent of what is the specific branch of specialisation - all engineering programmes

must ensure that their graduates attain these 12 outcomes at the programme level. We will
later look into all these 12 POs in detail. These 12 POs address both disciplinary and
professional competencies.
This is one sample of programme outcomes specified by NBA. PO3 - design development of
solutions: Design solutions for complex engineering problems and design system components
or processes that meet the specified needs, with appropriate consideration for the public
health and safety and the cultural, societal and environmental considerations. Notice that it is
fairly elaborate; there are 12 such POs and the programme has no choice of altering these
POs. These are given by NBA and the programme must be designed and implemented to
ensure that all the graduates attain these programme level outcomes.
48
Programmes specific outcomes, are outcomes that are specific to a particular programme.
They characterise the specificity of the core courses of a particular programme. While POs
are applicable to all engineering programmes, PSOs are what characterise a particular
programme. For example, a BE programme in Computer Science and Engineering will have
its PSOs and they would be different from the PSOs of a B.Tech programme in Electrical and
Electronics Engineering.
So, these are specific to a particular programme. And these are in addition to the common
POs specified by NBA and NBA states that the programme can have two to four such
specific outcomes. PSOs of an engineering programme can be two to four as per NBA. This
is a sample: (one PSO) survey, map and plan layouts for buildings structures and alignments
for canals and roads. So, this would be an outcome that is specific to a B.Tech programme in
civil engineering. Thus, while POs are generic, PSOs are specific to a particular programme.
49
The next level will be course outcomes. COs are what the students are required to
demonstrate at the end of a course. In some universities the course is also referred to as a
paper or a subject, but within the NBA framework, we continue to use the term as course
only. And COs are what the students are required to demonstrate at the end of the course.
Obviously, today almost all the programmes are semester oriented.
So we are talking of a course over a period of about three and a half months running in one
semester. At the end of the course what are competencies that these students can
demonstrate? COs should be observable and measurable. A course outcome addresses a
subset of POs and PSOs. In other words, actually the programme outcomes and programme
specific outcomes are realised through course outcomes. And that is the basic framework of
an outcome based education for engineering programme.
One sample can be understand the divide and conquer strategy for designing algorithms,
including Merge sort and Quick sort. This could be an outcome for a course on algorithms in
computer science and engineering programme.
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So, if you see the broad OBE framework as required by the NBA, we start with the vision of
the Institute and that leads to the mission of the Institute. In a later unit, we will see how these
are eroded and the self-assessment report of NBA requires the programme to state what are
the vision and mission statements of the Institute? That will be the starting point for the entire
framework, the vision and mission of the Institute.
Together, they form the basis for deriving the vision and mission of the department offering a
particular programme. Starting with vision and mission of the Institute, the department has to
develop its own vision and mission and that leads to the programme educational objectives
and the programme educational objectives in turn, are taken as the input by a departmental
advisory board or a departmental board of studies, you can name it in any way, but an
appropriate body which is associated with the department has to determine the programme
specific outcomes.
NBA itself has given us 12 programme outcomes. So we have 12 POs specified by NBA, 2 to
4 PSOs arrived at the department level through an appropriate body. Overall we will have 12
plus 2 - 14 to 12 plus 4 - 16. So, 14 to 16 outcomes to be realised at the programme level.
After the completion of four years B.Tech, BE programme these are the competencies that
the students must be able to demonstrate. These together will determine the kind of a
curriculum that we need to design. The curriculum must help the students acquire these
competencies. The curriculum must help the students attain these POs and PSOs.
So based on the POs and PSOs, we need to design the curriculum. And the curriculum will
have several different components, humanities and social sciences, basic sciences,
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engineering sciences, professional core, professional electives, open electives, project. They
all have essentially, the several courses in all the streams. Courses are described in terms of
the course outcomes.
Because this is ideal scenario, in practice, a tier two Institute may not have a choice of
designing the curriculum. It has to work with the existing curriculum and see how best to
make the curriculum achieve the programme outcomes and programmes specific outcomes.
But this is the ideal OBE - NBA framework.
Two exercises for you: give you two examples of outcomes of the undergraduate programme
in which you are participating at the programme level. If you are participating in B. Tech,
Electronics and Communication Engineering, two outcomes at a programme level. The entire
four year duration at the end of it, what are the competencies that the students will be able to
demonstrate? Two examples of outcomes of the undergraduate programme in which you are
participating, paying attention to all the features of an outcome that are desirable.
Give two examples of outcomes of an undergraduate course offered by you, again paying
attention to all the features of an outcome. As just now we saw a course is what some
Institutes would refer to as a subject or a paper running over one semester, a specific course.
So give two examples of outcomes of an undergraduate course offered by you paying
attention to all the features of an outcome statement. We thank you for sharing the results of
the exercise at nate.iiscta@gmail.com.
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In the next unit, we will understand the important features of self-assessment report. A birds
eye view of what is contained in SAR, and what are the salient features of SAR. Thank you
and we will meet with the next unit. Thank you.
53
Professor K. Rajanikanth
Retired Principal - MSRIT
Lecture 04
Self Assessment Report
Greetings. Welcome to Module 1 Unit 4: Self Assessment Report.
In the earlier unit, we understood the origin of Outcome Based Education and the most
important features of an outcome statement. We also had a very broad look at the OBE
framework as required by the NBA.
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In this unit, we will look at the Self Assessment Report that the department has to prepare
while seeking accreditation. We will understand the key features of Self Assessment Report
that is the outcome of this unit. This will be a very broad look at the different criteria of SAR.
Each of these criteria will be discussed in depth in later units. In the present unit it is a bird's
eye view of the SAR - the key features of SAR.
We already saw in earlier unit that there are 10 criteria in SAR and the total marks are 1000
and this number is same for tier 1, as well as tier 2 institutes. However, the marks allocated to
individual criteria obviously differ. For example, for criteria 1, vision, mission and PEOs a
tier 1 institute has 50 marks where as a tier 2 has 60 marks.
So, the marks allocated to individual criterion differ. Even when the marks are same, the sub
criteria may differ from tier 1 institute to tier 2 institute. For example, if you see criterion 5,
faculty information and contributions, the marks allocated are 200 both for tier 1, as well as
for tier 2 institute.
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However, the sub criteria for tier 1 institute and tier 2 institute are different for criterion 5.
There are 10 sub criteria for tier 1 institute while there are only 9 sub criteria for tier 2
institute. Which means that basically depending on whether the institute is tier 1 or tier 2, the
preparation of the SAR and the focus areas change. So, we will have to pay attention to the
details of the SAR and prepare accordingly the report whether one is a tier 1 institute or tier 2
institute.
One of the most important criteria is criterion 5 which is concerned with the faculty
contributions. NBA recognizes the critical role of teachers in facilitating the learning by
students. So, maximum weight is given to criterion 5. Among the 10 criteria, criterion 5
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faculty information and contributions carries maximum marks - 200 out of a total of 1000
marks. In fact, there are additional constraints on the marks to be scored under this criterion
for a program to get accredited whether for 3 years or 6 years. So, this is an extremely
important criterion and NBA, in fact, recognizes the importance of faculty.
This criterion considers several factors including student-faculty ratio, faculty cadre
proportion; assistant professors, associate professors and professors. What is the proportion in
which we have this cadre?
Faculty qualifications, faculty retention, innovations by the faculty in teaching and learning,
participation in faculty development programs, research and development, faculty
performance appraisal and development system, the provision for and the actual use of
visiting faculty. These are all the factors which are included under criterion 5. Of course as I
mentioned earlier, the actual marks awarded for each sub- criterion may differ from a tier 1
institute to a tier 2 institute.
While faculty operate under several constraints, (it is accepted by all, that faculty operate
under several constraints) what they do can and does make great difference to the students.
There are several academic activities to choose from depending upon one’s interest. Faculty
can focus more on research and development activities or projects apart from, of course,
teaching-learning activities.
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Students are the reason why an institution exists obviously. So, criterion 4 is concerned with
the performance of students. There are several sub criteria that address the quality of students
admitted and their performance during the 4 years.
How many students who appeared for examinations in first year have progressed to second
year? How many have progressed from second year to third year? How many from third year
to fourth year and how many have graduated? How many have graduated within the
stipulated period of 4 years without even one single failure?
Parameters like this essentially provide an indication of the extent to which the students are
able to attain and demonstrate the intended learning outcomes. The quality of their
performance determines the attainment levels of outcomes.
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The institute's performance in this area is measured through enrolment ratios, success rates in
all semesters, participation in professional activities, placements, enrolment for higher
studies. There are several such sub-criteria within the criterion 4 which determine the marks
that a particular program gets under this particular criterion.
Many sub criteria deal with outputs also. How many students have become entrepreneurs?
How many students have actually gone abroad for higher studies or pursued higher studies in
India? So, these are all the numbers which we need to provide. And again the marks of them
differ from tier 1 to tier 2. 150 marks in the case of tier 2 institutes and only 100 marks in the
case of tier 1 institutes. We will look at these differences in greater detail in later units.
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Then criterion 10 is related to governance, institutional support and financial resources;
another key aspect. Assuming there are no constraints of financial resources, organization,
governance and transparency majorly sets what may be called as the instructional situation of
the college within which teaching and learning activities take place.
The faculty perception of such instructional situation to a large extent determines their
enthusiasm and the quality of effort they put in. So, this is extremely important criterion. One
key sub criterion of governance is the extent of decentralization in working and its fairness as
felt by the faculty. So, this criterion is actually an institute level criterion.
Then facilities and technical support and the student support systems. Criterion 6 is related to
laboratory facilities and associated technical support. A fairly straightforward criterion. The
key sub-criterion is related to facilities created beyond the curricular requirements to enhance
students learning.
Criterion 9 is related to student support systems. They include mentoring system, facilities for
self-learning, feedback from students. How it is collected? What use is made of such
feedback and how the system rewards the students for providing feedback? These are all the
issues concerned with the feedback from students. Support for career guidance, placement,
entrepreneurship, co-curricular and extracurricular activities.
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Another way of looking at the criteria of SAR would be to see that some of them are
quantitative in nature, while some of them are more qualitative. Several criteria in SAR based
on defined formulae that use the quantitative data provided by the department in the SAR to
compute the marks to be awarded.
That means it is a very clear definite quantitative result that we get based on the data
provided by the department itself. The quantitative data provided in the SAR is plugged into a
formula and the output of the formula clearly indicates the marks to be awarded to the
program. So, very strong quantitative criteria. There are several such criteria in SAR.
One example: criterion 5, sub criterion 5.3 on faculty qualification. For a tier 2 institute it is
25 marks, for tier 1 it is only 20. The faculty qualification is computed using a well-defined
formula. 2.5 multiplied by 10 X plus 4 Y, the whole thing divided by F, where X is the
number of regular faculty with PhD, Y is the number of regular faculty with M.Tech and F is
the number of regular faculty required to comply with the student-faculty ratio of 20 is to 1.
Now, this is all data. The program has to supply these numbers x, y and f and once we plug
these numbers into the formula, we get the value of FQ for one particular academic year.
Now, the NBA calculates the values of FQ for 3 consecutive academic years and the average
is the score awarded under this criteria. Now, what is important to note here is that there is no
ambiguity about the marks that the program gets. The department itself can calculate this
value unambiguously.
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So, there are criteria like this which are quantitative in nature. The data provided in the SAR
immediately gives the marks that the program will get under that particular sub criterion.
These are relatively straightforward and can be calculated by the department itself to see
where it stands.
But there are other criteria which involve academic processes. There are several elements of
SAR that need to be addressed following well-defined processes. Some of these elements are
vision and mission of the department, PEOs and PSOs. Criteria 1, 2 and 3 have several such
academic processes.
For example, there must be a process well documented through which the program
educational objectives are established. This process must be implemented in its true spirit and
following that the PEOs must be established.
With each such process, we need 2 sets of documents actually. We need a process document
as well as an implementation record as evidence of proper implementation of the process.
With academic processes we need to specify how the process is going to be implemented. We
also must show that we have implemented the process according to that process document.
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Process document will identify the members of the committee that takes the decisions; how
frequently it needs to meet, the details of the process steps to be followed. So, we need to first
create a document describing the process that the department is intending to follow. Of
course, NBA itself gives certain guidelines on many of these processes, but the responsibility
rests with the department to define the process clearly. So, we need to create a process
document.
Then the minutes of the meeting of the committee needs to be formally recorded and should
be made available to the visiting committee (if they ask) as evidence that the process is being
implemented properly. Thus, we have a process document as well as an implementation
record with academic processes.
Marks awarded will depend upon the visiting committee’s qualitative evaluation of the
appropriateness of the process and its implementation. As against the quantitative criteria that
we saw in the earlier slides; here, the marks awarded will depend upon the visiting
committee’s qualitative evaluation of the appropriateness of the process and its
implementation. Of course the SAR gives clear guidelines on how the process must be
designed and implemented; what kind of exhibits must be shown to the visiting committee to
show the process definition and its implementation.
But with all that still we must be able to convince the visiting committee of the quality of the
process and appropriateness of the process and the faithful implementation of the process.
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Sections 1, 2, 3, 7 and 8, the remaining sections that is 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10 we already have seen
briefly what they are. The sections 1, 2, 3, 7 and 8, they have a workflow which is based on a
process structure. As we saw in the last unit on the OBE framework, we start with the vision
and mission of the institute.
With that as a basis, the vision and mission of the department are established. That provides
the basis for establishing program educational objectives and from them we derive the
program specific outcomes. The program outcomes are specified by NBA and then we have
to design the curriculum which will help the students attain the POs and PSOs. So, from top
to bottom if you see, it is the design that is demonstrated in this flow.
Starting with vision and mission of the institute, we end with detailed curriculum and
implementation moves in a bottom-up fashion. That is from the courses we determine the
attainments of course outcomes; from the attainments of course outcomes we determine the
attainments of POs and PSOs.
Ultimately that is supposed to determine the attainment of PEOs as well as the extent to
which the department is able to realize its vision and the extent to which the mission is being
implemented properly. So, from the implementation perspective, attainment perspective, it
will be bottom up. Very broadly this is the workflow. Of course, feedback loops exists but we
have omitted that for convenience.
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With all these process frameworks, we have a notion of closing the quality loop which plays
a central role in the accreditation. All the academic processes associated with criteria 1, 2, 3,
7 and 8 required for accreditation need to have the step of closing the quality loop. The
quality loop is something like the Deming’s quality cycle - Plan, do, check, act.
First we plan the activity, then we actually implement the activity, do the activity, then
measure the performance, how the activity is taking place, check, which is essentially
measuring the performance. And then finally based on what was planned and what was
achieved, initiate appropriate action commencing the next round of the quality cycle. That is
act. This last step act is actually closing the quality loop. We plan, we do, then we measure
and based on that, we initiate an appropriate action. That action is closing the quality loop.
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When we set a particular attainment target and we actually implement the course or the
program and we measure the actual attainment as against the planned target. We may be
lagging behind the set target or we may have achieved the set target. We will see the details
of this in later units.
For example, for course outcomes, we specify certain levels which we hope to achieve at the
end of the course. So, they become the planned or intended target levels. When we actually
deliver the course the extent to which the students have attained these outcomes are measured
and they become the actual attainment.
If the attainment lags behind the planned targets, we need to further analyze the reasons for
the same and plan suitable corrective actions for the next round. On the other hand, if the
achievement exceeds the planned target we need to raise the bar. In other words, we will
become more ambitious. We will set a higher level of target for the next round. Of course,
we need to examine if the targets set were too easy. If so, we need to raise the bar in a
realistic fashion. If the targets were reasonable then we need to set new targets suitably and
plan for achieving the new target level.
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As an example, the quality loop at the course level if we consider. Target levels of attainment
of course outcomes are set. Maybe we will set 60 percent as the target level for all the course
outcomes. The course is actually delivered. Actual attainment of the COs is determined.
Now, the actual attainment maybe more than 60 percent or less than 60 percent.
The loop is closed either by increasing the target level for the next offering of the course or
by planning suitable improvements in the teaching-learning process to increase the actual
attainment to reach the target. If the target is 60 percent but you have been able to achieve
only 56 percent then we have to figure out why we have not been able to achieve the planned
60 percent, what kind of improvements in the teaching-learning processes are required, if the
attainment has to reach 60 percent next year when the course is offered.
On the other hand, if our actual attainment is more than 60 percent, say 65 percent, then we
can increase our target for the next year to 65 percent or even higher depending upon what
we hope to achieve. This is how the quality loop operates at the course level and this concept
of quality loop operates at all levels of attainments of outcomes. This is just an example at the
course level, we will explore this in great depth in module 3.
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This will operate at PO and PSO level also. POs and PSOs are achieved through formal
courses and other co-curricular and extracurricular activities. Target levels of attainment of
POs and PSOs are set. Program is delivered. Notice that now we are talking of the program.
That means one particular batch going through 4 years of academic activity would constitute
the completion of the program.
So for that batch, we set the targets for the attainment of POs and PSOs. The actual program
is delivered. Then the actual attainment of POs and PSOs is determined based on the
attainments of that batch of students over the 4 year period over which they have studied their
B.Tech program and then the loop is closed.
This is again, either by increasing the target level for the next cycle of the program. That
means for the next batch or by planning suitable improvements in all the relevant activities to
increase the actual attainment. For a particular PO, if the attainment is lower than the
intended target we may have many choices, many activities which are possible over a 4 year
period to increase the attainment of that particular PO.
The department has to plan the relevant activities to increase the actual attainment of that PO.
Criteria 7 and 8 of SAR actually ask for such specific plans for improving the attainment of
POs and PSOs. In fact, they ask for these details with respect to each individual PO. For each
PO we have to state what is the planned target, the achieved target and when there is a lag,
what are the specific action plans that have been initiated by the department to increase the
attainment level of that PO.
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For each of the 12 POs, as well as PSOs, we need to state the action plans initiated by the
department and implemented in subsequent years for improving the attainment levels of those
POs and PSOs.
So, this essentially is the quality loop. Closing the loop can be carried out in a similar manner
at the level of PEOs also but NBA does not require it at present but the principle holds good
at all levels. This concept applies even at higher levels of mission and vision though the
timeframes involved are usually much larger. The mission is revisited typically once in 5 to 6
years and its much rarer to revisit the vision in less than about 7 to 8 years or even maybe a
decade. But the idea of a quality loop is central to all the activities of the accreditation.
In fact year on year, improvements in the performance of the program is the central feature of
an institute which is on a growth trajectory. A program which is on a growth trajectory and
that is a very important aspect of a quality program. This process view of quality is implicitly
central to accreditation.
Even if we set initial targets at lower values, if we are able to demonstrate that the program is
on a growth trajectory and year on year we are improving the attainment of the outcomes,
then usually we present a very positive and favourable picture of the existing scenario.
We will examine SAR in detail in module 3 but the central theme of SAR is that the
quantitative criteria are fairly straightforward based on the data we get the marks but when it
comes to the process related criteria, we must ensure that the documents are all proper, the
implementation is proper and we are able to demonstrate the growth of the program from
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year to year. So, this is the central feature of the SAR and we will examine the SAR in detail
in module 3.
In the next unit will re-interpret the familiar words education, learning, assessment, teaching
and instruction in the context of formal programs. These are all words with which everyone is
familiar but we will try to relook these words in the context of formal program. Also, we will
understand the centrality of assessment in facilitating good learning. Thank you, we will meet
again in the next unit. Thank you.
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NBA Accreditation and Teaching-Learning in Engineering (NATE)
Professor N. J Rao
Department of Electronics Systems Engineering,
Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.
Lecture 05
Education, Teaching, Instruction and Assessment
Greetings and welcome to module 1, unit 5 of NATE, that is NBA Accreditation teaching and
learning in Engineering.
Here in the last unit we tried to understand the nature of Self-Appraisal Report and the
Centrality of Closing the Quality Loop at all levels of outcomes. As you can see we are
looking at the entire process of teaching and learning within some framework and that
framework is provided by two things - one is NBA Accreditation; the other is outcomes
based education.
These are the two pillars you can say of, that provide a framework for looking at all aspects
of engineering education. So, in the last unit, we looked at self-appraisal report and all the
elements of that briefly mentioned and then we looked at what are these central features of
that. One of the central feature of that is closing the quality loop at all levels. While we are
going to look at all the criteria in great detail in the module 3 of this course, but the last unit
just presented a brief picture of the nature of the self-appraisal report.
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Coming to unit 5, it is a long title that we gave and the title is based on education, learning,
assessment, teaching and instruction. As a teacher or as teachers all of us use these words.
Unfortunately they are not used necessarily in the right kind of meaning or in right kind of
context.
We felt that you reinterpret these words these are all familiar words all the words are known
to everyone but yet they are not necessarily used in the right context and to give the right
meaning and that is a reason why we want you to reinterpret the familiar words education,
learning, assessment, teaching and instruction. And also one minor thing which we will again
elaborate in later in module 2, understand the centrality of assessment in facilitating good
learning.
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We start with the word education. It is not a new word everyone uses all the time, we in our
conversation we use it readily, but in a formal sense if you want to define “education refers to
in its broadest sense any act or experience that has formative effect on the mind, character or
physical ability of an individual.”
That is any kind of experience that has formative affect on the mind, character and physical
ability of an individual you can call it as education. In this broad sense; the education never
ends because all the time you are experiencing your interacting with the outside world to their
extent those experiences will have influence on your mind and character and sometimes
physical abilities as well.
So, in that sense we truly learn from our experiences through our lives. Education happens all
the time in our lives until our death. But here education in its technical sense now is the
process in which society through schools, colleges and universities and other institutions
deliberately transmits its cultural heritage; its accumulated knowledge; values; skills from
one generation to the other.
That is the reason why this school education differs considerably from one country to the
other. Because each country will have to decide which part of its cultural heritage it wants to
transmit to the next generation of people.
Education and the technical sense - we are looking at what happens in schools, colleges and
universities or similar institutions. So, in our context it is concerned with intentional learning
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like in schools, colleges and universities. When you enter a school or a college they are
expected to learn something that means there is a curriculum and there is something is
already decided by some process and the student has to learn the things that have been
already decided. To their extent education is concerned with intentional learning like in
schools, colleges and universities.
We come to why we should be concerned with the philosophy of education. Society through
some processes is deciding to educate its people, but to educate people wisely we must know
what we educate them to become? Engineering education for example - What kind of
engineers do we want to produce? Is it something that a group of people feel that they are
what is that the student should learn or is there any framework within which you make that
decision.
So, to know what we educate them to become, it is necessary to ask what can be the purpose
of life and what sort of life it should be. This leads to the necessity to consider education
philosophically.
Again translating that into engineering what is the purpose of life of an engineer? What sort
of life it should be? Then you have to define who is a good engineer which we made an
attempt earlier in the first unit saying that, who is a good engineer? Right? That our definition
of good engineer again that definition will depend on the context.
Our context is at this point of time in India based on the current state of affairs or current
state of the society, what are the desirable characteristics of a good engineer. At some level
people have to agree to some common, call it parameters or characteristics of the good
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engineer and that is the reason why you require to consider education philosophically. So,
essentially education philosophy involves the application of formal philosophy to education
The moment we come to philosophy there is nothing like a single one or a possibly any two
people exactly will agree with what philosophy of education is or for that matter what
philosophy is. Broadly we have the following schools of philosophy - idealism, realism,
pragmatism, existentialism and analysis.
Even people may not agree with this kind of classification, this is one convenient method of
classifying philosophies. One should agree pick one from here what you consider is
appropriate to this, for example at least at higher education what the philosophy of
pragmatism is considered as a platform or basis for considering all issues related to education
let say at higher level.
We will not go through trying to define or defend any of these decisions. It is only to bring it
to the attention of the teachers that there are five, these five schools of philosophy and one
can look at their programs through any of these philosophies, but that is the completely
different those who are interested are welcome to explore these philosophies in relation to
engineering.
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Now, coming to higher education, what are the characteristic of higher education? One is
their formal programs that means somebody has a structure like in our case there are 4 years,
they are based on semester system and there is a whole lot of things that is to the formal one.
That means there is nothing like total freedom at all levels between for both teachers and
students.
And unlike schools aims of higher education cannot be under not that universe, by and large
what happens in a country the aims of school education are broadly the same. There is not too
much of difference between one place to the other place. Whereas at higher education it need
not be, there is no need for the aims of higher education to be universal. That is the first
characteristic of higher education.
Universities and colleges offering higher education general programs will identify the aims
called program outcomes. That is if you are offering a course like BA in history or BA in
sociology or BSc in physics any of these general programs; what we consider the outcomes
of the program are decided by the university or sometimes even the college.
If it is autonomous - college itself is required to identify in today’s context the program

outcomes. In case of professional courses like engineering, the concerned accrediting agency
will identify the program outcomes, that means it is not left to the choice of the college or
university. There is a national accrediting agency for example, if you take architecture or
medicine the so called program outcomes or the entire professional course is designed and
given by the accrediting agency.
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Not only that, some amount of freedom is given to the department offering the program to
add some more outcomes to this program outcomes, we call this additional outcomes as
programs specific outcomes. So, what happens in the case of program outcomes, they are the
same across all disciplines, across all engineering programs, whereas program specific
outcomes are specific to a particular branch and that to their defined by the department.
We come to the process of teaching, we looked at education; we looked what is a higher

education program. We look at the teaching, teaching is a process of helping other to
acquire knowledge, skills and values - that is what the teacher does. How does he do?
Teaching is a process of attending to people’s needs. experiences, feelings and intervening so
that they learn particular things.
These particular things are decided by the curriculum. What the student should learn are
decided by the curriculum. So teacher essentially does several things, that means he mainly
intervenes and who what are these interventions. Interventions commonly take the form of
questioning, listening, giving information, explaining some phenomenon, demonstrating a
skill or process, testing, understanding, capacity and facilitating learning activities, such as
note taking, discussions, assignment writing, simulations and so on. The interventions take
several forms and what kind of intervention is to be taken place is decided by the teacher. So,
this is what teaching process is.
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So, to that extent there are any number of models of teaching, in fact there are several classes
of models, there are large number of classes of models under each class we have several
models again. Essentially it applies to mainly school education. So, models of teaching may
help teachers to create conducive environments for learning.
So, if I follow some model then I can plan my classroom teaching according to that model
rather than doing it arbitrarily and models of teaching may help teachers to plan learning
centred educational experiences. These also may simulate development of new and better
forms of opportunities for education. A new teacher for example may identify the model of
teaching that he would prefer to follow and then plan his teaching within that framework.
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This is one of the most popular model of teaching due to William Glasser which was
provided in 1962, it belongs to the what is called personal family of models of teaching. We
will not elaborate the features of this personal family and what are the features? The teacher
should identity instructional objectives.
The teacher should also know the entering behaviour of students. That means what kind of
students do you have? What abilities do they have? With what prior knowledge and skills
they come in to your class. This is what the teacher will have to identify and then he follows
certain preferred or selected instructional procedures. And then he assesses the performance
of the students, these are the four characteristic for teacher I think any teacher can readily
relate to all these four.
But you should notice the success of this model depends upon the competency and ability of
the teacher in terms of skills like the formulation of objectives, use of proper strategies and
techniques of evaluations. This Glasser model of teaching is meaningful or will be
successful corresponding to the competency and ability of the teacher. So, the teacher has a
major role to play if you are following Glasser model of teaching.
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We come to the other process namely the learning, here there are two actors always one is
teacher the other are students. So, when teacher teaches the goal is to facilitate the students to
learn, we must also understand what learning is? Learning is acquiring new knowledge,
behaviour, skills, values, preferences or understanding.
If any of these things happen we are learning. As we learn our conception of phenomena
change and we see the world differently. If we do not learn adequately then our view of the
world may not change at all. It should be noted position of information is not synonymous
with learning. If one reels out all kinds of facts and figures that is position of information or I
would say data it is not synonymous with learning.
If we want a biologist’s definition of learning, “learning is stabilising through repeated dues

certain appropriate and desirable synapsis in the brain”. We will spend 1 unit on the kind of
role our understanding the brain plays in learning; that will do it at a later stage.
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We look at only 3 important theories of learning. There are many theories of learning, we will
just confine ourselves to three, these are the most dominant ones, and in fact the first learning
theory is behaviourism due to Watson. There behaviourism considers learning is acquisition
of a new behaviour through conditioning and behaviourism believed; when it was proposed
in 1920s there was hardly any proper understanding of the brain.
So, they made an assumption brain is a black box the only thing that we can measure is what
are the stimuli that you are giving and what are the responses of the individual. These are the
only things that are measurable. The whole learning theory - behaviourism is based on a
stimulus and response.
And then what kind of sequence of stimuli will lead to what kind of sequence of responses.
Under what conditions can I bring out desirable response from the individual, that is the kind
of approach that was taken and quite a few of the practices of the schools and even at higher
education level, they are based on the behaviourism.
For example, if you repeatedly practice your response to certain stimuli can be conditioned or
can be improved. So, what happens one of the consequences of this you give practise
problems, that particular method is the outcome of behaviourism. While it is super-seeded by
other but still it is not invalid but behaviourism does not completely explain the behaviour of
individuals.
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Next is cognitivism, Piaget proposed first and possibly tens of thousands of researchers have
worked on this. Humans learn by generating knowledge and meaning through sequential
development of their cognitive abilities, including recognition, recollection, analysis,
reflection, application, creation, understating and evaluation.
We are going to focus much on the cognitivist approach to learning, for example, the
cognitive processes focus on processing information. How do you process? We have given a
long list and that is where we will be looking at our taxonomy of learning is dominantly
based on cognitivism. We will look at that in the later units.
Third important one is called social constructivism, it is due to John Dewey, Bruner, Piaget
and Vygotsky. It considers that learning occurs within a context that itself is a part of what is
learned. Though you are teaching the same technical topic, same subject in one well equipped
classroom by an expert and in a good nice environment or the one that you are teaching in a
very ill equipped, ill qualified faculty member the context are vastly different and whatever
the students learn; the impact of the context is also carried.
So, the context cannot be dissociated with what you learnt and to that extent knowing and
doing cannot be separated; and learning is a process that is extended over time and we are
just making very brief statements obviously we encourage teachers to explore these 3
learning theories a little bit.
I think every teacher should explore at least these 3 theories besides many other theories that
exist. It should be remembered learning is a process that is extended over time, it just does
not happen in a very short period. That you explain and people seem to understand, seem to
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even solve the problem immediately but it does not mean that you have learnt, it takes
considerable time for that to be completely internalised and truly the learning has actually
happened it takes certain time.
This is the one teacher should pay attention in the sense - one of the mistakes that is done is
that the curricular at many places are overloaded. As a teacher you want your student to
know all kinds of things and as soon as something is kind of addressed in the classroom you
think that the learning has been facilitated. It does not happen as it takes considerable time
especially the students with lesser cognitive abilities it will take lot of time to that extent the
curriculum should be matched with the abilities of the student and the time required.
As a consequence of social constructivism, some of the learning methods that they have come
like discovery, hands on, experiential, collaborative, project based and task based learning are
the consequence of social constructivism.
We come to another very important aspect of teaching and learning - assessment. The formal
definition of assessment, it is a measure of performance. What do I measure to know that the
student has learnt something? Another associated word is evaluation. Evaluation is an
interpretation of assessment, if the student has performed let us say conducted an experiment
then evaluation is to determine how well he has performed or can I associate some grade or
mark or something with that performance.
Assessment and evaluation are two different things, unfortunately many times these two
terms are used synonymously - that should not take place. Also we consider/we think we
taught well in the classroom, the teaching and learning has taken place and assessment or
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examination is a necessary evil. Actually, we now presently look at the centrality of
assessment in learning. Our assessment tools, tells students what we consider to be important.
For example, if we consider some part of the subject is not important, we may not ask any
questions or not conduct a quiz in that. So, students will look at what kind of questions are
being asked at various points during a semester and they will accordingly prepare. That
means through your assessment tools you are communicating to the students, what you
consider to be important.
For example, in my examinations are tests, I cannot ask superficial questions and expect the
students to learn something meaningfully or deeply. So, assessment is the key. Teachers
guide students to learn through their assessments, you can even say that it is a glue that links
the components of a course - its content, instructional methods and skills development. In fact
you can even say assessment drives student learning.
I am sure you are all familiar with that - always students prepare for the exams. Teacher in
my opinion has no right to say that student should not worry about exams and they consider
you should focus on learning and should not focus on examinations. If these two are different
then it is the fault of the teacher rather than the student. Learning well and performing well in
that examination or in assessments they should be the same; that is the role of the assessment.
You should not/your assessment should not create any issue related to performing an
examination and learning well should not be considered two different things. So, again to
reinforce that we are once again saying assessment should be in alignment with stated
outcomes of education.
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There are two types of assessments - formative assessment, assessment for learning or
educative assessment. Means when I am asking when I am doing assessing formative
assessment, I am trying to find out to what extent the student has learnt and that will also
provide me the basis for providing feedback and also to know how the student/to what extent
they have learned.
That means in formative assessment, you are not trying to use the results for grading or
giving marks for that. Whereas summative assessment that is assessment of learning to find
out what is at the student has learnt you conduct summative assessment. I am sure that faculty
are familiar with these two words formative assessment and summative assessment.
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We come to instruction – it is another word, for example, we may use teaching and
instruction bit synonymously but instruction is slightly different. The purpose of instruction
is to help people learn and develop - very simple. But learning and development can be in any
of the 4 domains cognitive, affective, psychomotor and spiritual.
Let say we keep the spiritual part a little aside because we do not even know how to formally
define and how to prepare the student for it or there can be several controversies over that.
So, we will mainly look at the learning and development can be cognitive, affective and
psychomotor. We will look at the affective and psychomotor domains a little later.
Learning can certainly occur without instruction. You do not require instruction at all like if
you walk on the street by just observing what is happening or reacting to external situation
you are learning something. So, learning can certainly occur without instruction but
instructional designers apply the principles of learning to the design of external events we call
instruction. That means the instructor plan some external events to facilitate learning. These
externals event are planed based on the principal some principals of learning, that is what the
instructional designers do.
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Instruction is a set of events embedded in purposeful activities that facilitate learning - if you
want a formal definition instruction. Events can be external to the learner like it could be a
printed page, an instructors’ lecture or the activities of a group of students or conducting a
laboratory and so on.
Whereas internal mental events, that is directing attention, rehearsing, reflecting and
monitoring progress these are internal mental events. So, the teacher will have to pay
attention to both for him to do good instruction.
There are Instructional System Design we call it ISD. There are models for instructional
system design and these models present a process a teacher or instructional designer can use
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to plan and prepare for instruction. There are many models and there is nothing like this is the
most superior model or this is the only way to do there is nothing like that, but people may
prefer a particular ISD model.
Different instruction design theories differ in the process used to apply those theories to
particular situation. So, the process part can be different from one model to the other and the
example that we are going to take is what is called ADDIE, ADDIE is a short name for
analysis, design, development, implement and evaluate or there are several variants of the
same. We are going to look at this particular instructional system design model namely
ADDIE.
As an exercise we would like you to give your reasons why you should be concerned with
philosophy of higher education, mainly to encourage you to read a little bit and say why you
should really worry about philosophy of higher education. Which one of the learning theories
you can relate to more in your experience and why?
We talked about three learning theories and you can explore more learning theories and if
you prefer you can say, which is the one you can relate better. Why do you need to be
concerned with assessment in engineering education and how. Give two examples of your
approaches to instruction you felt led to better learning by students in the courses you taught.
Write hundred words for each example, giving some evidence of better learning. This is we
would like to learn from you if you are able to share the results of your exercise, it will be
great learning experience for us as teachers.
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In the next unit we try to understand the nature of program educational objectives and
program outcomes. We talked about outcomes but these are all classified into four levels we
will look at this two namely program educational objectives and program outcomes. Thank
you for your attention.
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NBA Accreditation and Teaching-Learning in Engineering
Professor N. J. Rao
Lecture 06
POs 10 12
Greetings and welcome to Module One, unit 6 of NATE - NBA Accreditation and Teaching -
Learning in Engineering. This unit is concerned with PEOs and some of the POs. PEOs are
Program Educational Objectives and POs are Program Outcomes.
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In the earlier unit we kind of reinterpreted, these words are familiar to all faculty, but specific
meanings have been there and we are trying to reinforce or request all faculty to get themselves
re-familiarized with these words and reinterpret the words education, learning, assessment,
teaching, and instruction, especially, in the context of formal programs and also we emphasized
the centrality of assessment in facilitating good learning.
This unit, would want you to understand the nature of and importance of POs and identify
activities that facilitate the attainment of the first five POs. As we mentioned, there are 12 POs
out of which that the first 5 will be addressed in this particular unit.
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To recap again, there are three levels of outcomes. The one level is program educational
objectives, PEOs are broad statements that describe the carrier and professional accomplishments
in 4 to 5 years after graduation, we will explain that presently. Program outcomes are statements
that describe what the student should be able to do at the time of graduation from an engineering
program. As the definition itself says it is irrespective of the particular engineering programs,
these program outcomes have to be attained.
And at the same level as program outcomes, you have Programs Specific Outcomes and PSOs
are statements that describe what the graduates of a specific engineering program should be able
to do. At one level you have PEOs; at another level we have POs and PSOs. From POs and
PSOs the curriculum comes, the curriculum consists of a large number of one-semester formal
courses and here come the course outcomes, COs are statements that describe what the students
should be able to do at the end of the course. These are the 4 types of outcomes, and they are
arranged at 3 levels.
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Let us look at Program Educational Objectives as we already stated are what the graduates of the
program are expected to achieve within 4 to 5 years of completing the program. Why is it
important? For example, if you look at where your graduates are after 4 to 5 years, and if those
graduates are not using any of the information that you have imparted or knowledge and skills
that you have imparted and what they do have no correlation with that, that means the program
did not play any role in their careers other than possibly some they can speak better or do
something but it did not play any particular role.
If there is too much of deviation from what they are doing and what a program is offering that
means it is a signal to all the faculty or to the department to take a re-look at the curriculum.
These PEOs statements can be abstract to some extent but they must be small in number, 3 to 5 is
what is specified by the NBA and they must be attainable. That means you do not say that within
4 to 5 years - majority for students should become CEOs of companies.
That means, it is not likely to happen so, they are not attainable, so you cannot write such a PEO.
PEOs must follow from the mission of the department. We will come to the mission of the
department in great detail when you look at the criterion one of NBA in the SAR. That means the
mission of the department and PEOs are to be strongly linked with each other.
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How to make sure that they are linked with each other will see by preparing what you call PEOs
mission matrix. When you are writing these PEOs it is not like one faculty member sits and
writes these PEOs. A systematic process needs to be followed and with a common consent you
have to identify the PEOs.
These are some examples of PEOs. This is just one BE-EEE program, 4 years after graduation,
the graduates should be “engaging with designing, manufacturing, testing, operating and/or
maintaining systems in the field of Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Allied
Engineering industries”. When we write a statement like this, it does not mean that after 4 years,
the graduate of the EEE program should be engaged in all these activities. He should be doing at
least one of them, that is what it means.
He should be engaged in “solving problems of social relevance, applying the knowledge of

Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and/or pursue higher education and research”. We gave
two things one is solving problems of social relevance or pursue higher education and research.
They should be involved in one of these two. Another aspect of any engineer “work effectively
as individuals and as team members in multi-disciplinary projects”.
It is a characteristic of an engineer, engineering activity is never done as an individual, and it is

always by a team, but he must play his role, whatever role that is assigned to him. He must
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work effectively both as an individual and as team-members. Another one, he should “engage in
lifelong learning, career enhancement and adapt to changing professional and social needs.
These are samples given, you do not have to stick to these wordings. That is why it should be
written by a group trying to see why are you designing this program; where you want your
graduates to be doing after 4 to 5 years after graduation; that is what PEOs are.
We come to Program Outcomes. POs are what graduates of any engineering program should
demonstrate at the time of graduation. That is the main difference. PEOs are you look at
graduates after 4 to 5 years after graduation, but POs are what graduates should demonstrate at
the time of graduation itself. That means at the end of 4 years of undergraduate programs.
These are identified by the National Board of Accreditation. There is no choice, they are given
and you have to operate within that. They are 12 in number.
There are 12 program outcomes and they happen to be similar and in alignment with what are
called Graduate Attributes of Washington Accord. You are only pointing it out, there is no need
to go to Washington Accord and look at Graduate Attributes and worry about how am I meeting
all that is not relevant, because India is already a signatory to the Washington Accord. If your
students have attained these program outcomes, it is sufficient for us. You do not have to use the
words Graduate Attributes or Washington Accord.
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We will look at various levels of these program’s outcomes. Only 5 of 12 POs are dominantly
disciplinary outcomes and the remaining 7 are professional outcomes also known as generic or
transferable (skills) or outcomes. The first thing that we do we classify the POs into two
categories, one is disciplinary outcomes, the other one is generic outcomes or professional
outcomes.
Again to kind of look at it from the top three POs mention complex engineering problems, they
use this phrase complex engineering problems in three POs and two POs mention complex
engineering activities and two POs mention contextual knowledge. The words like complex
engineering problems, complex engineering activities, contextual knowledge, these all play an
important role with respect to the identified POs.
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What are really Complex Engineering Problems? First thing they involve wide-ranging or
conflicting technical engineering and other issues. If you take any problem like you take any
recent, let us say, the kind of flood havoc that is happening and we are trying to address that
particular issue, you will have conflict in technical, engineering and other issues.
That is if you solve one problem purely from one point of view, it may conflict with some other
requirement and complex engineering problems have no obvious solutions like end of the
chapter problems - aolutions are not obvious. They involve diverse groups of stakeholders with
widely varying needs.
Have significant consequences in a range of contexts. If you offered a solution to a let us say like
again managing the floods, whatever solution that you produce, people will have consequences
on different people in different contexts and they have possibly many component parts. First of
all, it is not a single solution, they will have many component parts and sub-problems to be
addressed. I think if one look at the newspaper anytime, will tell you that nobody is happy with
one particular solution when it is really complex like this.
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Let us look at some samples. Plan for supplying water for irrigation and drinking to a group of
villages in an arid zone. I am not going to elaborate any of these problems. Design and
instrumentation system for managing available water and its utilization in a river basin. If you
take any river basin as you can see, there are always issues between the states which are what we
call riparian states, which are along the river basin.
Design a system for the construction of large scale poor and middle-class housing in towns with
population less than two lakhs. Improve the quality of power supply to a city or a district. Design
a system for managing an elephant corridor without conflict between humans and elephants.
These are a few small problems, I am sure you can design you can identify any number of
complex engineering problems in your own environment.
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What are Complex Engineering Activities? They involv the use of diverse resources. Diverse
resources means people, money, equipment, materials, information. and technologies. They
require resolution of significant problems arising from the interaction between wide-ranging and
conflicting technical, engineering and other issues. Mostly first thing that will happen if it is a
complex problem, where there are several stakeholders involved, you will have conflicting
requirements from different groups of people.
They involve creative use of knowledge and engineering principles. They can extend beyond the
previous experiences. This is something you should not try to find solutions based only on your
previous experience. Because, the nature of the problem requires you to look at it, what we
people call as out of the box solution kind of thing.
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We look at the first 5 POs and the remaining ones we look at it in the later unit. PO1 is related to
what is called engineering knowledge and the statement as given by NBA: “apply the knowledge
of mathematics, science, engineering fundamentals, and an engineering specialization to the
solution of complex engineering problems”. See the word complex engineering problem comes.
Actually this sentence should have been rephrased in a slightly different way in my view.
Because the focus is on the solution of complex engineering problems. If you re-write that
“solve complex engineering problems, applying the knowledge of mathematics, science,
engineering fundamentals, and an engineering specialization”, that is how one can re-word this
because the focus is on solving the problem. But you do not want people to solve just arbitrarily/
intuitively/giving just a command what it occurs to you and so on.
You want the solution to be based on using the underlying required knowledge from all these
disciplines. The keywords are solve and apply. If you look at all engineering courses that you
are familiar with or the way your program is being conducted, majority of engineering courses
mainly address this outcome. We will see the other outcomes are a lot less addressed in the
current context.
Assessment in many institutions falls far short of solving engineering problems, leave alone
complex engineering problems. Because if you look at many of the courses do not even directly
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address engineering problems. If you take, for example, engineering sciences are basic science
courses, they will talk about only the science part science issues, they do not directly address
engineering problems. If you look at the entire program from the perspective of PO1.
You have to first notice that we are not solving complex engineering problems and all courses
are not addressing even engineering problems. The nearest we come to address this PO1 you can
say is the end of the chapter problems at least will moderately address this PO; this should be
noted. But now, can I leave it like this? Can I leave saying that, that is the way the curriculum is
designed and there is nothing else that I can do? The only thing I can do is make the student
solve the end of chapter problems?
What kind of activities should I do to address PO1? First thing is, solve end of the chapter
problems that is a minimum one should do. Then to say some as feature of so-called complex
engineering problems, understand the context in which a given engineering problem was
formulated or understand the nature of some complex engineering problems. You can present it
as a case study related to your discipline and bring a complex engineering problem to the class.
You are not solving it, but you are understanding the nature of the complex in your problems.
That means, when you present that problem, you talk about the conflicting requirements of
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different dimensions, different stakeholders, and non-uniqueness of the solution and so on can be
pointed out by presenting one case at least to the students.
Understand the nature or give some examples of complex engineering problems. Some case
studies that can be prepared and made available to the students and one or two can be considered
in the class. Also, give multiple solutions to given complex engineering problems, once again,
you do not have to solve it. You just make available multiple solutions; that itself, in my opinion,
is a great learning experience to the students that there are no generally unique solutions to
complex engineering problems.
Coming to the second one - PO2: this is a lot more complex. Let us look at the wording:
“identify, formulate, research literature and analyze complex engineering problems, reaching
substantiated conclusions, using first principles of mathematics, natural science, and engineering
sciences”. As you can see compared to PO1 this is written in a better order. What are the
activities involved in addressing this PO?
One is problem identification, then problem formulation, researching literature related to that and
analyzing that literature and reaching substantiated conclusions. There are 5 different activities,
even if you do some we can say we have partly addressed PO2. For example, unfortunately, the
way the engineering curricula are planned today, that I do not think there is any experience given
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other than in the project that the students do, where they identify a problem. Nor identify the
problem, they do not even formulate. That experience is not given through any of the formal
courses. Neither you research literature nor analyze all the issues related to that and reaching the
substantiated conclusions.
The only place where you are likely to get involved these are the project. The PO2 involves
problem statement construction, problem formulation and abstraction, information and data
collection, modeling, validation, experimental design, experimentation, interpretation of results,
implementation, documentation, feedback, and improvement. It is a tall order. we will not be
able to do all that in every course, but at least if you are convinced all these are important during
the design of the curriculum, you should make sure that these different things are addressed in
different courses.
The “substantiated conclusions” should be arrived using the first principles of mathematics,
natural sciences, and engineering sciences and not based on opinion or intuition. Drawing this
substantial conclusion is a part of the PO2 or but that process should be arrived or should be
done using the first principles of all these subjects. If you look at the majority, the programs do
not have courses that address even a small subset of these activities.
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It is very difficult to say that my course is addressing PO2. It is not that your course cannot
address PO2, but the way it is practiced. Especially, where you have 90 percent of the colleges
are affiliated to a university where assessment is all centralized, it is very difficult to say that
PO2 is addressed. The only place where they can be included are the mini and major projects
even there, you can assure that they are addressed if they are properly orchestrated, which is
possible to do at the department.
This PO can also be addressed through group assignments in some courses. This requires
considerable planning on behalf of the instructor and developing appropriate rubrics for
evaluation of performance of each member of the group. As you can see, if you want to address
any of the POs it requires a substantial amount of planning.
And some of the activities, it does not mean that one can do all of them, just I am giving a small
list of them. Identify complex problems that dominantly belong to your engineering branch.
Make appropriate assumptions, especially about the context in which the solutions are being
sought that helped formulate an identified complex engineering problem. Justify the assumptions
made in formulating a complex engineering problem based on survey of the related literature.
Because whenever you are formulating an identified problem, you have to go through the
process of making some assumptions. These assumptions have to be stated upfront and they
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should be reviewed by the concerned stakeholders or at least a group of people will have to
review whether those assumptions made are appropriate or not. Understand the requirements of
end-users of solutions to the problem. Explore and select a method of solving a formulated
problem.
Specify the hardware or software products and processes that the solution to the formulated
engineering problem. Some of these activities can be brought into a course. But as we said, it
requires a lot of planning and you also have to see students will take it seriously, only if they also
form part of your assessment. If there is no assessment associated with that, then the students do
not necessarily pay attention to what you are doing.
PO3: Design and development of solutions. The statement says “design solutions (again) for
complex engineering problems and design system components or processes that meet the
specified needs, with appropriate consideration for the public health and safety, and the cultural,
societal, and environmental considerations”; it is a tall order.
Now, what is the focus? You are designing solutions for engineering problems and can only be
experienced through projects and assignments because they do not easily fit into the single
course. Unless you have a course called some engineering design, it is possible to design such a
course as a part of the curriculum, but you call it engineering system design or design of
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engineering systems, whatever name you give, it is possible to design such a course and give the
experience like this.
Also, these are time-consuming activities and cannot be that easily included especially in a
limited time written examination. They can only be experienced over a period of time. They
cannot be part of a 3 hour, 2-hour examination where for any question you do not have more
than half an hour. However, components of systems can be designed through smaller
assignments and in some identified courses.
The design criteria and specifications of components and processes need to be evolved from the
solution to a given problem. This experience can be given in a classroom provided you care for
it, for example, one of the very important things an engineer should be familiar with is what are
criteria and specifications. Unfortunately, most of the courses do not pay attention to these at all.
If you are offering a solution then from that solution you should be able to draw the criteria and
specifications of components and process.
I think at least they should go through this exercise in 2 or 3 courses for 4 years. These criteria
and specifications should be developed taking issues and again here, public health and safety,
cultural, societal, and environmental considerations. We hardly touch any of these dimensions.
The only way they can be addressed instead of making it very complicated, generally, the
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standards associated with any particular engineering activity, they would have gone through all
these factors and the standards would have evolved.
If you design some product or a process, using the relevant standards, possibly, you would have
addressed this PO3 very well. Cultural and social considerations will require inputs from non-
engineering fields and get incorporated into what we call non-functional specifications. Yes, it
requires lot of elaboration we will not do that, but it requires inputs from non-engineering fields.
Which are some of the PO3 activities? Understand the role of public health and safety and the
cultural, societal, and environmental considerations in determining the non-functional
requirements of products and processes. This can be done by through taking one simple case
study and making a presentation of that. Identify the standards that are applicable to the product
or process that needs to be designed and developed. Let us say you are teaching a course on
design of an electrical machine, machine like an induction motor.
You just identify the standards that need to be followed and possibly the standards can be
elaborated to explain how various requirements have been incorporated into that and then you
are just identifying the standards and within those standards, you have to develop your design.
Design components and subsystems as per specifications. Specify the testing process to check
the performance of the design product or process. Document the design of products, components,
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and processes. These are some of the possible activities that can be incorporated into a regular
curriculum to address PO3.
PO4: Conduct investigations of complex problems, this is still a much more involved activity.
Use research-based knowledge and research methods, including design of experiments, analysis,
and interpretation of data and synthesis of the information to provide valid conclusions. At least I
am not aware of any course that addresses all of them or any of them.
Elaborating this statement a little bit - use the research based knowledge to provide valid
conclusions. Most of the core courses do not generally provide such learning experiences at all.
It requires a collection of a set of research papers that can be understood by the UG students and
posing a set of questions. This requires such an activity, if you can incorporate, yes, you are at
least addressing a part of PO4.
Understand the research methods relevant to the discipline of concern. It will become difficult to
design and implement such experiences, particularly at under-graduate level in the majority of
the institutions.
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Further, The research method of “design of experiments” can be experienced through an open-
ended experiments in some laboratories - it is possible to incorporate. Even if you are able to
incorporate one such open experiment, possibly you can claim that I am addressing PO4. The
research method of “analysis and interpretation of data and synthesis of information” requires
collection of significant amounts of data related to a context and posing questions that can lead to
the synthesis of information.
To my knowledge, such contexts can more readily be identified in subjects like Data-Bases,
Material Science-related subjects, Chemical Process Optimization, Nano Technology, Device,
and Sensor Design. If there are such core courses in any of the program, they can incorporate
part of PO4.
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Some activities: plan and perform experiments surveys and collect the data in accordance with
the applicable standards. It is possible to do so but you have to incorporate in one of the courses.
Perform the necessary calculation and data reduction to draw valid conclusions. What can be
done? You do not have to collect the data, you start with some data that is collected and make
the students go through the necessary calculation and data reduction to draw conclusions and
present the results in a professional manner. These are some suggested activities you can add a
lot more of your own within your discipline.
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PO5: Modern Tool usage: Create, select and apply appropriate techniques resources and
modern engineering and IT tools including preduction and modeling to complex engineering
activities with an understanding of the limitations. Once again a bit of analysis of the statement
if you look at, this is related to creating, selecting, and applying modern engineering and IT
tools. You have to look at IT tools you are familiar with using a particular kind of software.
Whereas engineering it could be modern/present state-of-the-art engineering equipment and so
on. But it is related to creating, selecting and applying.
Creating an IT tool or selecting an IT tool, for example, are not in the realm of regular classroom
teaching. The only exercise that you can do is you present the data about a set of IT tools and say
‘ask the students to select what is best to be given a particular context’. Whereas applying
modern IT tools is possible and many of the programs do so, state-of-the-art tools either through
simulation or for design, analysis, every branch has its own tools, they can be used, but creating
a tool can at best be attempted through a project.
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As we said many institutions already incorporate IT tools into the laboratories. This PO5 is
reasonably addressed in courses where you are using the IT tools in the laboratory. The
complexity in engineering is characterized by - first thing is a large number of variables. Any
complex problem has large number of variables, phenomena with widely different time
constants.
Some things happen at microseconds, some things happen at milliseconds, something happens at
seconds, sometimes some of the processes take hours and they do happen in the presence of
noise, that is unwanted inputs. Independent multiple decision making may be involved in a
complex problem and systems and many of the complex systems will have the number of
negative and positive feedback loops within that.
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And such things can only be addressed through some of the tools used for simulation. There are
a whole host of tools today are available to understand the behavior of complex engineering
problems. If those are incorporated, then you can say at least you are using modern tools for
studying complex engineering problems. While modeling is part of number of engineering
courses, simulation can be extensively used at the classroom level and also in the laboratories.
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Which are the possible activities? Determine the requirements of a simulation tool for a class of
engineering problems - that can be one of the exercises. Create tools for simulation and solving a
class of engineering problems - creating such tools can be done as a project. Select the most cost-
effective tune from the commercially available Engineering and IT tools for addressing a class of
engineering problems.
Understand the limitations of given engineering or IT tool. That is you show a tool and say find
out what are its limitations, where it can be applied? Where it cannot be applied? Use the
engineering IT tools made available by the department - that is being done practically by all
institutions. So, these are all possible PO5 activities.
Exercise: write 3 to 5 PEOs for a BE program in your branch. But when you are doing this, it
does not mean that you are giving the final solution because PEOs are to be written by the
specially designated committee following a well-documented process. But at least all teachers
should experience writing such PEOs. Give one sample activity each that addresses PO1, PO2,
PO3, PO4, and PO5, from the courses you taught or familiar with. Like the other one, we
appreciate it if you share the results of your exercise with us, it will be a great learning
experience for us.
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In the next unit, we will be looking at the remaining 7 program outcomes (PO6, PO7, PO8, PO9,
PO10, PO11 and PO 12) that means what is the nature of these program outcomes and what are
the possible activities that facilitate the attainment of them? Thank you very much for your
attention.
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Professor N. J. Rao
Lecture 07
POs6 9
Greetings and welcome to the first part of M I U7, which is part of NATE - NBA
Accreditation and Teaching and Learning in Engineering.
In the last unit we looked at some of the issues or the program outcomes PO1 to PO5 and
there we noticed or noted complex engineering problems are significantly different from the
end chapter difficult problems. One should not interpret a difficult problem from the end of
the chapter as a complex engineering problem.
Also the five program outcomes PO1 to PO5 are technical in nature. That means they are
specific to or they can be interpreted in terms of the discipline that you are dealing with. And
also only some elements of these POs are addressed by the present day engineering programs.
That is what should be noted that while we have these POs, only some elements of these POs
are addressed by majority or practically all the present day engineering programs.
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Now, we will try to look at, in the current unit, the nature and importance of program
outcomes PO6 to PO9 to a graduating engineer.
PO6 to PO12, the seven program outcomes are also can be labeled as professional outcomes
or generic outcomes. The knowledge, skills and attitudes acquired through addressing these
seven outcomes are required by all professionals at all levels. A good engineer requires to
attain knowledge, skills and attitudes as presented in these seven outcomes.
Interestingly while no one has any dispute with the desirability of these outcomes, the
curriculum design does not reflect the importance adequately. There is only limited amount
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of attention, but it is kind of kept aside saying that the students will acquire on their own or
after they join the company and so on. Integrating these seven outcomes into curriculum and
designing related assessments is not going to be easy and requires considerable coordinated
effort by the faculty.
But unless either the management or somewhere from the NBA insists on this. It is unlikely
to get integrated into the curriculum. But before you do that a lot of effort needs to be put by
several people across the country to come with the kind of exercises; how do we assess the
performance of the students; and all will have to be kind of generated.
Now, let us look at PO6. It is related to Engineer Society. The statement of PO 6 is, “apply
reasoning informed by the contextual knowledge to assess societal health, safety, legal and
cultural issues and the consequent responsibilities relevant to the professional engineering
practice”. As you can see, there are several elements to this.
Engineer is providing some technical solutions to some problem of relevance to the society.
In that extent technology is both cause and effect of societal changes. That is if you take
typical example: if technology produced a cell phone, it will affect the way the society
functions. Once it changes, it will also lead to or kind of facilitate generation of new
technologies and products. So, it is both cause and effect of societal changes.
Engineers produce products and services apparently for the benefit of the society. Why we
say apparently, is because he is working for a company, the company wants to make some
products and sell them. How these products are identified, manufactured and made available
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to people? If when you investigate all these stages not all aspects are necessarily desirable.
That is why we say apparently for the benefit of this society.
There are societal health, safety, legal and cultural issues for all products and services and
these are context dependent. Students should experience or understand the relationship
between products and services to people or society in a variety of contexts, at least this is the
exposure the students should get through some specific case studies.
Case studies can be incorporated in some courses that will bring the attention of the student to
product-service-people relationship in a number of contexts. Assessment in that kind of case
study could be in terms of the student’s perception of his responsibilities. The evaluation
rubrics for projects can incorporate elements of engineer society interaction. For example, the
students can be encouraged while doing their project to look at the issues of the products and
Society interaction, whatever project or product that he is trying to develop, and its
interaction with the society; at least he can explore.
Still a better way in my opinion is to design a few courses; not all courses can be given
obviously, choose from a list of these courses that will directly address the interaction
between technology and society. This could be energy and society, water and society,
complexity, housing, climate change, and sustainability to address this particular PO. At least
one course in a program can focus the attention of the student on the technology-society
interaction.
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What are the activities we can have for PO6? Understand the goals and working of relevant
professional society; identify when and where engineers interact with society through their
professional activities; understand the responsibilities implied in one's professional practice.
Some material can be prepared under this and can be presented to the students so that they
can understand all these elements.
PO7 is related to environment and sustainability. The statement says “understand the impact
of the professional engineering solutions in societal and environmental context and
demonstrate the knowledge of and need for sustainable development”. So, there are two
issues, one is environment, the other is sustainability.
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First thing is students should understand the need for sustainable development. There is
enough amount of literature available about this, but the issue is where exactly do you
incorporate this material? Do you want to give a course on this or should it be part of
something else? That decision will have to be made by the designers of the curriculum.
Students should understand the impact of engineering solutions on people and environment.
For example, all of us are now facing the convenience of plastic products, which are only
used once on the environment is known to everyone now. That is why the country is bringing
legislation to ban the one use plastic products. It is not that very easy because they are
convenient solutions to find alternatives is going to take time, and also likely to be more
expensive. Students should demonstrate the knowledge, what can lead to sustainable
development.
We will not talk about at this stage what is sustainability and what are the features of that?
But in a resource limited environment and also what we call thermodynamically closed
system like Earth and sustainable development is going to be very, very complicated. And all
of us are going to be part of it. So, an engineer should certainly understand what is involved
in sustainable development?
This PO can be addressed through case studies and courses on technology and society and
sustainability. So, to that extent PO6 and PO7 can be addressed together through specially
designed courses. Or case studies can be incorporated in some courses that will bring the
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attention of the students to sustainability issues. When you incorporate assessment could be
in terms of the student’s perception of impact of engineering solutions on sustainability.
What are the activities that you can use? Understand what sustainable growth is; Understand
the impact of given technology and environment and sustainability; Analyze the impact of a
given engineering solution on environment and sustainability.
PO8 is ethics: apply ethical principles to commit to professional ethics and responsibilities
and norms of engineering practice. This also is not very easy, but not that very difficult. First
of all, one needs to understand what do you mean by application of ethical principles? What
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does it require? It requires moral autonomy. What is moral autonomy? Moral autonomy
means conduct and principles of action are owned. There is any decision that an engineer is
taking, he/she have to own the decision.
Decisions and actions are based on critical reflection and not passive adaptation of some
code. Your boss tells you, you have to follow this procedure. Then you say I do not know
anything about it, I was asked to follow. So, if there is any negative impact or negative things
about it; it all should go to the boss. Moral beliefs and attitudes are integrated into the core of
one's personality and lead to committed action. That is what moral autonomy means. It is not
going to be easy. You have to own your decisions.
These decisions should be based on critically evaluating all the issues related to a particular
issue. Professionally engineering ethics are rules and standards governing the conduct of
engineer in the role as professionals. For example, in every role that you play, there may be
some standard professional practices. So, the minimum requirement is to follow those
practices. Normally every professional engineering society will define a code of ethics for its
practitioners.
First thing is you should understand the nature of ethical problems an engineer faces in their
practice. And students should also understand the ethical norms of engineering practice and
their implication in professional decision making. PO8 can be addressed through dedicated
course on professional ethics and/or case studies that focus on ethical issues and their
resolutions.
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For example, there have been courses designed and some engineering programs have actually
incorporated a course called professional ethics. A course can be very general about
engineering or the professional ethics course can be related to the particular discipline. For
example, if you take Computer Science and Engineering, there can be professional ethics
course related to computer science and engineering. Such courses have been designed and
offered, and if the curriculum designers will have to make a decision regarding how one is
going to address this particular PO8.
Some of the activities to address PO8: identify the deviations of an engineering solution from
the accepted professional practices. You can consider take a case of a solution already created
and compare it with the accepted professional practice and identify the deviations in that.
This is only on paper level. Identify the impact of an engineering solution on different groups
of persons.
Recognize the ethical dilemma in the case study presented. If you take any issues related to
disputes over water, you will find any number of such ethical dilemmas. Propose actions that
minimize damage and synthesize solutions rather than judge the players in ethically complex
situations presented as case studies. Ethical behavior does not necessarily mean that you kind
of judge the people involved in that. It also requires you to understand why people behave in
one particular way in a given situation, and such issues can be presented as case studies.
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This one is easy to handle - not that easy when implemented. PO9 is related to individual and
teamwork. So, function effectively as an individual and as a member or leader in diverse
teams and in multidisciplinary settings. There are several issues here that need to be looked
at. One is you should function effectively as an individual, that is easy to understand, and
then as a member of a team.
You could be a member of different types of teams, because from one project to the other,
when an engineer moves, the nature of the team will can be completely different. That is why
diverse teams and also in multidisciplinary settings. There are just too many aspects to this.
First thing is all engineering activities in any organization are group activities. There is
nothing like one individual working on a project, when you join after your graduation in any
organization.
The group needs to work as an effective team to meet the goals of the project. Industry
considers the ability to work in a team is a very important characteristic of all engineers. If
you rank order the characteristics, assuming that you are already graduate, the first and
second one is ability to work as a member of a team and the ability to communicate. These
are the two most important characteristics considered by the industry.
An individual after becoming a member of a team, and identification of his or her role, should
be able to work effectively to achieve the team's objectives, despite personal differences with
the other team members. So, for the team to be effective, an individual cannot keep bringing
the personal differences onto the table all the time. That will completely make the team
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ineffective. So if one is to be a good team member, he should be able to separate out
individual/personal differences and the activities related to the project.
Of course, it is not very easy. But if you want to be a good team member, one has to learn
that. It is necessary to develop rubrics to measure how good a team member one is and to
make that evaluation count. There are rubrics available, which are developed by HR teams
for that kind of thing, and they can be brought into the kind of learning experiences the
teacher can create, to facilitate the student to become an effective team member.
Students should be provided with experiences as members or leaders in technical semi-

technical and non technical teams. So, it is worthwhile to arrange for coaching to students
and becoming members of teams. Somewhere, if the college or department can arrange some
amount of coaching to the students, hopefully the students would become better members of
teams.
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What are the activities you can have? Group assignments that involve group decision making,
division of work through negotiation, if you can do that. Group projects; Co-curricular
activities that will require a group; Activities through e-groups. These days, you form a group
on the internet rather than face to face activity. So, activities through e-groups can also be one
of the activities to address the PO9.
We request you to give one sample activity that addresses PO6, PO7, PO8, and PO9 from the
courses you taught and learned - in whatever manner that you, you can identify that sample
activity. Will thank you for sharing the results of the exercise at this email.
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And now, in the next one that is M1U7 what we call part two, we will be looking at the
remaining three program outcomes PO10, 11 and 12 and their importance to a graduating
engineer. Thank you very much.
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Professor N. J. Rao
Lecture 08
POs 10 12
Greetings and welcome to MI U7 part two of NATE - NBA Accreditation and Teaching and
Learning in Engineering. This unit is related to the program outcomes PO10 to PO12.
In the earlier unit we understood the nature and importance of program outcomes of PO6, 7, 8
and 9, to a graduating engineer.
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In this unit we will try to understand the nature and importance of program outcomes PO 10,
11 and 12 to a graduating engineer.
PO10 is communication: Communicate effectively on complex engineering activities with the

engineering community and with society at large, such as being able to comprehend and write
effective reports and design documentation, make effective presentations, give and receive
clear instructions. It is a tall order, there are several elements to this. Look at the elements.
First of all the engineers should be able to effectively communicate on complex engineering
activities with the engineering community. That means with your peers, if you are a member
of a team, then you should be able to communicate with them. When you are communicating
with your peers, you use all kinds of accepted terminology which will not make any sense to
the outside world.
So, one is you should be able to effectively communicate with peers and the other one with
society at large. The society at large does not necessarily understand your acronyms, your
language, the way use a particular word and so on. Yet you should be able to communicate
with society at large. We will come to the details.
What do this communications involves? You should be able to comprehend and write
effective reports, so you should be able to read a report to understand what is presented to
you, and also you should be able to write effective reports and not only write reports, but
effective design documentation, and you should be able to make effective presentations
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While this seems to be not so serious, but which is very important, namely, you should be
able to give clear instructions to others and also should be capable of receiving clear
instructions. So, as you can see, there are several elements to this particular PO. As we said
an engineer needs to communicate effectively with his own community and is also required
to communicate with lay educated persons including customers of one's organization and
society at large.
Another thing to remembered - all engineers work in groups, so this requires members to
document and present their day-to-day work in a commonly agreed formats. That is one issue
people have to accept, because each one of us might have got used to using certain tools,
certain ways of doing things. But once you work in a group, whatever the group leader,
whatever the organization specifies, you have to document and present your day to day work
in that format only.
As we conduct all our formal professional engineering activities in English, so many colleges
as of today have already included one course, each in English and professional
communication. After all, English is not our native language but somehow as a nation, we
have decided to conduct our professional activities in English. So one requires to acquire
enough proficiency in that. The importance of this does not seem to be exactly understood or
realized or accepted by both the teachers and the students as of now, in my view.
One should organize several writing exercises at least in some courses, with evaluation
rubrics having elements related to the correctness and writing skills. There should be some
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marks associated with writing correctly. If there are no marks for that, obviously nobody will
pay attention to that. Technical writing should be given adequate weightage in evaluating
project reports, even there, I feel that people do not give enough wieghtage to the technical
writing part of a report.
What are the activities that can promote communication? Write technical documents that get
evaluated as per declared rubrics. Make short presentations to peers and lay persons that get
evaluated as per declared rubrics. Give feedback on a presented activity - even giving
feedback can be practiced by the students. Document the feedback given on presented
activity. Encourage and support group members in meeting the goals. These are all some
activities one can add to this list, which can promote the communication ability of the
student.
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Coming to PO11 which is related to project management and finance, it says ‘demonstrate
knowledge and understanding of the engineering and management principles and apply these
to one's own work as a member and leader in a team to manage projects and in
multidisciplinary environments’. This is also fairly large issues or elements involved in this.
First thing that an engineer should realize that all engineering activities are conducted in
project mode, maybe 95 percent of engineering activities are conducted in project mode. So,
first thing that an engineer has to understand is ‘what is a project?’ Essentially projects have
limited financial sources and specified timelines. These are the two most important
characteristics of a project. The number of people participating in the project may differ
anywhere from a single digit numbers to thousands of people working together. That will be
the nature of project and it also can be multidisciplinary in nature.
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How can this be addressed? There are enough number of courses designed on engineering
management or project management. One of those courses can be adopted/can be part of the
curriculum. If it is done as a course, then many of the formal aspects of this PO11 are directly
addressed in that course. It can also be addressed through well orchestrated mini and main
projects.
But the rubrics of evaluation should reflect the student's understanding of the project
management and estimation of cost. Because we have a tendency to neglect all these and if
technically, if the project that is done is successfully demonstrated, it is considered all the
work is done. But the rubric should reflect whatever percentage weightage you want to give
to the issues of project management and cost estimation.
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What are the activities? As we already said, offer a course on engineering management
and/or Project Management. Do well orchestrated mini and major projects. Determine the
time and financial resources required to implement a project. Analyze the performance of an
organization for example, from its balance sheet. That much should be taught to the students
because the finance part of organization is very necessary to understand.
PO12, the last one is related to lifelong learning. The statement is ‘recognize the need for and
have preparation and the ability to engage in independent and lifelong learning in the
broadest context of technological change’. This does not require any special effort to
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convince anyone. We know that technology is changing very fast. Things change almost in a
few years’ time. Whatever that you have understood, whatever you have learnt, may become
either outdated or even the knowledge can become irrelevant in a short period of time.
What we say shelf-life of most of the knowledge is very limited and it differs from of course,
one discipline to the other. To that extent, one needs to keep on learning and keep on learning
constantly otherwise a person can become irrelevant that is what is happening today even in
Indian market. For example, today the dominant one everyone is seems to at least from the
advertisement they need to learn both about artificial intelligence and data management.
So, the ability that we need to give to a student while he is in an engineering program is to
not just stick to what is given in the classroom by the teacher and limit himself to that. He
should be able to learn things by himself and some kind of experience that need to be given to
him to learn by himself.
Activities that promote lifelong learning: helping students to understand their own learning
processes. This comes in what we call later as metacognitive knowledge. The student should
be made aware of how he is learning and the teacher should be able to facilitate that
particular process. That is facilitate him, say not to constrain himself to what is taught in the
classroom or what is given in the notes. Facilitating students to take responsibility for their
own learning. This is also comes under what we call metacognitive knowledge.
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Creating an atmosphere that promotes confidence in students’ ability to succeed because
when something is little unknown, you feel a little afraid of that, one should venture out and
take the risk and succeed. That kind of experiences need to be created. Helping students see
learning by themselves as personally relevant to their interests and goals. That is, if I have the
ability to learn by myself I acquire that required confidence to pursue the goals or interests
that I have.
Activities that promote self learning can be incorporated in several core courses. That is you
can give an assignment in such a way, it is not part of the exactly curriculum, but the student
has to explore things on his own and then either make a report or make a presentation,
whatever it is, and the rubrics need to be developed to measure the attainment of this
outcome. Projects of all kinds generally promote self learning but appropriate rubrics are
necessary for measurement.
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What are the activities for PO12? Determine the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed at the
beginning of a project. That is writing a report and/or developing a product or process.
Develop strategies to acquire the required knowledge and skills. Acquire the required
knowledge and skills outside classroom. Participate in professional development,
professional society and also in co-curricular and extracurricular activities.
All these activities can promote lifelong learning. And this is also considered one of the very
important characteristics of an engineer and you can only pursue your carrier if you have the
habit of learning by yourself.
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As an exercise, we request you to give one sample activity each that addresses PO10, PO11
and PO12 from the courses you taught and learnt. Does not matter how peripheral it looks or
how unimportant it looks, but just give one sample activity. We thank you for sharing the
results of the exercise at this particular email.
In the next unit will understand how to write programs specific outcomes. Thank you very
much for your attention.
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Professor N. J. Rao
Lecture 09
Program Specific Outcomes
Greetings and welcome to module one unit 8 on Programs Specific Outcomes.
In the previous unit, we understood the nature and importance of program professional
outcomes PO10 to PO12 given by NBA.
In this unit we try to understand how to write Programs Specific Outcomes.
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Let us look at what are programs specific outcomes about which we have already mentioned
earlier. PSOs or Programs Specific Outcomes represent what the students should be able to
do at the time of graduation from a specific program. As you can see, the outcomes at the
program level are classified into two, one is program outcomes, which are discipline
nonspecific, and programs specific outcomes which are specific to a given program.
The PSOs are programs specific and you limit it to two to four in number. They need to be
defined following a well documented process. It is not as if one faculty member of a
department sits and writes the program specific outcomes, the department has to follow a
well defined or a documented process.
We will see the role of that, when we talk about the criteria of accreditation in the last unit.
PSOs should only imply the core courses of the program. There should not directly address
any of the electives of the program. How do we write these PSOs? One convenient way is to
look at any program in terms of the streams they have.
For example, ECE broadly has two strings Electronics and Communication. Mechanical
Engineering has about three streams like you have design, manufacture and thermal
engineering. Electrical and Electronic Engineering has Electrical and Electronics as two
streams. Civil Engineering has somewhere either four streams or five streams. So, one way of
writing PSOs is to write one PSO for one stream.
So the numbers will differ - as you can see from two to five, but you have to limit it to a two
to four. In addition, because all programs offered by all institutions are not the same; each
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institution may have its own. PSOs should also address another feature of the program. All
institutions are not the same and the programs offered by them though they may have the
same label as Electrical Communication Engineering or mechanical engineering are not
necessarily identical.
To that extent the PSOs should reflect any specific feature of the program that is offered. Or
when a particular department has some specialist faculty in some areas or they have a very
specific laboratory with state-of-the-art equipment and you want to consider your program is
different from others through these specialties; PSOs can also capture one of those
specialties. Of course, writing PSOs still is an art, we will see some examples presently.
First thing is, the PSO statement should start with one or more action verbs. We will leave the
word action verb right now as it is, but more will be elaborated in the following units. Some
examples of action verbs, action verb means, what does an engineer do? Like as you have
seen already from the program outcomes, some of these action verbs are formulate, specify,
conceive, design, plan, architect build, implement, test, operate, select, analyze, determine,
estimate, calculate like that. You can add some more action verbs if you wish to.
What happens? Initially you will have one or more action verbs; these should be followed by
clearly identified technical objects related only to the program of concern. And if you want to
add some kind of condition can be added to the statement. So that under these conditions, the
proposed actions have to be performed. That is how, the PSOs statements are written.
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One thing is when you are designing a curriculum, you start with vision and mission of the
department. You write your program educational objectives, program outcomes are given by
NBA, then PSOs are written by the department and the curriculum really comes out of these
POs and PSOs. It is derived from that. That means, the sequences you first write PSOs and
then identify the courses that you want to teach.
Of course, at present you already have a program and you are writing PSOs. But if you
remember that curriculum of a program is derived from POs and PSOs; the curricular gaps
should not be there in PSOs, because it is supposed to come from PSOs. PSOs should only
capture the core courses of the program - not the electives. Whether it is open electives or the
Professional electives, it should not be addressing that. Reason is very simple - all students
should attain these PSOs and all students will not take the same set of electives.
It is for this reason the PSOs should only capture the core courses and to that extent no
curricular gap should exist in PSOs. That is when you are look at a course you should be able
to identify which PSO that course is addressing. You should not find a situation where you
will find it difficult that which PSOs your course is addressing. You should also not use
words in writing PSOs like “such as” or ‘like’, “et cetera,” and “various”. So, be cautious not
to use these words when you write your PSOs statements.
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Let us look at what PSOs statement should not be? From our experience with faculty, because
of inadequate understanding of the role of PSOs, people have written different kinds of PSO
statements. For example, PSO statement should not be POs reworded in the context of
discipline of the program.
Let us take a look at an example. Understand modern management and construction

techniques to complete the projects within the stipulated period and funds. So, when you look
at PO11 which is discipline nonspecific, here the construction techniques were added to that.
that means essentially you are rewording PO11 in terms of civil engineering - that is not
accepted.
Similarly, another example, apply the knowledge of mathematics, science, engineering

fundamentals to the solution of problems of computer science and engineering. That is
essentially PO1 restated in the context of computer science and engineering, which is also not
a proper PSO statement.
Another one, PSO statement should not be written to represent electives that we have already
stated. For example, some people have written - design, develop, and test mobile computing
application. That is just one elective. One of the reasons also given they say in that
department all students take this course, but it is officially declared as elective by the
program. So, to that extent, even if all students take, elective should not get mentioned as a
PSO.
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Now, let us look at some sample PSOs: Survey, map and plan layouts for building structures
and alignments for canals and roads. Specify design supervised test and evaluate foundations
and super structures for residences, public buildings, industries, irrigation structures, power
houses, highways, railways, airways, docks and harbors. Analyze water resources,
hydrological systems to estimate safe and assured withdrawals and specify, design, and
evaluate water conveying systems, hydraulic machines and surge systems. Specify, select and
formulate environmental engineering systems.
It is fairly well written for a particular program. Your program may not be addressing all the
other elements in this. For example, in PSO2 part you may not be looking at foundations for
powerhouses or railways, airways and so on, if you are not modifing that. So our suggestion
is for civil engineering, you can start with these four PSOs and work from there, modify it
from here. It makes it easier.
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Another thing we would like to point out PSOs should also capture the features of the
program that differentiates it from others. The reason we have explained, you may have some
special laboratories and faculty with particular specializations or because of the local
industry, you may have reworked your curriculum to suit the requirements of the nearby or
local industries. So, they should be captured.
Let us take a, look at some examples. Sample PSOs of Electrical Communication

Engineering: specify, design, prototype and test modern electronic systems that perform
analog and digital processing functions. As you can see, practically all the electronic courses
can come out of this two. Another one architect, partition and select appropriate technologies
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for implementation of a specified communication system. If you want you can elaborate say
wired and wireless communication systems.
And the third one: design essential elements (circuits and antennas) of modern RF wireless
communication systems. This as you can see, because of the facilities they have, faculty they
have this particular program has used this statement to differentiate itself. That means,
potentially if a student wants to specialize in these areas, he knows that this particular
department has the required facilities to train you in the area of RF and wireless
communication systems. So that is one differentiating PSO.
Now, the same ECE, another program has done this. Specify, design, prototype and test
electronic systems that perform analog and digital signal processing functions as per user
requirements using currently available electronic components. In what way this PSO1 is
different from the previous one? Now, you added some conditions like using currently
available electronic components and also you are now emphasizing as per user requirements.
That means, your design or specification should start by identifying the user requirements for
signal processing. The second one - architect, partition and select the appropriate
technologies for implementation of a specified wired and wireless communication system.
So, we added that extra two words wired and wireless communication system here. As you
can see, we are only talking about architecting, partitioning and selecting appropriate
technologies.
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You are not prototyping full fledged wired or wireless communication system. Normally such
a thing is not viable in an undergraduate program in most of the colleges. Now, this particular
program wants to specialize in power electronics or provide or rather attract students who
want to work in power electronics. So, you added the PSO3 as specify, design and test power
supplies for electronic systems including battery management, and power amplifiers using
currently available electronic components.
As you can see, this will become a differentiating feature of that particular program. Mind
you, these are only sample statements. If you do not like or if you prefer to reword them, you
are most welcome to write your own PSOs appropriate to your program.
As an exercise, we request you if you can write two to four PSOs for a BE program in your
branch. And mind you, when we request you to do this exercise, this assignment is proposed
only to understand the nature of PSO statements. The outputs of these assignments or this
exercise should never be considered as final. Because the PSOs are to be written by the
specifically designated committee as indicated following a well document process. We thank
you for sharing the results of your exercise at this particular mail.
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In Module One, unit nine, we will be trying to understand the nature of Bloom Taxonomy
and Revised Blooms Taxonomy. Thank you very much for your attention. Again see you in
the next unit.
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Professor K Rajanikanth
Retired Principle - MSRIT
Lecture 10
Taxonomy of Learning
Greetings welcome to module 1 unit 9 on Taxonomy of Learning.
In the previous unit, we understood how to write the PSOs of good quality. In this unit, we will
look at taxonomy of learning. the outcomes for this unit two; understand the three main domains
of learning and the integrated nature of all our experiences. Understand the structure of Bloom's
Taxonomy and the rationale for its revision.
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Learning outcomes, as we have seen earlier, are what the learners are expected to do at the end of
a unit of learning. The unit of learning can be an instructional unit, a course or the entire
program. At the end of a unit of learning, what is it that the learners are expected to do or
perform that is what we are calling us learning outcomes. Outcomes, of course, and instructional
units can be more conveniently written, if there is a well-accepted taxonomy of learning.
It is desirable to have a taxonomy that is applicable to learning outcomes, assessment, and

teaching. With any course, these are the 3 main concerns. What are the learning outcomes? How
do we assess the learning of the students? And how do we teach to facilitate the learners acquire
the intended outcomes? Thus, it is desirable if we have a taxonomy that is applicable to learning
outcomes, assessment and teaching. Outcome statement should have a well-defined structure.
This will help make the outcome statements of better quality.
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At course level, a taxonomy of learning would help addressing all 3 concerns; course outcomes,
instruction and assessment, and also in addressing the issue of alignment among these 3
concerns. We will look at the issue of alignment among these 3 concerns in a later unit. There are
several taxonomies reported in the literature, we have the Bloom's taxonomy, SOLO taxonomy,
taxonomies is due to Fink, Gagne, Marazano and Kendall, etc.
All taxonomies attempts to give a structure to the cognitive processes involved in learning. Such
attempts are based on observations of learning behaviors, and quite limited understanding of how
the brain functions. In this sense, no taxonomy may be completely perfect. They are attempts to
give a structure to the underlying cognitive processes. To the extent that we have a limited
understanding of how brain functions, the taxonomies also are likely to have certain limitations.
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The Bloom's Taxonomy and its revision will be the focus for this unit. Benjamin Bloom was
working along with a group of measurement experts in the early 1950s on the development of a
taxonomy of learning. The primary interest of that group was to develop a taxonomy framework
that would facilitate sharing of assessment items across schools. In 1956, the group produced
“taxonomy of educational objectives, the classification of educational goals Handbook 1
cognitive domain”. This became quite popular and was generally called the handbook. Though
the original intention was to facilitate sharing of assessment items.
Bloom recognized the importance of the taxonomy for instruction, as well as for writing clear
learning objectives. After about 45 years of experience with Bloom's taxonomy, a similar process
of discussions took place in around 2000. After such a similar process of discussions, involving
several experts, a major revision was proposed in 2001. It was edited by Anderson, Krathwhol et.
al. and the book, which has now become very popular, is titled as “A Taxonomy of Learning,
Teaching and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives”. Our
focus is this revised Bloom's taxonomy.
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According to the Bloom's taxonomy, any given task tends to be generally dominant in one of the
three psychological domains cognitive, affective, or psychomotor. The cognitive domain deals
with the person's ability to process and utilize information in a meaningful way. Primarily, it is a
cognitive activity. The affective domain relates to attitudes and feelings that result from or
influence the learning process. The psychomotor domain involves manipulative our physical
skills. Bloom conjectured that any given task tends to be dominant in one of these three domains.
This does not mean that it is exclusively belonging to one domain, but it is dominant in one
domain. This classification is for focus and convenience. All the three dimensions are involved
to varying degrees in all intended learning experiences and activities. The realities one integrated
whole. For the purpose of understanding and focus, we look at that as consisting of three
domains, namely, cognitive domain, affective domain psychomotor domain.
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This is an example of dominantly cognitive domain.
This would be dominantly affective domain obviously.
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This is dominantly psychomotor domain.
And this is an example of integrated experiences.
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But it is to be noted that even in dominantly psychomotor domain, the cognitive domain is at
work, the affective domain is also at work.
Similarly, in the dominantly affective domain also cognitive process is happening. Thus, realty is
an integrated whole - all learning experiences are integrated experiences.
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Of course, domains can change. The first 85 minutes you are in one domain and the last 5
minutes in a different domain.
The original taxonomy had six categories in the cognitive domain: knowledge, comprehension,
application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation. It was an one dimensional taxonomy in the sense that
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the categories were across one dimension only and there were six categories along the
dimension.
The categories were ordered from simple to complex, and from concrete to abstract. Knowledge
was considered as simplest of all, more complex was comprehension, and still more complex
was application and so on. The highest complexity was at the level of evaluation. Further, it was
assumed that this order represented a cumulative hierarchy.
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Someone had to have a knowledge before comprehension was possible and the learner had to
comprehend properly in order to be able to apply and application was necessary, if the learner
had to analyze and analyze was necessary in order to synthesize and synthesize was necessary in
order to evaluate.
So, it was assumed that the order represented a cumulative hierarchy. All these categories except
application had several sub-categories. The knowledge category had the maximum number of
sub-categories knowledge of terminology, specific facts, conventions, trends and sequences,
classifications and categories, criteria, methodology, universals and abstractions in a field
principles and generalizations, theories and structures. Indeed, a very large number of
subcategories were proposed under the category of knowledge.
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But, we can see an anomaly in the knowledge category. Knowledge’s extensive subcategories
actually represented aspects of subject matter. Knowledge of terminology: if we look at
terminology specific facts, conventions, these are all actually aspects of subject matter - specific
domain. This represents a kind of a noun or noun-phrase. But, what does the learner do with this
knowledge?
Definition given to knowledge stated that the student was expected to be able to recall or
recognize knowledge. This is a verb aspect or verb-phrase aspect. Thus, the knowledge category
actually had two aspects, the noun or noun phrase, which indicated aspects of the subject matter
and the verb or verb phrase, which indicated what was to be done with the subject matter. This
dual nature of knowledge category made it different from other taxonomic categories.
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If we see the other categories, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, they
do not have this dual nature. Only the knowledge category had this dual nature of having both a
verb aspect and a noun aspect.
So, this anomaly was resolved in the revised Bloom's taxonomy. The noun was the basis for the
knowledge dimension, the verb was the basis for the cognitive process dimension. Thus, the
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anomaly was eliminated in the revised taxonomy by allowing these two aspects, the noun and the
verb to form separate dimensions. The revised Bloom's Taxonomy is two dimensional in nature.
This allows a more natural expression of an outcome statement. A typical outcome statement has
some subject matter content, a noun or noun phrase and a description of what is to be done with
or to that content; a verb or verb phrase. An example, state Maxwell's field equations: this is an
outcome statement. In this outcome statement, the noun phrase “Maxwell's field equations”
represents the subject matter content, knowledge category; “State”, what is to be done with or to
that content represents the verb or verb phrase and that is the cognitive process.
State actually represents the cognitive process of recall. The student is expected to recall from
her long term memory Maxwell's field equations. Thus, the outcome statement has two natural
dimensions, a cognitive process dimension and a knowledge dimension. The revised Bloom's
Taxonomy tried to capture this natural dual aspect of an outcome statement by making the
taxonomy a two dimensional one.
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The original subcategories of knowledge were represented in the knowledge categories in the
revised taxonomy: factual knowledge, conceptual knowledge, and procedural knowledge. The
revised taxonomy added another category, a fourth category called metacognitive knowledge.
The importance of this fourth category was not realized well, at the time of the handbook. It is
now assuming increasing significance, as more evidence from the learning theories confirm its
importance. In a later unit, we look at the metacognitive knowledge, its nature and importance in
greater detail.
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The cognitive process dimension of revised Bloom's Taxonomy also has six categories. But
certain changes were made from the original taxonomy. The verb aspect of what original
knowledge category was named ‘Remember’. Comprehend, was there in the original taxonomy,
and that was changed to ‘Understand’. The original taxonomy had ‘Synthesis’ that term was
changed to ‘Create’.
‘Application, analysis and evaluation’ were retained from the original taxonomy, but, what
changed you to the verb form ‘Apply, analyze and evaluate’. The original taxonomy stated them
as Application, Analysis and Evaluation. The revised taxonomy states them in the verb form,
apply, analyze and evaluate. There was a change made with respect to the highest two categories.
Create was made higher in the hierarchy than Evaluate. In the original taxonomy, Evaluate was
at the highest level Synthesis was at one lower level, but in revised taxonomy ‘Create’ was made
higher in the hierarchy than Evaluate.
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Thus, the cognitive processes of revised taxonomy look as follows. At the lowest level we help
Remember, then Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and finally, Create.
The cognitive process of understand is somewhat tricky. The original group avoided
understanding and used comprehending. They give the reason that the term ‘understanding’ was
being used to represent a wide range of competencies from comprehending, applying, analyzing,
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synthesizing, and even evaluating. Faculty, were using the term understand to mean several
different cognitive processes. There was no consensus on what actually understand would entail
the original team wanted to avoid this fuzziness.
So, they tried to bring in a new word comprehension, which they hope would be more focused
understanding was eliminated and comprehending was brought-in, in the original taxonomy.
Today, some scholars object to understand on the grounds that it does not represent an actionable
process. It does not represent an activity that can be demonstrated. This is the ground on which
some teachers object to the use of the word understand even today. However, the revision
committee decided, after considerable deliberations to use the word understand itself.
Comprehend was replaced again by understand.
The cognitive process understand, was made actionable and more specific, by articulating the
sub-processes implied by understand the revised Bloom's Taxonomy states, seven cognitive sub-
processes, which are implied by understand. This categorization of the sub-processes was made
to make understand very specific. Most of the teachers were quite uncomfortable with the
exclusion of the term understand; a term that is quite popular with them.
The revision committee found that this was a major complaint of most of the teachers against the
original taxonomy. Most of the teachers complained that while they use the word understand
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quite liberally, during the interaction with the students, they are not being allowed to use that
word in the taxonomy. That was a major complaint and the revision committee felt that bringing-
in back the word understand would be more convenient from the perspective of the teachers.
Critical thinking and problem solving are two other terms that are quite frequently used in the
field of education. However, neither of these terms finds a place in the revised Bloom's
Taxonomy also. These two terms are absent in the original taxonomy. They are absent in the
revised Bloom's Taxonomy also. We will discuss these two important cognitive activities in the
next unit.
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When we look at the hierarchy of the cognitive processes, the original Bloom's Taxonomy
assumed that all the six categories were strictly hierarchical. The cognitive processes in the
revised taxonomy are also hierarchical in general. Thus remember is of lower complexity than
understand, which in turn is of lower complexity than apply and so on. Create is the cognitive
process of highest complexity thus, the six cognitive processes are hierarchical in general.
However, because of the wider scope of understand, occasionally, in specific cases, the hierarchy
may not hold. For example, in a specific case, the explaining maybe more complex cognitively,
than executing; executing might involve a very routine application of the cognitive process and
that might be actually less complex than explaining. But in general, the hierarchy holds. In a very
general sense, the hierarchy of the revised Bloom's Taxonomy holds.
Remember, is at a lower level of complexity, Understand, is at the next higher level of

complexity, Apply, at the next highest level, then Analyze, then Evaluate, then Create is at the
highest complexity level. So, very broadly, the hierarchy implied by the revised Bloom's
Taxonomy does hold. Teacher must use her discretion arriving at proper conclusions regarding
the complexity levels of the activities involved.
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For every cognitive process, certain action verbs are indicated. Action verbs used in the outcome
statement depend on the specific cognitive process of the outcome. However, the cognitive
process cannot be determined blindly from the action verb. For example, ‘compare’ is an action
verb that corresponds to the cognitive process of Understand, as well as the cognitive process of
Analyze - two different cognitive processes.
In the next unit, we look at the action verbs that correspond to different cognitive processes we
will see that compare occurs at the level of understand as well as at the level of analyze, but the
compare used at the level of understand is different from the compare used at the level of
analyze. Thus, we should not look at an action verb and mechanically determine what is the
cognitive process implied by that action verb. In-depth study of the taxonomy is essential for its
proper use.
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The revised Bloom's Taxonomy has several advantages over the original taxonomy as already
noted. It allows the outcome statement to appear more natural. There are two dimensions in the
revised Bloom's Taxonomy which capture the essence of an outcome statement in a very natural
fashion. One dimension represents the cognitive process, and another dimension represents the
knowledge category.
However, some teachers still prefer the original taxonomy to its revised version. We use the
revised taxonomy and strongly recommend it over the earlier taxonomy. But it is possible that
some teachers prefer the original taxonomy and it is also possible that some experts from the
visiting peer committee may prefer the original taxonomy. However, the revised Bloom's
Taxonomy has several distinct advantages over the original taxonomy and we recommend the
use of the revised taxonomy.
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In the next unit, we will understand the cognitive processes Remember, Understand and Apply of
the revised Bloom's taxonomy. Thank you and we will meet in the next unit. Thank you.
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Retired Principal, MSRIT
Lecture 11
Cognitive Processes
Greetings, welcome to module 1, unit 10 on Cognitive Processes. In the earlier unit, we

understood the need for taxonomy of learning the structure of Blooms Taxonomy and the
elements of Revised Blooms Taxonomy.
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In this unit we will look at the cognitive process dimension. The outcome for this unit would
be: understand the cognitive processes of Remember, Understand and Apply of revised
blooms taxonomy.
Recall that, the cognitive processes of revised Blooms taxonomy are 6 number hierarchically
organized, Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyse, Evaluate and Create.
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Remember, is the cognitive process of lowest complexity in the hierarchy. Remembering is

retrieving relevant knowledge from the long-term memory. The relevant knowledge may be
factual, conceptual, procedural, or some combination of these.
Remembering knowledge is essential for meaningful learning and problem solving. Thus
even though remembering is a cognitive process of low complexity, it is an essential
competency that learners must acquire and demonstrate. This process has two sub-processes
recognizing, recalling.
Recognizing essentially means that the solutions are presented and the learner is able to
recognize the correct response from the presented solutions. Recalling is recalling from long-
term memory based on certain key word that is provided to the learner. The associated action
verbs are recognize or recall, list, tell, locate, write, find, mention, state, draw, label, define,
name; we can continue with several such action verbs.
Primarily, this cognitive process means that the learner is recalling from the long-term
memory, what has been conveyed by the instructor earlier.
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Sample activities and questions can be like this. ‘State the condition for maximum efficiency
of a transformer’. The student can memorize and then recall from her long-term memory, the
condition for maximum efficiency of a transformer. ‘State the assumptions of working stress
method and limit state method in connection with the design of concrete structures’. ‘Draw
the stress-strain curves for concrete in compression under ideal test conditions and laboratory
test conditions’.
We can have a stem like ‘name the’, we can continue it the way we want. Name the parts of
this particular machine? Name the major units of a computer? So, we can have several
variations with the common stem of ‘name the’. Similarly another common stem can be ‘how
many’. How many general purpose registers are there in 886 microprocessors? How many
primitive data types are there in C language?
We can have any number of variations like this. They all come under the Remember
cognitive process.
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The next higher level cognitive process is Understand. As mentioned in the last unit
Understand is tricky, many teachers object to the use of Understand in the outcome statement,
they think that Understand does not represent an observable behaviour of the learner.
However revised Blooms taxonomy does permit, the use of Understand. Understand is made
very specific in the revised Blooms taxonomy.
There are several sub-processes under the category of Understand. These sub-processes
delimit the meaning of Understand. They make this cognitive process in observable
behaviour from the student. Thus, it is accepted in the revised Blooms taxonomy to use the
word Understand. Understanding is constructing meaning from instructional messages.
Instructional messages can be verbal, pictorial, graphic or symbolic.
Instructional messages are received during lectures, demonstrations, field trips, performances,
or simulations, in books or on computer monitors. During any learning experience, the
learner can be receiving the instructional messages and Understanding is constructing
meaning from such instructional messages.
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In the reverse Blooms taxonomy, there are 7 sub-processes in the category of Understand,
they are, Interpret, Exemplify, Classify, Summarize, Infer, Compare and Explain.
Interpreting: changing from one expression to another, is also known as translating. Typical
learning experience would be that the student is given certain information in one form;
student has to translate that into a different form. Definitely this would imply Understand.
A typical example can be that the problem is presented in an English language and student
has to formulate this as a linear programming problem. This is one example of interpreting.
The next sub-category is Exemplifying; giving a specific example or instance of a general
concept or principle. ‘Providing a specific example of a viscous fluid that we encounter in
daily life’. The categories given and the learner has to provide a specific instance belonging
to that category.
The complimentary process is classifying; recognizing that a specific instance belongs to a

certain category. Here, the instructor provides a specific instance and the learner has to
identify the category to which that specific instance belongs; Summarizing, abstracting,
generalizing.
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Inferring: abstracting a concept or principle from a set of examples. A related process is to

use this inferred principle to create a new instance. An example of executing a cognitive
process associated with apply, the next higher level category. Inferring and executing are
often used together on cognitive tasks. Here, we have a series of specific instances and
learner has to infer the principle according to which these instances are being created.
So the cognitive sub-process involved is inferring. An example could be that the learner is
presented with a series of numbers and she has to infer what is the rule based on which this
series is being produced. If she can infer this rule, she can create the next numbers in the
sequence. The next sub-process is comparing; detecting similarities and differences between
two or more ideas, concepts, events, etc. This can contribute to reasoning by analogy also.
Then the next sub-process is explaining; people use the word explained in a very generic
sense, but explaining in the revised Blooms taxonomy has a very specific meaning. A student
is able to construct and use a cause-and-effect model of a system to explain a phenomenon or
to determine how a change in one part of the system affects the other parts.
The key word here is cause-effect model; the student must be able to construct a cause-and-
effect model of a system. The model may be derived from a formal theory or it may be an
empirical model. A variety of assessment strategies are possible with respect to this sub-
process. Assessment could include, reasoning, troubleshooting, redesigning and predicting.
The assessment could include, for example, description of a system, which is not functioning
the way it is expected to function. The specific behaviour is described by the instructor. The
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learner has to figure out the reason why the system is behaving in that particular fashion; an
example of troubleshooting. Or the systems behaviour is described, and an intended change
in the behaviour is also specified and learner has to re-design the system.
So, that also would come under explaining, notice that this if it is extended further, can move
into the Apply category also. So, there are several possibilities of assessing the students
understanding in this particular sub-category.
The action verbs associated with the understand process, for interpreting: translate,
paraphrase, represent, clarify; for exemplifying: illustrate, instantiate; for classifying:
categorize, subsume; for summarizing: generalize, abstract; for inferring: find a pattern,
extrapolate, predict; for comparing: contrast, compare, match, distinguish, differentiate there
can be several such action verbs; and for explaining: construct a model, explain itself can be
used as the action verbs.
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Some sample activities and possible question formats: Explain why in a DC machine flux per
pole decreases with increase in load? The student must construct cause-and-effect model and
explain this stated phenomenon. Compare memory mapped I/O and peripheral mapped I/O
techniques. Explain the use of virtual base class? What would happen to the performance of
searching using binary search tree as the number of insertions and deletions keeps increasing?
‘Write a brief outline..’, we can continue this question in several different ways. ‘Distinguish
between..’ we can use certain number of categories. ‘Provide an example of..’ specify a
category and the learner has to provide an example of it. Provide an example of emerging
properties. These are all the possible formats.
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The next higher cognitive process is Apply. Use procedures to perform exercises or solve
problems. This is closely linked with procedural knowledge. There are two sub-processes
associated with Apply; executing, implementing. Executing: solving a task for which the
right procedure is already known, this produces clear solution.
Routinely carry out the procedure, clearly indicated in the problem itself or the context, and
the context is familiar in the sense that the assessment context is quite similar to the
instructional context. The teacher has explained a particular procedure; the teacher has
explained how to solve a specific problem using that particular procedure and the learner
executes that procedure to solve a very similar problem.
The next sub-process is implementing. This implies solving a problem that has features which
have not been encountered in that form earlier. That means, the context in which the learner
is operating is somewhat different from the instructional context. Student has to select a
procedure may how to even modify it to solve the task.
It may be necessary to use other cognitive processes like Understand. Learner may help to
understand the context, the problem; the conditions implied in order either select a procedure
or modify a procedure if the learner has to solve the problem. Thus, the learner is operating
beyond the context which was present during the instruction.
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Thus we can see that Apply category is a spectrum. At one end, we have the narrow, highly
structured ‘Execute’, as we move to the other end, we may have to select a procedure to
tackle a new solution, a new situation. As we keep moving along the spectrum to the other
end of implement, we may have to modify a procedure; then we may have to devise a new
procedure based on our conceptual knowledge.
Thus we are moving gradually towards the cognitive process of ‘Create’ itself. Thus, Apply is
a spectrum. At one end, there can be a very routine execution of a known procedure, in a
known context to solve a problem that is quite familiar. At the other end of the spectrum, it
may involve considerable talent on the part of the student to use her conceptual knowledge to
come out with a modified procedure or a new procedure to solve a problem, which she is
encountering probably for the first time in that specific form.
Thus the capabilities, the competencies implied by Apply can be fairly wide - from a narrow
highly structured execute to fairly complex process of implement, which is at the other end of
Apply. The action verb associated with the Apply cognitive process will be determined,
calculate, compute, estimate, solve, draw, modify etc. Notice that the action verb remains the
same whether we are operating at the low end of the Apply or high end of the Apply.
Whether the problem is something which the learner is completely familiar or the problem is
something which the learner is not all that familiar with, we might use the same action verb
of determine. The instructor has to decide what should be the scope of Apply activity.
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Sample activities and questions: calculate time taken by a 200 ton motor coach to attain speed
of 50 kilometres per hour, when it starts up gradient of 30 in 1000. The motor coach has 4
motors with each motor developing 6000 newton meter torque during acceleration when it
starts from rest and has a gear ratio of 4. The gear transmission efficiency is 90 percent,
wheel radius is 45 centimetres, train resistance 50 newton per ton and rotation inertia 10
percent.
This might be the low end of Apply or high end of a Apply depending upon what the
instructional context was. Whether the learner is completely familiar with problems of this
type or whether the learner is encountering a problem of this specific nature for the first time
- these aspects will determine at which end of the apply spectrum the learner is operating.
Another example can be the primary and secondary windings of a 40 kVA, 6600 volts by 250
volt single phase transformer has resistance of 10 watts and 0.02 watts respectively. The total
leakage reactance is 35 watts as referred to the primary winding. Find full-load voltage
regulation at a lagging power factor of 0.8. The general stem can be ‘determine’, so we can
continue this in several different ways. ‘Compute’, again we can continue this in several
different ways.
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Exercise, give two examples of activities from the courses you taught or learnt that belong to
the cognitive levels of Remember, Understand and Apply. We thank you for sharing the
results of the exercise at nate.iiscta@gmail.com
In the next unit will look at the remaining cognitive processes of revised Blooms taxonomy.
We will understand the cognitive process of Analyse, Evaluate and Create. Thank you, we
will meet in the next unit, thank you.
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NBA Accreditation and
Teaching – Learning in Engineering
(NATE)
Lecture 12
Cognitive Processes 2
Greetings, welcome to module 1, unit 11 on Cognitive Processes. This is continuation of the

previous unit. In the previous unit, we understood the cognitive processes, Remember,
Understand and Apply of Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy.
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In this unit, we look at the remaining 3 cognitive processes of Revised Bloom's Taxonomy
that is Analyse, Evaluate and Create. The outcome of this unit is: Understand the cognitive
processes Analyse, Evaluate and Create of Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Let us look at the cognitive process Analyse. This involves breaking given material into its
constituent parts and determining how the parts are related to one another and to an overall
structure. It is quite useful to consider this cognitive process as an extension of the
“Understand” process and as a prelude to “Evaluate” or “Create” processes of the Revised
Bloom’s Taxonomy.
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Analyse primarily looks at a system and then the sub-parts of the system and how they are
related to each other in the context of the total system. The sub-processes of Analyse are
Differentiating, Organizing, Attributing.
Differentiating: essentially it means distinguishing relevant parts or important parts from

unimportant parts of the presented material. How does one determine if a given part is
relevant or irrelevant? The Analysis Phase indicates that the relevance of the part is
determined by referring to the total system, the context in which the part is participating.
Thus, this is different from comparing which occurs at Understand level in the sense that the
larger context is used to determine relevance or importance.
The relevance or importance of a part of a component or a sub-system is determined by

referring to the context in which this part or component or subsystem is occurring. Thus, the
relevance does not stand by itself, but it is in relation to the system, the context in which the
sub-system or the part is participating. This is the primary difference of Analyse activity from
the Understand cognitive activity.
Organizing: building systematic and coherent connections among pieces of presented

information. The sub-systems or the parts or the sub-processes of the given material are
organized and the systematic and coherent connections among these parts is based on the
system in which they are participating.
Attributing: determining a point of view, bias, values of the underlying presented material. In
engineering courses, ‘attributing’ is very unlikely to occur, because most of the engineering
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courses have an objective view of the material presented. The individual bias does not come
into the picture in any significant fashion. But in humanities, social sciences, and other areas
‘attributing’ also may play an important role.
The associated action verbs are for “differentiating” discriminate, select, focus, distinguish.
Once again, we should notice that the action verb distinguish also occurs with the cognitive
level of Understand. But, when the cognitive level is Understand, distinguish or compare is
between 2 entities without reference to any overarching framework.
When distinguish is used in the context of Analyse cognitive activity, there is an overall
framework, a system, which determines the relevance or importance of some specific
property or a component. Thus, distinguish can occur at Anderstand level as well as it
Analyse level. The sub-process ‘organizing’ the action verbs are structures, integrate, find
coherence, outline, parse and so on. For ‘attributing’ the action verb typically is used de-
construct.
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Sample activities and possible questions are examining assumptions; distinguishing relevant
from irrelevant facts; recognizing contradictions; questioning deeply; this is more or similar
to examining assumptions deeply. An example question can be ‘analyze the assumptions
made in the software reliability growth model of …, (you can put any name that you want
there Goyal or some other model).
Every model makes certain assumptions and analyzing the assumptions would mean
examining the assumptions deeply in the context of the system for which the model is being
applied.
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If you look at the cognitive activity of “Analyse” in engineering, we notice that ‘analyse’ in
engineering is a bit tricky, in spite of its extensive usage. The main reason is that the word
‘analyse’ as used mostly in engineering courses is ‘apply’. Thus, it is really not ‘analyse’
activity. For example, when we say ‘analyse’ the time complexity of the following recursive
algorithm, what the student is expected to do is determine the time complexity of the given
recursive algorithm using one of the three standard methods.
What the student is actually doing is determining the time complexity according to certain
procedures. Thus, this is an activity at the level of ‘apply’. However, we are quite accustomed
to using the word ‘analyse’ in such context. In most of the engineering courses, we use the
word ‘analyse’ where the actual intent is ‘apply’. However, it is very difficult to get away
from that kind of a usage, but, if one is following the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, then
‘analyse’ has very specific meaning and one should adhere to that meaning if one wishes to
label that activity at the cognitive level of ‘analyse’.
Most of the ‘analyse’ activities are actually at the ‘apply’ level. It is not easy to design
questions in this category that can be answered in limited time written examinations.
‘Analyse’ activities can be included in assignments related to case studies, projects, term
papers and field studies.
We have to provide an overall system context and we need the student to answer the
questions within the context of the overarching system, then it becomes ‘analyse’ activity.
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The next higher-level cognitive activity is ‘Evaluate’. Make judgments based on criteria and
standards. Criteria can be related to quality, effectiveness, efficiency and/or consistency. The
standards may be either quantitative or qualitative. Quite often, people do make judgments in
several different context but the ‘Evaluate’ cognitive process requires that the judgments be
based on criteria and standards.
The sub-processes for the ‘evaluate’ are ‘Checking’ and ‘Critiquing’, checking is judgment
about consistency essentially that would be the internal consistency of the given material;
Critiquing is judgments based on criteria and standards which are generally external.
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The action verbs associated with ‘Evaluate’ are checking: test, detect, monitor, co-ordinate.
For critiquing: judge, then it can be followed by any of the parameters that are stated here, so
it can be judge accuracy, judge adequacy, appropriateness, clarity, cohesiveness,
completeness, correctness, reasonableness, reliability, validity, we can continue with the list.
The activities related to the ‘Evaluate’ Cognitive processes are again possible but relatively
difficult in a fixed-time session. Thus, usually assignments are the vehicles used for
‘evaluate’ activities. Some of the possible questions can be check if the given requirements
are consistent. That is essentially looking for internal consistency. We could provide the
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student with a software requirements specification document and the student can be asked to
check if the requirements are consistent internally.
Is implementation A more efficient than implementation B in terms of …, here we can add

any parameter that is of interest to you. So we could say, for example, is implementation A
more efficient than implementation B in terms of the total code, source code in print, in terms
of the total code size or we could say is implementation A more efficient than
implementation B in terms of the execution time. These are examples of Evaluate activities.
The highest level cognitive process which is ‘Create;’ It involves putting elements together to
form a coherent or functional whole. When we say, a functional whole, it means that it is a
complete system, it is a complete product or it is a complete process. It includes outcomes
that call for unique production as well as outcomes indicating productions that the students
can and will do.
Create normally implies certain uniqueness. However, at undergraduate level, the students
may not carry out an activity that leads to truly unique product. But, if they can put together
the elements to synthesize a functional whole, then that also would be considered as a Create
activity. Thus, create would include outcomes indicating productions that the students can do.
Typically, what the students do in final year projects would be at the level of Create
Cognitive process.
The sub-processes are generating, planning and producing. Generating is the divergent phase
where the students try to come out with multiple solutions to the given problem, multiple
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representations of the problem, alternative solutions to the problem, alternative perspectives
to the problem. So, primarily, it is a divergent phase.
The next sub-process ‘planning’ is the start of the convergent phase. Often implicitly carried
out. Here among the alternatives generated in the earlier sub-process, one of the alternatives
is picked up as the preferred solution strategy. It is devising a plan for solving the problem. It
is selections from the alternatives created during the generating phase. It is the start of the
convergent phase.
The last sub-processes is producing, where the students carry out the plan for solving the
given problem. It is also known as constructing. The solution which has been selected during
the planning phase is actually implemented during the producing phase. It is also called as
constructing.
The associated action verbs are for Generating: Develop an alternative hypothesis, theories,
explanations. For Planning: Plan, Design. For producing quite often the verb used is
Construct.
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If you look at the Activities and Assessment related to the cognitive process of Create, we
notice certain anomalies - one should be careful of. Design typically would indicate, a
‘create’ cognitive activity. But “Design” exercises that we typically used in Engineering
courses are applications of well-defined procedures and thus are at “Apply” level rather than
at the “Create” level. When we say design a MOD file counter, actually it is an application of
a specific procedure for designing MOD n counters. In that sense, it is not a ‘create’ activity,
but the word is fairly popular in that context.
So, we may continue to use the word design in that context, but when we label that with the
cognitive process, we should notice that it is not a ‘create’ activity, but it is an activity at the
cognitive process level of ‘apply’. Thus, most of the typical design questions that we
encounter are at the ‘Apply’ level rather than the ‘Create’ level. It is very difficult to have
activities that may be completed in fixed time sessions, which are at the ‘create’ level.
Because, it requires a substantial amount of time and effort on the part of the students to
synthesize a total functional system. Typically assignments, mini-projects, and major projects
permit ‘create’ activities. Some of the assessment questions could include: what are the
possible consequences when …, now you can give any particular kind of a design choice and
ask if that choice is implemented, what are the possible consequences?
How would you determine the factors that influence the…? Again you could put any
parameter of the system. How would you determine the factors that influence the efficiency
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of the transformer? We could put any parameter there. Design a system to meet the .., now
you write the requirements of the system.
These are some of the possible assessment questions that we can have and depending upon
the scope of the activity, it can be a mini-assignment or a mini-project or a major assignment
or a major project. It is necessary that the context is not a replication of any earlier
instructional context.
Whatever we have discussed in the classroom, whatever activity we have carried out in the
classroom, if the same activity is carried out by the student in the assignment, then it is
unlikely that the student will get any experience of ‘Create’ level activity. Thus, the student
must be made to work in a context that is different from the instructional context.
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In the last unit, we saw that there are two more words which are very popular in the literature,
Critical thinking and problem-solving. We also saw that neither of these occurs in the
Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy. Let us look at Critical thinking. Critical thinking refers to the
deep, intentional and structured thinking process that is aimed at analyzing and
conceptualizing information, experiences, observation, and existing knowledge for the
purpose of developing original and creative solutions for the challenges encountered.
Thus, critical thinking would involve analyzing, evaluating, and thinking with a view to
improving it, it would also involve understanding. Thus, critical thinking is a combination of
cognitive processes of Understand possibly, definitely Analyzing, Evaluating and thus the
Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy does not give a separate distinct place to critical thinking, but it
can be accommodated in the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy.
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Problem-solving would involve several cognitive processes again. We may need conceptual
knowledge to Analyse the issue to look at the problem from different perspectives. One can
Evaluate different approaches and then finally Create a valid solution. The order in which
specific cognitive processes and knowledge subtypes get used while solving the problem
would depend to a great extent on the particular type of problem being solved, and/or the
subject matter within which the problem was posed.
Thus, it is highly problem-specific. The specific cognitive processes involved. The order in
which they are used would depend on the problem being solved. Problem-solving does
involves Understand, Apply, Analyse, Evaluate and Create processes. Again in the Revised
Bloom’s Taxonomy, there is no specific mention of the problem-solving activity, because it
spans across multiple cognitive processes.
Revised Bloom's Taxonomy can accommodate critical thinking as well as problem-solving

cognitive activities, though they do not occur as distinct, separate cognitive processes.
Revised Bloom's Taxonomy can accommodate these cognitive activities also.
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Generally, Create, Evaluate, Analyse and the implement of Apply are considered as higher
orders of learning or they represented deep learning or meaningful learning. Thus, to the
extent possible, instructors must try to ensure that students carry out learning activities which
are at these higher cognitive levels.
If you look at the typical courses in a typical undergraduate Engineering Program, we see a
slightly different picture. Most of the courses offered in Engineering Programs are designed
and offered in very well defined frameworks, fixed time, fixed schedule of assessment and
fixed curriculum. Solution of open-ended problems is attempted in engineering programs,
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mostly through projects and sometimes through assignments, where time for solving is not a
major limitation.
Assessment items in class tests and semester-end examinations dominantly belong to

Remember, Understand and Apply cognitive levels. We already saw that it is very difficult to
generate assessment items at higher cognitive levels when the time available for solving them
is limited. Thus, the fixed duration assessment items generally will be at the level of only
Remember, Understand and Apply cognitive levels.
When the assessment context is identical to instructional context, intended higher-level

cognitive processes may get reduced to the Remember level. For example, explain is at the
Understand level. However, if the answer expected from the student to a typical explain type
of question is available in a learning resource and that has been discussed in the classroom,
then, it is quite possible that the student memorizes that expected answer and simply
reproduces that during the examination.
Thus, the performance of the student essentially represents a cognitive level of Remember
only not Understand. Similarly, even an Apply level activity, if it is a repetition of what has
been done in the classroom may sometimes become only a Remember level activity. Thus, if
the instructional context and assessment context are identical, then even a higher-level
cognitive activity may get reduced to Remember level.
Student might produce the required performance purely working at the cognitive level of
Remember, rather than at any higher cognitive level. This we will discuss again when we
look at the issue of assessment.
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Exercises, give two examples of activities from the course you taught or learnt that belong to
the cognitive levels of Analyse, Evaluate and Create. When you give these examples,
particularly for Analyse, please ensure that it is not at Apply level but truly at the Analyse
level of the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy.
Give an example of Critical Thinking in any of the courses you are familiar with, with a
maximum of 500 words. Give an example of problem-solving in any of the courses you are
familiar with, again with a maximum of 500 words. Thank you, for sharing the results of the
exercise at nate.iiscta@gmail.com.
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In the next unit, we will understand the knowledge categories of Revised Bloom's Taxonomy.
Thank you and we will meet again in the next unit. Thank you.
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Professor N. J. Rao
Department of Electronics Systems and Engineering
Lecture 13
Categories of Knowledge-1
Greetings and welcome to module 1, unit of 12 of NATE that is NBA Accreditation Teaching
and Learning in Engineering. This unit is related to Knowledge Categories.
In the previous unit, we explored the nature and activities of cognitive levels, including
Analyze, Evaluate and Create. The word “Analyze”, you should remember it requires special
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attention is to be used as defined in Revised Bloom Taxonomy. Most of the Engineering
courses deal with the cognitive processes Remember, Understand and Apply. This conclusion
is made in view of the nature of assessments actually used.
In this unit, we will look at the other dimension of Revised Bloom Taxonomy, namely the
Knowledge Categories. We understand the nature of 4 general categories of knowledge
including Factual, Conceptual, Procedural, and Metacognitive.
The word ‘knowledge’ is an interesting one. All of us are quite comfortable in using the word
‘knowledge’ and we do not have any ambiguity about it until someone asks us to formally
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define what ‘knowledge’ means. The moment you start defining the ‘knowledge’, you
practically get into the realm of philosophy.
For example, the problem of characterizing knowledge is what you call is an enduring
question of philosophy and psychology; at least a philosophy for the past few thousand years
and the conclusion is not anywhere near future. We have to be satisfied with what we call the
operational definition of the word knowledge.
One of the assumptions that we make ‘knowledge’ for our purpose - teaching and learning
purpose is organized and structured by the learner in line with a cognitivist-constructivist
tradition. We looked at what are the cognitive processes and we say what do you mean by the
constructivist approach? That is we are constructing the knowledge or we are creating our
own mental model of the external world.
Also, another assumption we make ‘knowledge’ is domain-specific and contextualized. Of

course, the moment you say if these are violated what happens that becomes a philosophical
question, which we are not going to address right now. Under these assumptions, we now
look at the categories of knowledge.
There are 4 General Categories. General Categories means they will be applicable to any
discipline, any subject, whether you have engineering or sciences, humanities, social sciences
and so on. The general categories include Factual, Conceptual, Procedural, and
Metacognitive, we will explain them in detail presently. We also take a position especially
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when you are talking about engineering programs, that there are categories of knowledge
specific to engineering.
And these now, we consider as Fundamental Design Principles, Criteria and Specifications,
Practical Constraints and Design Instrumentalities. We will explore these 4 categories in the
next unit. Let us first concentrate on general categories of knowledge.
Factual Knowledge is fairly easy to understand, that is basic elements students must know if
they are to be acquainted with the discipline or solve any of the problems in it. This
knowledge exists at a relatively low level of abstraction. For example, you can use a word let
say ‘force’, I should know force represents something; that is all I need to be familiar with the
word force and I should be able to say force that word belongs to the discipline of let us say
mechanics or some Mechanical Engineering and so on.
What are the subtypes of Factual Knowledge? Knowledge of terminology - examples like
words, numerals, science and pictures; and Knowledge of specific details, (including
descriptive and prescriptive data) and elements. There are some numbers associated, we
should be familiar with them.
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Let us look at some samples. Terminology; (I am giving mainly from Electrical Engineering,
but I am sure you can find out such terminology from every discipline.) Signal-to-noise ratio,
low pass filter, VCVS, CCCS power factor etc, these are some terms that are used in the
Electrical Engineering discipline.
What are the specific details? The Power supply frequency in India is 50 hertz.
Semiconductor devices fail above 120 degrees. Ball grid array packaging can provide for
more than 200 input-output pins. TI and analog devices are two semiconductor manufacturers
making a wide variety of analog ICs. These are just facts and figures.
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Conceptual knowledge: All of us consider concepts are very important and we generally find
that when we ask anybody to define what a concept is, they do have some issues and they
require some clarity. I think every teacher should be very clear about what a concept is. The
formal definition of a concept: ‘a concept denotes all the entities, phenomena and/or relations
in a given category or class by using definitions’, it looks complex. ‘Concepts are abstract in
that they omit the differences of things in their extension’.
Let us look at these two sentences and try to understand what the concept is. Let us take the
word tree, the tree is a concept because there is nothing like an object, you have an example
of a tree, but there is nothing like a tree physical object exists. When I use the concept tree, I
am willing to ignore the differences between a mango tree and a coconut tree, both are trees.
Even if I take a mango tree as a concept, there are many varieties of mango trees in the world.
When I am referring to the word mango tree, as long I use that concept mango tree, I am
willing to ignore the differences between different types mango trees, that is a concept.
If you come to engineering concepts, you can talk force is a concept, velocity is a concept
and so on. That means, when somebody presents an example to you, you should be able to
say whether it belongs to this category or not. If you are able to precisely understand the
given statement or given word belongs to that category or not then you have understood the
concept better. Concepts are also basic elements of propositions. Much the same way, a word
is the basic semantic element of a sentence. Now, what does it mean?
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Conceptual Knowledge does not stop with simply a list of concepts. Conceptual knowledge
also includes, knowledge of categories and classifications as we have already stated and the
relationship between and among them. And even above like schemas, mental models or
implicit or explicit theories they all belong to the category of conceptual knowledge.
What do Schemas, models, and theories represent? For example, how a particular subject
matter is organized and structured. For example, the way Civil Engineering subjects are
organized or within that, subject matter of fluid systems is organized, maybe very different
the way geotechnical systems are organized.
The kind of models, the kind of constraints under which a subject matter is structured or
organized is also conceptual knowledge, and how the different parts or bits of information are
interconnected and interrelated in a more systematic manner. Because every subject has some
different bits of information, but how do you connect them, that belongs to this category of
schemas, models and, theories. How these parts function together, these all include or
included in the conceptual knowledge.
Take something like this, samples of Conceptual Knowledge: Force, acceleration, velocity,
mass, voltage, current, temperature, entropy, stress, and strain, then I can go a little further
and say signal to noise ratio which you have given as example, under factual knowledge is
also a concept. You have the whole bunch of these words, I think every one of you can make
a list of these words representing concepts in your specific discipline.
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When you come to keep Kirchhoff’s laws, it is now trying the relationship under some
constraints between voltages and currents. Now you are relating two concepts or two or more
concepts into a single statement. If you talk about Newton's law, one law of motion, F equal
to ‘M*A’, F is force and M is mass, then A is acceleration, three different concepts. And a
law now, Newton's law says force equal to acceleration into a mass - that becomes either law
or principle. Similarly, laws of thermodynamics, these are all samples of Conceptual
Knowledge.
Coming to Procedural Knowledge. It is the “knowledge of how” to do something. It often

takes the form of a series or sequence of steps to be followed. It includes knowledge of skills,
algorithms, techniques, and methods collectively known as procedures. For example, you
want a student in a workshop to turn a particular metal object into a certain dimension. For
example, it requires a certain series of steps and also certain skills as well. That is Procedural
Knowledge.
Let me go back a little bit. There is a sequence of steps represents a procedure, I can ask the
student to go through the series of steps, the sequence of steps are very clear the student goes
through those steps. Every step demands a certain either calculations or doing something in
that step. It is like an algorithm. But you also require the knowledge, what procedure do I
apply in a given context. That is also Procedural Knowledge.
This Procedural Knowledge again is specific or germane to the particular subject matter or
academic disciplines. You follow a certain procedure to arrive at or to determine something,
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but then that procedure may not be applicable in some other discipline. Most of this
Procedural Knowledge is also subject-specific.
Samples of Procedural Knowledge: If you look at, solving a first-order differential equation;
solving a matrix differential equation; preparing a truth-table from a logic expression;
drawing a Bode plot or designing a filter as per specifications. All of them involve certain
procedures. Also the knowledge - what procedure to be applied in what context that is also
Procedural Knowledge.
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Now, comes the, a little more difficult one, may be a decade ago, not much attention was paid
to this category of knowledge namely Metacognition. The word ‘meta’ of cognition itself
says it is somewhat different from cognition. Metacognition is cognition about your own
cognition, or thinking about one’s own thinking - that is what Metacognition and this ability
is also very important to individuals - the ability to assess our own skills, knowledge or
learning.
The formal definition has given by Stephen Chew, ‘a person’s awareness of his/her own level
of knowledge and thought processes’. Why is it important? Because Metacognitive ability
affects how well and how long a student studies. That is, some student says, yes, I am not that
capable, I need more time to understand something, (solve problems). If student understands
is a Metacognitive ability like that, he will spend more time to study. But if you are not aware
of it, then you will spend less amount of time on that.
Especially these factors have started becoming important in the last 2 decades because earlier
Engineering degree was pursued by a much smaller number of people. That means, you had
selection and you effectively selected people with good abilities. But now, you want more
Engineers, there are more Colleges, so you have people with a lot less Metacognitive ability
entering into the Engineering stream.
That is the reason why the Metacognition starts becoming important depending on where you
are studying, at what level you are studying. The teachers should now pay attention to the
role of this Metacognitive ability. Metacognitive ability affects how well and how long a
student studies; How much and how deeply students learn and knowledge about cognition in
general as well as awareness of knowledge about one's own cognition.
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As we said already, why should we be concerned about Metacognition? It is known that high
performing students generally have better metacognitive skills. That means we do not have to
really worry. They already have the metacognitive skills. They may not use the word label
metacognitive, but they have the necessary skills, they do not have to worry. But weaker
students typically have poor metacognition besides other things. You can say poor
metacognition is a big part of incompetence.
It does not mean they cannot study Engineering. First of all, if you have a large percentage of
your students with poor metacognitive abilities, then what is it that you should do? First they
should be made aware of their own metacognition and you must go through the exercises or
series of processes through which their metacognitive knowledge first improves.
Once that is done, then they also require more time to master anything - that kind of time
should be provided. One should not have same curriculum or same processes that are
followed in colleges where the students already through various selection processes, you are
selecting people with good metacognitive skills.
The processes applicable to them will not be adequate for the students with poor
metacognition. Students with poor metacognition skills will often shorten their study time
prematurely thinking that they have mastered course material that they barely know or
grossly overconfident in their level of understanding or underestimate or overestimate their
performance in tests, make poor study decisions.
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Some of the categories of Metacognitive Knowledge, these are not absolute categories; we
just say these are indicative. They can be re-categorized into less number of categories.
Assessing the task at hand, when some task is presented, you must be able to assess what
kind of effort is required, what kind of time is required. You need to assess the task that is
one metacognitive ability.
Evaluating one’s own strengths and weaknesses that means, students should be able to say,
when something is presented to you, I need, let us say 2 hours of work to understand this or
maybe I require 5 hours of study to understand this task. One should be able to evaluate one’s
own strengths and weaknesses.
Very smart students, what is smartness actually? People with very high IQ, they are able to
come to a conclusion, when something is presented to them very fast. A student with high-IQ
will know his own strength, he may not know much of his weaknesses though. Anyway, we
will not be getting into that level of detail. Another category is planning an appropriate
approach; applying strategies and monitoring one’s own performance. The ability to monitor
your own performance is also a metacognitive knowledge.
Reflecting and adjusting one’s own approach that is having monitored. This is where you are,
but you are far from your goal. You should be able to reflect on that and keep adjusting your
own approaches. Beliefs about intelligence and learning. These are all categories of
Metacognitive knowledge.
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In summary about Metacognition: Metacognition can increase student engagement. This we

found out even from our own experiences by conducting systematic studies, if students are
willing to subject themselves to this and once you improve their Metacognition, their
performance in the subjects significantly improves.
But they have to go through the process of finding out about their own Metacognitive
abilities. Metacognition “has the potential to empower students to take charge of their own
learning and to increase the meaningfulness of students’ learning”. Especially colleges, who
take students with whether you call lower or higher ranks or poor ranks of CET that those
programs should pay in my opinion attention to training students in metacognition.
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Broadly, this is the one that captures. Here we are talking about learning, teaching and
assessment, have domains including (we have already mentioned) cognitive domain, affective
domain, the psychomotor domain (we will come to them presently in another unit). As per
Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy has two dimensions, one is a cognitive process, the other is
knowledge categories; right now, we are looking at general categories.
These cognitive processes are Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate and Create
and the four categories of knowledge are Factual, Conceptual, Procedural and Metacognitive.
When learning, you are not dealing with knowledge elements belonging to only one category.
That should be very clear. One may be dealing with factual knowledge elements only or one
may be dealing with Factual, Conceptual and Metacognitive elements or you will be dealing
with all the 4 elements.
The only aspect is while the learner may not be directly dealing with metacognitive elements,
the instructor has to deal with metacognitive aspects in designing instruction. If a teacher
wants to be really effective in facilitating his students to learn, he has to pay attention to
metacognition aspects of learning.
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We request you to try list 5 each of the following from the courses you taught or familiar
with, that is, try to list 5 factual knowledge elements, it should be very easy. Similarly, list 5
concepts or 5 principles or 5 procedures, and separately, we request you to list 2
metacognitive issues from the courses you taught or familiar with. We will thank you if you
can share those results of the exercises with us.
In the next unit, we will try to understand the nature of Engineering knowledge and thank you
for your attention.
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Professor N. J. Rao
Lecture 14
Categories of Knowledge-2
Greetings and welcome to module 1, unit 13, of course NATE, NBA Accreditation Teaching
and, Learning in Engineering. The unit is related to categories of Engineering Knowledge. In
the last unit, we understood the nature of four categories of knowledge which are applicable
to all disciplines. And especially, we noted the nature of Metacognitive knowledge and its
importance.
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In the current unit, we will try to understand the nature of categories of engineering
knowledge. That means, we already making a claim, there are some categories of knowledge
specific to engineering outside the general four categories. That is a claim and people have
been investigating at least there is some amount of understanding that there are categories of
engineering knowledge. If they are not addressed in your Engineering programs, then you are
really missing something about engineering itself. That is a claim.
We try to address these questions for example, different people have different views of that.
It always comes out when you ask a large number of teachers in engineering, what is
engineering in their view, just formally defining engineering, when you ask that question in a
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survey, different people seem to have very different views of what engineering is, which is
somewhat unfortunate.
Because we need to have clarity about our own profession of engineering teaching. For
example, all engineers need to ask, ‘what is engineering?’; ‘is engineering different from
science?’; ‘do the four general categories of knowledge address the key aspects of
engineering?’; ‘if engineering is different from science, in what ways it is different?’; and
‘who is a good engineer?’ We looked at some of these aspects in the earlier unit.
Whatever I am going to present, you may or may not agree with what it is, but you must
consider these issues and have your own opinion.
First of all to formally define what engineering is, there are any number of definitions of what
engineering is, I am giving two of them here. Engineering refers to the practice of organizing
the design, construction, and operation of any artifice which transforms the physical world
around us to meet some recognized need.
When you look at elements of this, like organizing the design, construction, and operation, of
an artifice and what is this artifice? Which transforms the physical world around us; in what
way? To meet some recognized need. A whole bunch of issues will come out of that which
you have to address. This was a definition given by G.F.C. Rogers back in 1983.
ABET that is Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology of United States of
America defines engineering like this. Engineering is a profession, in which knowledge of the
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mathematical and natural sciences gained by study, experience, and practice is applied with
judgment to develop ways to utilize economically, the materials and forces of nature for the
benefit of mankind.
Once again, I feel sad, the focus is on because that is the first part of the sentence, applying
knowledge from mathematical and natural sciences gained by the study all that, but what is
the goal actually - develop ways to utilize economically the materials and forces of nature for
the benefit of mankind. The engineer’s role is to utilize economically the materials and forces
of nature for the benefit of mankind, but not in any arbitrary way with the knowledge of
mathematical and natural sciences gained by study, experience, and practice.
This is the definition and there are any number of variants for this. One can write, one’s own
definition. If you put multiple definitions, they are not at variants but they may be
emphasizing according to themselves, what is the most important aspect of engineering
activity.
Let us look at two definitions of Science and Engineering which come very close to each
other. Here science is a process of investigation of physical, chemical, biological, behavioral,
social, economic and political phenomena. It is a process of investigation that is science is a
process of investigation period. The process is used in the collective sense that means, it is
not done by one person but the entire community to include everything the investigator does
from the selection of the phenomena to be investigated to the assessment of the validity of the
results.
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The purpose of science is to investigate phenomena and also the assessment of the validity of
the results. When do I call my conclusions are valid? Whereas engineering is a process of
investigation of how to solve problems. See how to solve problems is the focus of
engineering and includes everything the investigator does from the acceptance of the problem
to the proof of the validity and sometimes the preferability of the solution.
Why preferability comes into the picture? There can be many valid solutions to a given
engineering problem and out of that, I may prefer one. The preferability of the solution is
also accepted; is also part of engineering activity.
One of the most common, (I would consider misconception though many people use it and
swear by it) is engineering is applied science. If engineering is applied science, then studying
the epistemology of science should automatically subsume the knowledge content to
engineering. Look at this picture, science is a big circle and if you have added applied, you
added an adjective right, it is a subset of that. Then engineering is a subset of science that
people do not agree. But still, they use the word engineering is nothing but applied science.
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If it is not ‘what is the relationship between Engineering and Science?’ if you ask, if Science
one circle and Engineering is another circle, there is a lot of an intersection between them.
That size of the intersection is your wish, how big or how small you want to make. But when
there is some intersection, there is something outside that intersection in engineering.
Then you have to say, what is that outside engineering? In the sense, what is outside here?
I need to capture that. If I do not capture this, then I am not addressing all of engineering.
Then I am constraining myself to be what we may generally call engineering science, which
is the intersection between the two science and engineering.
But, if you talk about engineering, there is something outside. Let me say I take this
particular position, engineering is more than applied science. There are many aspects of
engineering which are which fall outside the purview of science. That is the reason why one
needs to look at ‘are there some categories of knowledge that outside these four general
categories we talked about’.
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One of the prominent persons who looked at the nature of engineering knowledge is
Professor Vincenti of Stanford University, incidentally is more than 101 years old right now.
Many others also have investigated and talk somewhat slightly different from Vincenti, but
they all lead to similar categories of knowledge. These are presented in 1990 book of
professor Vincenti, what engineers know and how they know it.
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Which of the categories of knowledge as per Vincenti, he presented six categories,

Fundamental Design Concepts, Criteria and Specifications, Theoretical Tools, Quantitative
Data, Practical Constraints, Design Instrumentalities. He did not worry about science, he just
looked at engineering and said these are the 6 categories of knowledge that he can look at.
If you look at these six categories, the categories including Theoretical Tools and
Quantitative Data, if you take these two, they are addressed by factual, conceptual and
procedural knowledge. This is a different label actually theoretical tool is a different label.
Quantitative data is a different label for factual knowledge.
If I subtract these two categories, then I have these four categories of knowledge specific to
engineering, which are not addressed by the general categories. Fundamental Design
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Concepts, Criteria and Specifications, Practical Constraints and Design Instrumentality. Let
us look at what these are.
Fundamental Design Concepts are Operational principles of devices and components within a
device. For example, this ‘principle’ operational design concept does not automatically
emerge from the knowledge underlying or the knowledge of the Physics or Chemistry or
Biology of the phenomena that you are investigating. The design operational principle will
have to come out of that it is not against any of the underlying knowledge, but it does not
automatically come as a logical consequence of that.
For example, if you take a device can perform a variety of tasks by incorporating memory
into that. This principle has come after the principle (it is acknowledged by people or it is
presented by none other than Neiman) or the so-called the concept of the computer has come
into existence. Once that comes, it looks like you can take this principle for granted. But it
was only an enunitiated sometime in 1950s or I think around in the 1950s.
Similarly, a device that has two well-defined states can be used as a memory unit. This is a
basis for designing all types of memories. Another one, stepping moment can be created
through interaction between two salient magnetic fields. You have whole bunch of stepping
motors that come into action and there are any number of appliances based on stepping
movement.
For example, the most important one, an airfoil by virtue of its shape, in particular, its sharp
trailing edge generates lift when inclined at an angle to the air stream. This was realized after
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centuries of struggle to try to find out how to fly by Wright Brothers, they have created an
airfoil like this, which created the required lift and then you got the first airplane flown by
them.
But the underlying Physics was not known at that time. They have come out with this
particular design concept and the underlying aerodynamics, all the science of that has come
much-much later there is around Second World War. Once you understand the underlying
aerodynamics, you can keep improving the performance of the airfoil that what it is. But the
Fundamental Design Concept will have to be separately acknowledged. So, each one should
know what are those design concepts in that particular branch of engineering.
This is the most important one, unfortunately, most neglected in practically all undergraduate
programs. There is nothing done in engineering which is not done as per some Criteria and
Specifications. You cannot make any device or any object, any artifact without starting from
specifications. The specifications have immense effect on how much time it takes, whether
you can do it or not or how much it costs, everything is dependent on the set of specifications.
A student should certainly understand the role of Criteria and Specifications.
If he does not understand, I would practically say he does not know anything about
engineering. Nobody is going to give you just end of the chapter problems for you to solve
and that makes you an engineer. It is necessary to translate the qualitative goals for the device
into specific quantitative goals. For example, you take any power converter should have
efficiency about some 95 percent. Yes, for example, if I want to design a power converter let
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us say at 99 percent efficiency, is it viable with the current available technologies and devices
and if I want to do that is it in at an acceptable level of cost? The specifications determine
practically everything.
Take another example, the speed control unit for the DC motor should not create harmonic
distortion on the power lines above the FCC regulations. That is actually one of the basic
requirements whenever you design any speed control unit for the DC motor or for that matter
induction motor anything that you design, a power converter or a power regulating device if
you design that it should not create harmonic distortion on the power line and how much
distortion, that is specified by the FCC.
Similarly, another example the SMPS that is switch-mode power supply output should have
an output regulation of 0.5 percent. Something that has 2 percent regulation or 0.1 percent
regulation is an SMPS with let us say 5 percent regulation and 0.1 percent regulation will be
vastly different in its complexity, cost and the amount of time required to design.
The speed of DC motor should be controlled over speed range of 1 to 300 RPM with an
accuracy 0.05 percent. 0.05 percent is a very tall order, you require so many special
components and so much of circuitry to achieve that kind of range as well as accuracy. In
Engineering specifications are everything and the student should have the feel for the
specifications for the artifacts that come out of his discipline.
There is another one - an engineer always works under practical constraints that every
engineer should be aware of. Because cannot get either the data or the resources that you
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want to solve a problem. There infinite resources that are available or all the information that
you want is not available. You have an array of less sharply defined considerations derived
from experience in practice, a consideration that frequently does not lend themselves to
theorizing, tabulation or programming into a computer.
What happens when you do not have the data, that is one of the constraints and you still have
to solve the problem like you can say more or less this is a very important aspect of
engineering. Some people define engineering is decision making with under constraints or
under practical constraints.
For example, one simple data, the indicator lamp should be above the switch. Let us say there
is a switch and there is an indicator lamp and should the switch be on the side or above or
below. If you want to answer that question, here the answer is an indicator lamp should be
above the switch. Why? Simply when you are switching on, your hand should not kind of
obstruct the lamp. What kind of knowledge is this? It is not as structured like your F equal to
MA.
But one should be aware of all the practical constraints and one should not treat them with
say that oh anyone can do, these are all hand waving and this is not what do you call proper
knowledge and so on. This knowledge is very important for the practice of engineering. The
clearances that must be allowed between physical parts and the equipment for tools and hands
to reach different parts.
There are some rules let us say, how do when I want to repair equipment, I must be able to
reach that with my tool. You have to create space for that or you must design the equipment
in such a way that I must be able to open it out and when I open it out, all parts are accessible
to my tools. That tool will have to be built in right in the beginning, when you are trying to
design an artifact.
Another practical constraint, the design should be completed within 2 months. How do you
react to that? You will go and say I require this much resources if you want to do it in two
months. If the required resources are not available, it is not possible to achieve this, but this
two months kind of thing is a practical constraint or when you are responding to a natural
disaster, you have to solve some problems within a very-very short limited time under the
constraints that you have on the spot.
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Another category of knowledge, Design Instrumentalities. It is again not as well structured as

that, but it is procedural knowledge including the procedures, way of thinking and judgmental
skills by which it is done. Some examples, top-down approach to design of a product. Many
times when you are designing a large product or system or let us say even a software product,
people say you do top-down approach. That is one design instrumentality.
Or you phase the development of a product. Some activities can be done parallely, some can
be have to be done serially, how do you arrange the serial/parallel activity that tells you the
phasing and how do you allocate human resources or as well as financial resources for that, is
all depends on how you phase the development of a product. Structuring of an electronic
product. Design walkthrough is a very common practice in software development.
It is also a practice in developing an electronic product. Identify all members of the team
early on and include every member in the group communication from the outset. Let us say
this is a piece of knowledge that you use. If you compare this with, let us say, a procedural
knowledge or a conceptual knowledge, it does not look in the same category. But it is as
important as any other when you are talking about an engineering activity especially done by
a group.
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These four categories of engineering knowledge are important and the extent to which you
incorporate these dimensions into your instruction, it decides to what kind of good engineer
that you will be able to train. Our appeal to you to the engineering faculty is that first
convince yourself of the importance of these four categories of engineering knowledge. Then
make an effort in how to incorporate that into your instruction or when the students do the
project and make them sensitive to these issues.
As an exercise, we request you to identify at least four examples of knowledge elements from
the four categories of engineering knowledge from the engineering courses that you are
familiar with. You may not be able to find these let us say in a pure engineering science
course or just science course. But from all engineering courses, you should be able to find out
examples of these knowledge elements. We would appreciate it if you can share the results of
your exercise at this mail.
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In the next unit, we will try to understand the importance of the Taxonomy table in achieving
alignment among outcomes, assessment, and instruction. What follows is this, you have
already looked at the cognitive levels and we looked at the eight categories of knowledge of
engineering; then they can all be put together in the form of a table. That table itself can
serve as a very good tool for attaining what we call alignment. Thank you very much for your
attention.
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Professor N. J. Rao
Lecture 15
Taxonomy Table
Greetings and welcome to NATE module 1, unit 14 of NBA, Accreditation and, Teaching
and Learning in Engineering. In the previous unit, we understood the nature of categories of
engineering knowledge and prior to that we also looked at categories of knowledge which fall
under the general category. We identified between the two, eight categories of knowledge.
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In this unit, we try to understand the importance of the taxonomy table in achieving
alignment among outcomes, assessment, and instruction. As we mentioned already,
alignment between these three elements in a course, is very important and the taxonomy table
provides a simple tool to kind of address this issue of alignment.
To take a re-look at our Revised Bloom Taxonomy, the cognitive domain has two
dimensions; Cognitive Processes, and Knowledge Categories. There are six cognitive
processes and four general categories of knowledge. Courses in Sciences, Mathematics,
Humanities, Social Sciences, Management in engineering programs if you take because
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engineering programs have all these categories; they are only concerned with the four
categories of knowledge.
One can create under Revised Bloom Taxonomy, a table with six rows of cognitive processes
and four categories of knowledge can serve as an excellent tool to deal with several issues of
teaching and learning.
This is how the table would look. The rows are cognitive processes, and columns are
knowledge categories. You have six by four kinds of metrics. You have 24 cells there and
each cell represents a certain combination of cognitive process and knowledge category. One
thing we need to point out in the Krathwohl’s book or Anderson and Krathwohl’s book, they
have presented the taxonomy table with rows and columns reversed.
That means the rows are knowledge categories and the columns are cognitive processes. We
felt that natural order is this in the sense, whenever you write an outcome, you start with an
action verb, which represents a cognitive process. The cognitive cognitive activity comes first
and the knowledge categories come later.
That is the reason why, whenever you look at it, we felt that the row should be represented by
the cognitive process, but it is a very simple change, it does not alter anything otherwise. If
somebody feels comfortable with these two reversed, it is fine. There is no issue involved in
that.
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Let us look at the features of this RB or Revised Bloom Taxonomy table. A cell of the
taxonomy table can be numbered by its cognitive process (1 to 6) and its knowledge category
(1 to 4). The cell (4,3) represents Analyze-Procedure outcome or Analyze-Procedure
instructional activity and/or Analyze-Procedure assessment.
For example, if you want to locate, Apply-Procedure outcome then we can write it as (3,3).
There is a hierarchy among the cognitive processes that we have mentioned earlier that
Analyse is at a higher hierarchical level than Apply level. To that extent, the hierarchy
among the cognitive process, the cell (4,*) represents more complex. Complexity is defined
in terms of higher-level cognitive activity then the cell (3,*) (* means any knowledge
category).
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Here we define complexity as something belonging to higher cognitive level. But it is not
necessarily more difficult activity. Difficulty is another dimension altogether, so complexity
and difficulty should not be mixed. Unfortunately, they have been mixed without knowing by
large segment of the faculty. They consider a higher-level complex activity is more difficult,
it does not have to be.
Difficulty and complexity are two different concepts and two different things; difficulty
represents (you can say) the third dimension of this taxonomy table. Because of the hierarchy,
the cell (4,*) implies all activities in (3,*), (2,*) and (1,*). For example, going back to this, if
I take (4, 3) is what? (4,3) - if I am looking at an outcome here, all the activities related to
these three cells, which are hierarchically lower, they are automatically implied. That means I
do not have to mark those cells; that is the implication of hierarchy.
We move on to engineering courses. A Revised Bloom-Vincenti taxonomy table is different

from Revised Bloom Taxonomy table because we are adding another four categories of
knowledge that were mentioned by Vincenti. We may call it as a RBV Taxonomy Table
(Revised Bloom-Vincenti taxonomy table), will have six rows and eight columns. Otherwise
the features of RBV table are the same as those of RB table.
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If you look at, you have the taxonomy table for engineering courses is like this. To these
Factual, Conceptual, Procedural, Metacognitive, we add these four categories of engineering
knowledge. So, it becomes a six by eight matrix.
Majority of engineering science courses offered at present like (Fluid Mechanics,

Thermodynamics, Electromagnetic Theory, Network Theory) do not normally address the
four categories of engineering knowledge. However, a teacher may want to choose to address
some of the categories of engineering knowledge in his or her engineering science courses.
But by and large people do not address the engineering knowledge categories in engineering
science courses. If you want six by eight, RBV taxonomy table can be made applicable to
engineering science courses. If you look at your curriculum, you will find if you eliminate all
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the basic science courses, engineering science courses, management courses, English and all
that, the number of true engineering courses constitute only small percentage.
As you can see, in an engineering program, the importance given to engineering courses is
very small. Sometimes it is insignificant percentage that is a reason why a graduate of
engineering programs is likely to be engineering scientists rather than an engineer.
What are the elements of a course? We have mentioned earlier, we are going to mention this
repeatedly because of its importance - the three elements of the course are, Course Outcomes,
representing what the student should be able to do at the end of the course, which you will
look at it in great detail in the following the units; Assessment of the course outcomes
through assignments, tests and examination and Iinstructional Activities to facilitate the
learners attaining this course outcomes.
The three activities when you actually implement in the classroom, you will have course
outcomes communicated to the students then you conduct instructional activities, then you do
the assessment. When you design the course, you change the order. You write the course
outcomes first, then design the assessment and adjust your instructional activities to facilitate
the learners to perform against the proposed assessment instruments.
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What is alignment? We said assessment should be in alignment with the course outcomes,
instruction should be in alignment with the assessment. When all the three are in alignment
with each other, then only you have the right kind of learning. We also said any element of
the course that is assessment, instruction, course outcomes they can be tagged by its cognitive
level which is indicated by the action verb and knowledge categories which can be more than
one.
Based on the tagging that you have, which we mentioned like (4,3); (3,3) like that, based on
the tagging an element, it can be located in one or more cells of the taxonomy table - we will
presently see. Alignment among the elements of a course means being in the same cell of the
taxonomy table. If all the three activities are in the same cell, then all the three are aligned,
that is how we look at alignment.
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We took at RBV taxonomy table, the same thing will be applicable to the RB taxonomy table
as well. Here, we are looking at the cell (2,3); that is Understand-Procedural. CO3 is located
there and AI3 and IA3, AI is assessment items/instruments, IA is instructional activity.
When all the three are located in the same cell, we call it complete alignment.
But in actuality that is not the only thing that is acceptable. What we may have? We can call
it less alignment but still relevant. Let us take the second column where CO5 is in Analyze-
Conceptual category. But what happens is we have AI5 or IA5. Let us take IA5 -
Instructional Activity is dominantly in the Apply category, but not in the Analyze category.
That means CO5 and IA5 are not in complete alignment, but still that activity is relevant, but
less aligned. Similarly, you can have IA5 in Understand-Conceptual category and also IA5 is
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in Remember-Conceptual category. All these are required to address CO5 you may say. But
if there is no IA5 at all, in (4,2), then obviously you cannot say that you have attained CO5.
Same thing applies to Assessment Instruments also, the questions that I ask in any of the
assessment part is not located in the (5,2) category, it is always less. That level of non-
alignment is not acceptable. That means you are not doing what you are expected to do. You
wrote a very higher-cognitive level outcome, but neither you are testing them in that nor
doing your instructional activity that leads to attainment of CO5.
You take another one, CO4 that is Apply-Procedural category, which is very common and
IA4 means my Instructional Activities are actually done there, which is quite good. That
means Instructional Activity and course outcome are aligned, but I do not ask any questions
in my examinations or tests that come into this particular cell.
They are all above that is AI4 in Understand-Procedural issue and the otherwise Remember-
Procedural. This is generally what happens presently in most of the colleges in terms of
assessment. That means, I cannot claim if my assessment is confined to (2,3 ) or (1,3) then I
cannot claim that I am attaining CO4 at all.
We request you to kind of spend time on this and take a look at how you are doing and what
is it that you can do, so that AI4 can also be brought into the cell (3,3), we need to bring
them here. I hope I have been able to explain the importance of alignment through the
taxonomy table.
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This is what we have just now explained like CO5 is an Analyze-Conceptual cell, but AI5
and IA5 are not in (4,2) cell and this is totally unacceptable.
Proper Alignment requires Course Outcome and related Instructional Activity should be in
complete alignment at least that much should be done. That means they are locatable in the
same cells. While some (small percentage) of assessment items can be in cells representing
lower cognitive levels less than that of CO, but significant percentage of Assessment Items
should be in the same cell as that of CO.
What is this significant percentage? What percentage is acceptable? If my CO is in one

particular cell, at least we consider more than 50 percent of the questions that you ask in any
of the Assessment Instruments should be in that category.
This is of course, is a little bit of what you call personalized statement, we claim subsequently
we show that it should be more than 50 percent; we put that figure at 60 to start with. If you
want to make it 100 percent, you are most welcome. But 100 percent may lead to other
issues.
So, we are suggesting which we will elaborate later that 60 percent of the Assessment Items
should be in the same cell as that of CO. Ofcourse, this language may be different from what
you are familiar with, but this is related to the alignment issue.
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What can the taxonomy table do? It can facilitate, achieving a specified alignment among the
three elements of course and eliminate chance occurrences. For some reason you have
decided, ‘I want to give more weightage to the lower cognitive level than the CO’. Take the
taxonomy table and put your percentages to start within corresponding cells.
What happens when you are designing either question bank or your assessment instrument.,
you have the numbers, reference numbers in front of you. That is one purpose, the taxonomy
table can serve. Aslo, we will show in the later module, it can help design of a well structure
test item banks, and consequently validity and reliability, these two are two important
properties of assessment can be achieved. Validity and reliability of your assessment can be
achieved.
We will elaborate on the concept of validity and reliability in the second module. These two
are two key properties of any assessment and it can also serve as a tool for organizing direct
or automatic intelligent tutoring. This we have done extensively which is outside the scope of
this and this taxonomy table can serve as an excellent tool in organizing, tutoring. Whether it
is automatic or direct tutoring can be organized using the taxonomy table.
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In the next unit, we try to understand the nature of affective and psychomotor domains of
learning, which we have mentioned briefly that after cognitive domain you have psychomotor
and affective domain as well. While we are not going to spend too much time on this in the
following follow-up lectures.
But a kind of awareness of affective and psychomotor domain is necessary for a teacher, and
in fact, we encourage the teachers to spend time on their own to explore the affective and
psychomotor domains relevant to their subjects of concern. Thank you very much for your
attention.
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Professor N. J. Rao
Lecture 16
Affective and Psychomotor Domains
Greetings and welcome to NATE module 1, unit 15 related to Affective and Psychomotor
Domains. In the earlier unit, we tried to understand the nature and usefulness of taxonomy
table, which is a very simple idea. That is you organize your cognitive levels and knowledge
categories in the form of a table and looking at the cells of the taxonomy table, we address
the issue of alignment between the three major elements of a course namely Course
Outcomes, Assessment and Instructional Activities.
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Now, in the current unit, we try to understand the nature and importance of affective domain
in learning and also understand the nature of psychomotor domain. As we mentioned, the
learning can be seen in the three dimensions or three domains actually, which are cognitive,
affective and psychomotor domains.
Let us look at - there are what are called non-cognitive factors which all of us are familiar
with. Many people believe that non-cognitive factors and skills are equally or even more
important than cognitive aspects in educative processes and employment, especially in
employment. You may have heard these words grit, tenacity curiosity, attitude, self-concept,
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self-efficacy, anxiety coping strategies, motivation, perseverance, confidence - are some of
the frequently used non-cognitive factors.
In various contexts you say, self-efficacy is important; you must be able to cope with anxiety;
you must have perseverance. So, all these are desirable characteristics in one’s life, both in
employment or at home also or also at social level. Many of these factors fall into the
affective domain. And that is the reason why the importance to affective domain.
In one sense, NBA identifies these affective factors as important, but it gets reflected in
writing what we called as professional outcomes of the program. That is 7 to 12 (POs) - if
you look at majority of them, they require addressing issues related to the affective domain;
like working in a group, communicating affectively, understanding the impact of engineering
on environment - many of the affective domain factors come into picture.
The affective domain is most commonly associated with feelings and emotions. How does it
get reflected? Whenever you sense anything by any of these sensory mechanisms that you
have or when you listen to a lecture, first thing that you have - you either have a positive or
negative reaction. Something in that, combination of various factors will produce a positive
or a negative reaction, first the sign is fixed and incidentally that is how the brain functions.
Your inputs go directly to what is called amygdala in the brain and in the amygdala in that in
the region designated for that, there is a positive or negative sign is associated with the input
that comes. And unfortunately, that is a one that plays havoc with our teaching-learning
processes. So, affective behavior is displayed in the form of positive or negative reaction to
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given events, objects, behaviors, policies or situations, anything that you have. You walk into
a room, you will say I do not feel very positive in this kind of thing; you have to accept that is
the way brain functions.
These affective behaviors are accompanied by varying degrees of feelings that reflect distinct
approach. Let us say, if you have a positive feeling, then say ‘Okay, I am willing to pay
attention and do something about it’ or avoidance, I try to avoid something if I had negative
reaction, that means I cannot get the attention of the student. Once they get into the
predisposition of avoidance, then I have lost my student.
Obviously a teacher would want everyone to pay attention to what you are doing in the class.
So, to that extent, handling this approach and avoidance predispositions is also a necessary
skill for the teacher. Some teachers do understand this issue intuitively and they also develop
their own methods of getting the attention of the students in the class.
Why different students behave differently, because in the same class, some students pay
attention to what the teacher says and some students do not and some are neutral. This has a
long history because person’s past experience in interacting with the environment shapes the
nature and scope of affective responses. That occurs because of the previous experiences of
the student and all these observations are due to Pierce and Gray.
Approximately we can say affective domain relates to emotions, attitudes, appreciations,

values such as enjoying, conserving, respecting and supporting. So, affective domain is also
related to these values.
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How are these effective behaviors demonstrated? By indicating attitudes of awareness,

interest, attention, concern and responsibility. You have to indicate your attitude for learning
something either through showing interest or through your body language or paying attention
or demonstrating concern in whatever way. That means your affective behavior gets reflected
in this kind of responses.
It is also demonstrated by ability to listen and respond in interactions with others. If you are
indifferent; if some discussion is asked for in the class, many people kind of say that is if you
do not have positive attitude, then you will not participate in the discussion, that is neither
you listen properly not respond properly.
Also it is demonstrated by ‘ability to demonstrate those attitudinal characteristics or values

which are appropriate to the test situation and the field of study’, because it depends on the
nature of the subject as well. These are identified by words such as like, dislike, attitude,
value, belief, feeling, interest, appreciation and characterization, so on. These are the words
that you use to characterize any affective behavior.
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Like cognitive domain which is considered to have two dimensions and which is elaborated
in the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy, several groups attempted to look at affective domain also.
Actually you have 4 or 5, very popular or accepted taxonomies of affective domain.
Here we present Pierce-Gray taxonomy of affective domain. Here Pierce and Gray, they tried
to look at all the three domains and try to have (similar) almost same levels of classification.
They have presented here as six levels in affective dominate also, because you have six levels
in the cognitive domain. Similarly, they presented six levels in the psychomotor domain that
is the first thing.
The other one is, these are arranged in such a way that as you go along, from first to six, the
level of cognitive activity or the cognitive levels keep increasing with that. So, there is a kind
of correspondence between the affective behaviors as well as cognitive behaviors. That is,
because we said any experience (you cannot say it is devoid of such and such a domain)
avoids completely one particular domain. All the experiences will have all the dimensions of
these the domains to varying degrees.
So, here the degree of cognitive activity will keep increasing as you go from 1 to 6. That is
the basis for this kind of classification. Now, let us look at briefly the, what this affective
levels are? First is Perceive: Perceive is not directly demonstrated, it based on the perceiving,
you have to react only it is demonstrated through reacting, the moment you come to that, that
means you have perceived. So, the first one is accepted.
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What is Perceiving? Emotive implanting and response setting that means, when something is
presented to you, you have reacted emotionally. For example, I did not hear anything
properly let us say sitting in the last bench, I do not even perceive. So, it neither produces a
positive nor negative reaction and there is no question of even possibility of responding to
that even internally.
So, first thing you have to make sure that the students have a chance to perceive. This is
related to the physical situation in the classroom that is the fan noise or the heat in the room
or the distance from the teacher to the last bench, these are all the ones that will influence
whether this last bench student is able to perceive or not.
Then you react, you emote now, that is you show your expression through the body language
or actually making a statement and so on. So, reacting consists of emoting, recognizing and
controlling. Then what you do after you receive information you conform, that is you may
like or dislike or agreeable to this or you are convinced of that, that comes later. But first
thing that you do is try to conform that means you develop an artificial attitude.
Because teaching says this is correct and desirable, I will also for the present accept it as
desirable. So, that is why we call it artificial attitude. And then that is consistent attitude, it is
not just for one, for the entire whatever that you are trying to learn, you maintain this
artificial attitude.
Then you try to rationalize, ‘it is it correct or not?’ Internally I rationalize. So, by going
through this process, I am conforming, that is I am not yet fully convinced, but this is the first
stage of conforming to what has been presented to me.
Then you go through the process of validation. So, what happens is, what is the value that is
being communicated? Do they coincide with my values that I have? Do I accept this or not?
So, I examine the values and then I go through the process of accepting. So, first I take an
artificial position and then after validating, I may accept or may not accept the values.
Having accepted you have what is called affective judge. Now, I have to relate the newly
acquired value to what I already have. I need to establish value criteria and value judging. I
may want to put it in certain level of hierarchy with respect to the other values.
The final stage we have what is called affective create. The choice of the words as you can
see Pierce and Gray they tried to use words which are pretty close the cognitive level also.
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For example, Validate is very close to Analyze, Affective Judge is close to Evaluate and the
final word is Create itself. So, whatever values that you have judged now, you are integrating
into your world. Now, whether you consider equal important and how do I relate to my other
values, in what level that I take them all that is integrated, and then I developed my
inspirational insight based on what I get.
So, these are the six Pierce-Gray taxonomy levels of affective domain. We are not going to
elaborate very much on this. It takes lot more time and effort. The purpose is only to kind of
sensitize you to this and request you to explore on your own.
There is another way of looking at the affective domain, there is what is called emotional
intelligence. Maybe some of you have heard about that word. The most popular book on
Emotional Intelligence is by Daniel Goleman, which is written for a common person, not a
specialist psychologist. Based on the knowledge (this book is already about 25 years old) it is
still very popular. The taxonomy as per emotional intelligence is this knowing one’s own
emotions. The earlier six levels are much more formal, systematic structure. These are little
bit … but you can relate to them.
First thing is knowing one’s own emotions. What does it mean? I am aware of my emotions.
For example, if you are very angry, let us say, which happens often for everyone. I should be
able to acknowledge to myself that I am presently angry. You do not say no-no, I do not feel
angry, you cannot make a statement. So, first thing is I must know my own emotions.
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In fact, if you are able to classify your emotions better that I am sad or I am angry, I have
rage, if you are able to use all the appropriate words, you have already solved half the
problem by acknowledging to yourself.
Then the next thing is, you have to learn to manage your own emotions. For example, if I am
angry, what do I do? Everyone need not react in the same way. Somebody may just count 1 to
10, so you come back and become normal or you may use any other method that you find it
convenient or appropriate to the situation.
Another issue of managing emotions is you should not behave in the same way whenever you
get, let us say angry. That is if you are behaving or you are responding in the same way every
time in a particular situation, then you become predictable which often happens. All students
manipulate their teachers precisely through this. So, my teacher will react in a given situation
like this. Once I become predictable, I become manipulatable; that is the other person works
out how to circumvent the consequences of that particular emotion. So, managing emotions is
also an art and the better you are able to manage your emotions, you become a better person
in all ways.
Then once you cross this stage of managing emotions, you work out how to motivate one-
self. The fourth stages, you should be able to recognize emotions in others. This is an art and
I think everyone should develop that - you recognize the emotions in others. The moment you
are able to recognize, you start respecting that as well. For example, the road rage as we call
it in a busy road comes because you do not recognize the emotion of the driver who is ahead
of you, whose behavior you do not like.
So, you should not only be able to manage your emotions, you should also be able to
recognize emotions in others. Then finally, you should be able to handle relations with the
people around you with whom you are interacting. So, this is the taxonomy as per emotional
intelligence, this is usable at an operative level. But in a more formal level.
If you want to start writing outcomes that are relevant under affective domain, then you may
have to use the Pierce-Gray taxonomy. Ideally speaking, for every cognitive domain course
outcome, I must be able to write relevant associated outcomes of the affective domain as well
as psychomotor domain.
If I am able to write all the three, then based on that I should actually be planning my
instruction okay, which is a tall order, but that is the may be a goal in near future. If any of
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you are following this course, if you can think of that and find out and work out a method of
writing affective domain outcomes will appreciate if you share with us.
Now, some of the action verbs that are used in affective domain are: accept, attempt,
challenge, defend, dispute, join, judge, praise, question, share, support, volunteer; you can
add many more. So, these are some action verbs if you want to write in a course outcome
belonging to affective domain, you can start with one of these words.
Now, we come to the third domain, psychomotor domain, what is psychomotor dominant? It
includes physical movement, coordination and use of the motor-skill areas. This is a formal
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definition given by Simpson back in 1972. Development of the skills require practice and is
measured in terms of speed, precision, distance, procedures or techniques in execution.
You can add another word because cricket has become a religion in India, you can say the
scores you run, the wickets you take these are all ‘measurements’. If you want to score more
runs obviously, you require the corresponding psychomotor domain skills besides the both
effective as well as cognitive skills.
But if this skill is not there - psychomotor domain skill is not there, that is what audience are,
spectators are, they do not have the required psychomotor skills, but they do have the other
cognitive skills. So, they start commenting on that how the player should play and so on.
Anyway, that is besides the main point.
Whereas the role of psychomotor activities is limited in engineering programs as offered at

present. Except in small number of courses, you are not looking for any psychomotor skills.
But these activities become very important or even dominant in courses, in programs like
theater, music, dance, paintings, sports or a medicine, nursing, dentistry are emergency
medical services.
In many of these types of courses, the psychomotor skills become dominant first. If you do
not have that, the other skills are less important. Whereas, it has to be first dominantly you
must have psychomotor skills accompanied by relevant, affective and cognitive domain
skills.
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Here, this is the taxonomy of psychomotor domain. Actually, if you look at all the sub -
classifications, they come very close to the affective domain classification as well. So,
psychomotor perceiving - sensory transmission and physio-functional maintenance that is if
you want to run or if want to box or if you want to play an instrument, you must have the
required physio-functional maintenance. If you do not have that, if you cannot let us say,
flexibility in your movement, obviously, you cannot even perceive a particular psychomotor
input.
Activating - physical outputs, mimicry and deliberate modeling. This is how anybody learns
right, then when you learn music, you first mimic the teacher and then you start modeling the
way, the teacher is presenting to you. Either in singing or playing an instrument or let us say,
you are boxing or you are playing tennis, in any of that, the instructor’s moments are
mimicked and you produce your physical output and you deliberately model that exactly in
the same way.
Then you execute the task and again it is not generally in isolation, it is operational execution
and also skilled execution. You should be able to exactly hit-at to the exact distance and so
on. So, you learn to execute.
Then you maneuver, maneuvering requires, now we have learned individual skills and then
you inspect all the skills and you select these skills in a given situation - that is maneuvering.
Psychomotor judging - you must establish performance criteria and performance judging.
This is what is required for umpires or the judges in all sports activity. For example, if you
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look at the gymnastic activity, the judge is so well trained, all the judges sometimes they have
7-8 judges; and if you look at the marks that are given by all of them, they differ from each
other in a very small percentage. That means all of them are trained to exactly judge the
performance and that means they have excellent psychomotor judging.
Then you have psychomotor creating. Now, whatever skills that I have learned from others
and I have mastered that, then I start combining the skills or modify my psychomotor
behavior based on the insight of the performance that I have.
That is why different players somehow produce or create their own way of doing things and
those are the ones that become the top players. So, this is the classification of psychomotor
domain.
Some action verb, some of them bend, grasp, handle, operate, reach, relax, shorten, stretch,
write, differentiate, express, perform and so on. You can add words action verbs from
different disciplines as well.
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Once again trying to put all the three domains together, cognitive, affective and psychomotor
activities are not independent of one another. Higher levels of affective and psychomotor
activities involve more and more cognitive activities - that we have mentioned. Instruction
needs to pay attention to these dependencies and especially to integrating affective elements
into cognitive activities in engineering courses.
So, the affective elements become important irrespective of the discipline that you are
handling. If you can learn to how to integrate them into your classroom activity, it will be a
great help to your students to learn.
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Now, all these are captured in this concept diagram. If you look at this learning, it consists of
cognitive domain, affective domain, psychomotor domain, these already we have talked
about. You have cognitive processes, arranged hierarchically, knowledge categories, which
are general for all and then specific to engineering are these and then affective domain as per
Pierce-Gray taxonomy these are the levels and from emotional intelligence perspective, these
are the categories.
Psychomotor again as per Pierce-Gray taxonomy you have these levels. Just for completion,
if you want, you can add spiritual domain. As I understand from the literature, these are the 2
levels so called in identity and integrity. You may agree or disagree. But let us say that is not
our concern, we are not going to look at this domain. But just for the completion, we put the 4
domains like this.
Now, as an exercise, we request you to give at least one example from each one of the six
affective levels from the courses you are familiar with. Similarly, give at least one example
from each one of the six psychomotor levels, from the courses you are familiar with. If you
are able to identify, we will be happy to receive them from you at this particular mail.
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In the next unit, we will look at course outcomes in the framework provided by Revised
Bloom or Revised Bloom Vincenti taxonomy of learning. That means, how do we write
course outcomes using the knowledge of taxonomy of learning, assessment and teaching.
And thank you very much for your attention.
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Lecture 17
Course Outcomes- 1
Greetings, welcome to module 1, unit 16 on Course Outcomes. In the earlier unit, we

understood the role of taxonomy table in achieving alignment among outcomes, assessment
and instruction, the three key components of a course.
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In this unit, we look at how to write outcomes for a course, which are of good quality. So the
outcome for this unit is ‘write outcomes of a course, and look at them in the taxonomy table’.
Graduates of Engineering Programs in India are required to attain the program outcomes and
program specific outcomes. The 12 Program Outcomes are specified by the National Board
of Accreditation. Two to four Programs Specific Outcomes are identified by the university or
the department offering the program. Students are supposed to attain all the 12 Program
Outcomes specified by NBA and the additional 2 to 4 Programs Specific Outcomes identified
by the university or the board of studies.
POs and PSOs are attained through courses, projects, co-curricular and extra-curricular
activities in which the performance of the student is evaluated. Though all these activities are
available predominantly POs and PSOs are attained through core courses.
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Courses are broadly classified into core courses and electives, and core courses are classified
into engineering courses, engineering science courses, basic sciences, humanities, social
sciences, management courses. POs and PSOs are to be attained through core courses, project
and activities in which all students participate. Electives do contribute to POs and PSOs, but
NBA requires the demonstration of the attainment of POs and PSOs only through core
activities.
And thus we have to look at the attainment of POs and PSOs through core courses, project
and activities in which all students participate. Among these core courses constitute the
dominant part of any engineering program.
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It is empirically well established that students learn well, when they are clear about what they
should be able to do at the end of a course, what we are calling as Course Outcomes
Assessment is in alignment with what they are expected to do. In other words, assessment is
in alignment with Course Outcomes. Instructional activities are designed and conducted to
facilitate the students to acquire and demonstrate what they are expected to do.
In other words, we expect alignment among instruction, assessment and Course Outcomes.
When these conditions are met, the likelihood for the students to learn well dramatically
increases.
What are Course Outcomes? We have seen in earlier unit also and recapitulating what we
have discussed earlier - Course Outcomes are what the student should be able to do at the end
of a course. It is an effective ability, including attributes, skills and knowledge to successfully
carry out the identified activity. The activity is identified, it is stated in the form of Course
Outcome and it is the effective ability including attributes, skills and knowledge to
successfully carry out that identified activity.
For a CO, there are two extremely important features, it should be observable and it should be
measurable. We can say these are the two extremely important characteristics that a good CO
should have – ‘it should be observable and it should be measurable’.
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We propose the following structure for a CO statement. It is picked up from different systems
which have been proposed over a period of time. There is no unique way specified by the
National Board of Accreditation, but we find that this structure is extremely convenient to
develop an outcome statement of good quality.
There are four fields, action, knowledge, condition and criteria. Among these four, the first
two are mandatory. Every CO statement must have an action part and a knowledge part. The
other two condition and criteria are optional. Both may be present, both may be absent, one
of them may be present and other may be absent, they are purely optional fields.
The first field action, which is mandatory represents a cognitive, affective or psycho motor
activity, the level should perform. The action is indicated by an action verb. Occasionally,
two action verbs are also used. These action verbs represent the cognitive process or
processes concerned. So, the CO statement starts with an action verb. This action verb
represents the underlying cognitive process or processes.
The next field is knowledge which represents the specific knowledge from any one or more
of the eight knowledge categories that we have seen earlier. The four general categories and
four categories specific to engineering proposed by Vincenti. These two are mandatory fields.
Then we have two more fields, condition and criteria which are optional. Condition
represents the process, the learner is expected to follow are the condition under which to
perform the action. The activity could be performed in a variety of different ways. If the
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outcome statement specifies the condition, then the learner is expected to perform that action
using that specific method or under those specific conditions. So, this is an optional element
of an outcome statement.
Criteria represent the parameters that characterize the acceptability levels of performing the
action. Obviously, it must be a correct action that is not what is implied by the criteria. But
additionally, the outcome statement may specify certain performance parameters and they
indicate the acceptability levels. If they are presented then they become the criteria. This is
also an optional field.
Normally an outcome statement must have a single action verb. However, sometimes it
becomes equally important for a student to perform two cognitive processes or sub-processes
on a given knowledge element, and they are tightly related to each other because they work
on the same knowledge element. In such instances, it is okay to use two action verbs. But
only in such cases, two action verbs may be used in an outcome statement.
It is not an artifact to the combine two distinct COs into one single CO. If the underlying
outcome truly represents two distinct activities on the same knowledge element, we can use
two action verbs. An example for that can be draw Bode plots for the given dynamic system
and determine the gain and phase margins. Both of these are important activities.
Drawing the Bode plot itself is an Apply level activity that is important. Once the Bode plot
is available, determining the gain and phase margins is also an important activity - again at
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the Apply level. And both these are related to the same knowledge elements of the Bode
plots. Thus in this particular outcome statement, two action verbs are justified.
Let us look at some typical outcome statements. First sample: calculate major and minor
losses associated with fluid flow in piping networks. It starts with the action verb ‘calculate’,
calculate represents the cognitive process of Apply. So, action is ‘calculate’ and that
represents the cognitive process of Apply. The knowledge element involved is major and
minor losses associated with fluid flow in piping networks. This would be both conceptual
knowledge and proceeded knowledge.
Note that the knowledge element need not be belonging to only a single category there can be
multiple categories of knowledge elements. The action verb is, either a single action verb or
at most a two, but the knowledge elements can be from multiple knowledge categories. There
are no conditions and no criteria in this outcome statement, they are optional. And in this
outcome statement, we have only the action and knowledge, no conditions, no criteria.
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Another sample: determine the dynamic unbalanced the conditions of a given mechanical
system of rigid bodies subjected to force and acceleration. Again notice that this outcome
also begins with an action verb ‘determine’. So, the action is ‘determine’ and determine is
again at the cognitive level of Apply. The knowledge elements are dynamic unbalanced
conditions of a given mechanical system of rigid bodies subjected to force and acceleration is
there. So, the knowledge is dynamic unbalanced conditions, conceptual and procedural.
The condition is that the mechanical system is the given mechanical system. So, given
mechanical system of rigid bodies subjected to force and acceleration, so that specifies a
condition. There are no specific criteria mentioned. Obviously, the determination must be
correct but beyond that there are no specific criteria mentioned for specifying the
acceptability levels of the performance. So, we have action, knowledge and condition but no
criteria.
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Sample 3: understand the effect of all the parameters in voltage controlled oscillators through
simulation using TINATI. Again the action is Understand, so, now the cognitive level is
Understand. Understand has seven cognitive sub-processes we noted, one could use one of
the sub-processes if one prefers to use that specific sub-process. Otherwise one could also use
Understand, revised Bloom taxonomy permits the use of the word Understand. So, the action
is at the cognitive level of Understand
The knowledge is effect of all the parameters in voltage controlled oscillators, basically it is a
conceptual knowledge. The condition is using simulation, using a specific tool, TINATI. So,
under those conditions, we need to understand the effect of all the parameters in the voltage
controlled oscillators. There are no specific criteria.
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Another sample: determine the root of the given equation, accurate to second decimal place
using Newton-Raphson method. So, here the action is determine, which is at the cognitive
level of Apply. The knowledge is root of the given equation - conceptual and procedural,
condition is using Newton-Raphson method.
There are several different methods for determining the root of a given equation. This
particular CO states that the learners are supposed to determine the root using Newton-
Raphson method, one specific method they are indicating, so there is a condition specified.
Further, it also specifies a criterion - the computed root must be accurate to second decimal
place. So, it is not adequate if the student is able to use Newton-Raphson method. The
produced result must be accurate to second decimal place.
So, there is a specific performance criterion mentioned in the outcome statement. So, this
statement has all the four elements, action, knowledge, condition and criterion.
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Once we have the outcome statement, we can locate the course outcome statement in the
revised Bloom-Vincenti taxonomy table. If you look at S1, S2 and S4, the samples, 1, 2 and
4, all of them were at Apply level. You see the sample 1 is at Apply level, sample 2 is also at
Apply level, sample 4 is also at Apply level.
So, when we locate the COs in the taxonomy table. S1, S2, S4, they are all at Apply level but
S3 is at Understand level, and the knowledge categories involved were conceptual and
procedural for S1, S2 and S4, but it was conceptual for S3. So based on the action, and the
knowledge category, we can locate the course outcome in the RBV taxonomy table.
Later, we will see that we can locate the instructional activity as well as the assessment item
in the same taxonomy table. And that could help us to determine if the alignment is proper or
not among the outcomes, instructional activities and assessment items.
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Write three course outcomes in the structure presented from the courses you are familiar
with, and locate them in the RBV taxonomy table. Thank you for sharing these results at the
mail ID which we already have indicated.
In the next unit, we look at how to write Course Outcomes of good quality further. Thank you
and we will meet again. Thank you.
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Lecture 18
Course Outcomes- 2
Greeting, welcome to module 1, unit 17 on Course Outcomes. In the earlier unit, we understood
the structure of a Course Outcome statement in terms of four elements, action, knowledge,
condition and criteria. We noted that of these four elements action and knowledge are
mandatory; condition and criteria are optional.
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In this unit, we will look at how to write course outcomes of good quality. So the outcome of this
unit is ‘understand how to write course outcomes of good quality’.
The first issue is how many outcomes should be written for a given course? If we have too small
a number of COs; then they may not capture the course in sufficient detail and may not serve
instruction design that well. Even assessment may be somewhat difficult. On the other hand, if
we have too many COs then the processes related to assessment design and computation of
attainment of the COs will be messy and demanding.
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Then what is an ideal number of outcomes? There is no unique answer to this but by-and-large
from experience it appears that 3:0:0 or 3:1:0 or a 3:0:1 course should have about six course
outcomes. Probably seven or eight is also okay; five outcomes is also okay there is no hard and
fast tool as to the number of outcomes. But, by enlarge it tends to be six plus or minus two
course outcomes for a typical three or four credit course. The number of COs of course carrying
different of credits can be suitably scaled and adjusted.
Attainment of course outcomes is measured through summative assessment. It should be possible

to determine the attainment of a CO through the normally followed assessment mechanisms
without needing any specific additional instruments.
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It is the practice of many universities to represent the syllabus of a course as a set of units to
facilitate equal attention to all sections of the syllabus. Most of the universities have the syllabus
organized as five units; sometimes it can be six but five is a more popular number. And often
faculties think that there should be one outcome for each unit. Thus if the course is organized as
five units they expect the course outcomes to be five in number. But they need not be one to one
correspondence between unit of a course and the COs.
More than one CO may correspond to one unit, one CO may correspond to topic form than one
unit. Teacher based on her experience of the course content and the content of each unit can
decide how many course outcomes must be there for the course as a total and corresponding to
each unit. Still it is quite popular to have one outcome per one unit but that is not mandated by
NBA nor it is a requirement of any quality standards.
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Some of the general guidelines dos and don’ts while writing the course outcomes. Use only one
action verb. The cognitive process is captured in action verb and typically, a Course Outcome
will have only one action verb. We saw that occasionally the Course Outcome might consist of
two cognitive processes or sub-processes in which case the outcome statement may have two
action verbs. But predominantly the outcomes will have only one action verb.
Do not use word including like, such as, different, various, etc words with respect to knowledge
elements. The problem with these words would be that the scope, the depth of the content would
remain wide open. That would make it very difficult for the students, the faculty and the
examination paper setters to agree as to the depth of the content.
It is much better to enumerate all relevant knowledge elements. In any given CO the number of
knowledge elements is unlikely to be more than about 5-6 may be in the worst case about 7, 8.
But it is worth enumerating all these relevant knowledge elements, instead of using open ended
words like various, different, etc words.
Put in effort to make the CO statement as detailed as possible and measurable. Do not make it
either too abstract or too specific. If it is too abstract it would be very difficult to make sense out
of the outcome to design instruction to match that Course Outcome, to design assessment for that
outcome. And, if it too specific it is unlikely that we will be able to have too many questions
regarding that specific outcome.
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Then what is the right level at which the outcome should be written? Again there is algorithmic
answer. Teacher, based on her experience of that course the contents, the way the course is to be
delivered - based on all these factors the teacher has to decide what should be the level of
abstraction at which a given outcome should be written.
Some check list which one could use while writing the COs to see if they are of reasonably good
quality. Does the CO begin with an action verb? So, when a CO statement is presented you first
check whether it begins with an action verb. We know that the structure of the CO statement is
‘at the end of the course the students will be able to’; that will be followed by the actual CO
statement.
So, the actual CO statement begins with an action verb. So, this check list says first check
whether the CO begins with an action verb, if it does not begin with an action verb then
immediately we know that the CO has some problem.
Is the CO stated in terms of student performance rather than teacher performance or course
content to be covered? CO is what the student is able to do at the end of the course. It should not
reflect what the teacher intends to do. It is not about the teacher’s performance nor it should
indicate what is the course content that is dealt with, CO is not course content, CO is what
student able to do at the end of the course. So the CO must be stated in terms of student
performance.
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Is the CO stated as a learning product rather than a learning process? Quite often learning
activities are design by the teacher to help students acquire the course outcomes. The learning
activities themselves are not the outcomes; the learning activities are designed to facilitate the
students acquire the learning outcomes. So, the course outcome is the result of engaging in the
learning activity. It is the learning product rather than the learning process. So, is the CO stated
as a learning product rather than as a learning process?
Is the CO stated at the proper level of generality and relatively independent of other COs. The
level of generality (we discussed this issue in the previous slide also), it must be appropriate to
the content and the intended outcome. And one CO should be relatively independent of other
COs; there should not be overlap between different COs.
Then the fifth check list item would be, is the CO attainable in the given context? We know that
every course is delivered in a specific context. The context would include students’ background,
prerequisite competences, facilities, time available and so on. The course is delivered in such a
specific context it is also called as the instructional context. When we write the COs we must
take into account the specificity of the instructional context.
Writing a CO that is too ambitious may make it very difficult to attain that CO in the given
instructional context. So, we must check whether the CO is realistic, attainable in the given
context. Again the individual faculty member is the best judge of’ whether the CO is attainable
in the given context’, but she should take into account the context while writing the CO. Do not
make the CO too ambitious.
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Now let us look at some CO statements, these have being picked up from different faculty
member’s contributions, reflect on the given CO, for example, this is one CO, ‘students will
execute mini projects’. Reflect on the CO, is it in an acceptable form? Do we say this is an
outcome statement of good quality? Does it meet the structure that we proposed? If you put this
CO statement against the checklist, do all the criteria get satisfied? What would be your opinion
about the quality of this outcome statement? Reflects for few seconds about the outcome then we
will comment on the outcome as presented in this statement.
Executing a mini project is an instructional activity. Instructional activities are designed to

facilitate the attainment of COs. The instructor designs these activities and students go through
these activities and these activities are designed to facilitate the attainment of COs by the
learners. But, the activities themselves are not the COs.
So the activity of executing a mini project by itself is not a CO. What is the expected
competency of the learner when he or she executes a mini project? That intended competency is
the outcome statement.
Let us look at another CO, ‘have the concepts of compensators and controllers including
proportional, proportional derivative, proportional integral, proportional integral and derivative
controller’; reflect about this CO.
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COs are competencies, behaviors that can be demonstrated. Not descriptions of internal changes
in the students, though these are necessary. Students must learn these concepts, so students must
have these concepts but that is not the way the outcome statement is written. The outcome
statement must start with an action verb, which indicates what the student is supposed to do,
what the student is supposed to perform, at the end of the learning activity.
Thus this statement does not show what is it that the student is expected to do after having the
concepts of the compensators and controllers. This is not the way an outcome statement is to be
written. It must be a competency or behavior that can be demonstrated. So it must start with an
action verb.
Let us look at another CO, ‘optimal generator scheduling for the thermal power plants by using
software package in the lab’. This does not have any action verb; it does not convey what this
student is expected to do at the end of that learning unit. There is no way of assessing the
students’ performance because it does not indicate what this student is expected to do. There is
no way of determining the attainment level of this CO.
In fact if one looks at this statement with some care, it almost appears as if a part of the syllabus
has been re-written. It almost looks as if a statement from the syllabus is picked up and it is
pasted into an outcome statement. This cannot be an outcome statement at all. The outcome
statement must show what the student is expected to do. There is no action verb in this statement
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so it does not even qualify as an outcome statement at all. Leave alone an outcome statement of
good quality. It is not an outcome statement at all.
Let us look at this CO. ‘will get knowledge of protection schemes for generator, transformer and
induction motor’. This statement has the same problem as the previous statement. An outcome
statement is a competency or behavior that can be demonstrated not discriptions of internal
changes in the students though these are necessary.
The student will get knowledge of protection schemes but that does not indicate clearly what the
students is expected to do. Thus an outcome statement must state what the student is expected to
do or perform. It should not describe the changes that take place in his mind or her mind. So COs
are competencies behaviors that can be demonstrated, not descriptions of internal changes in the
students.
Internal changes are necessary; student must really get the knowledge of the protection schemes.
So, a change must occur in his brain or her brain that is absolutely necessary. But, that is not an
outcome statement. What the student is able to do because of getting that knowledge that is an
outcome statement.
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Let us look at one more outcome statement. ‘Apply problem solving techniques to find solutions
to problems’. Superficially, it looks like it satisfies all the elements of the checklist, but the
problem with this statement is that it is too general. There is no clear way of assessing whether
the student has acquired this ability or not. Apply problem solving techniques is a very-very
general statement and it does not specify what are the competencies that we should be assessing.
So it is very difficult to assess and determine the level of attainment when the CO is written at
this level of generality. It also says find solutions to problems. It does not indicate what kind
problems, what kind of scope is implied by this CO statement, these are all vague. So this is a
very-very general CO statement and thus is not acceptable as CO of good quality.
‘Study variety of advanced abstract data types and data structures and their implementations’.
Please reflect about this outcome statement. This is an activity that the student engages in during
the course. Study, study is the activity that the student engages in during the course. It is not
what he or she becomes capable of demonstrating at the end of the course. During the course
student studies a varieties of abstract data types and data structures and their implementations.
So, it is an activity that the student engages in during the course.
Whereas an outcome is a statement of what the student is able to do at the end of the course. So
this is not really a learning product, rather this is a learning process. An outcome statement must
be a learning product. At the end of the course what is it that the student can do? That will be an
outcome statement. Further the statement uses ‘variety of’ which is not be used. Specify what are
the abstract data types that the students have to learn and implement; and demonstrate their
understanding.
There may be 3-4 types or 5-6 types; state what they are, enumerate all of them, whatever be the
data types that the instructor is intending to cover. It could be a queue, a stack, a tree whatever
abstract data types the instructor plans to essentially cover in the given instructional unit must be
stated here. So this statement has two problems, the word ‘variety’ is not acceptable and this is
an activity that the student engages in during the course and not an outcome statement.
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Let us look at one more statement, ‘know the stress strain relation for a body subjected to loading
within elastic limit’. This is not an action that can be demonstrated, it is an internal change in the
minds of the students. While internal change is essential that change itself does not become an
outcome statement. An outcome statement must clearly state what the learner is expected to
perform or do. This does not indicate that. There is no action that can be demonstrated. So, again
this is an outcome of very poor quality.
Let us look at one more statement, ‘students will be able to learn the structure, properties and
applications of modern metallic materials, smart materials, non-metallic materials and advanced
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structural ceramics’. Is it an outcome statement? How to assess whether the outcome has been
attained or not? The statement is saying students will be able to learn. That again is essentially
an activity. It is not what the leaners will be able to do.
It states ‘students will be able to learn the structure’. Whereas an outcome statement should
indicate, what the ‘students will be able to do’. Thus, this is again not an outcome statement that
is acceptable.
‘Students will be aware of base band signals concepts and different equalizers’. Please think
about this as an outcome statement. Again, this is not an action that can be demonstrated, it only
states the expected change in the minds of the students. In other words, it indicates the expected
internal change, it does not state what is the activity that the students will be able to show, do,
demonstrate and thus it is again not an outcome statement of good quality.
It says, students will be aware of, an outcome statement must clearly specify what the students
will be able to do. It must start with an action verb.
‘Get compete knowledge regarding adaptive systems’. Same problem - not an action that can be
demonstrated, it is an internal change, it does not indicate what the students are expected to do or
perform. Moreover, it is too ambitious to be realistic. Complete knowledge is a word that is very
scary to use in any given context.
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Complete knowledge is something that is not realistic at all. Thus this statement also is statement
of very poor quality. There is no action verb, it does not indicate what the students are expected
to do or perform and it is not realistic. Getting complete knowledge and then demonstrating that
would be almost impossible.
So, we have seen several outcome statements and we have seen what are the reasons why these
statements cannot be considered as statements of good quality. One has to take considerable care
in writing the outcome statements. In our probability, the statements have to go through 2-3
rounds of iterations, 2-3 faculty can sit together, discus, revise and then after some gap again
look at the outcomes, see if they can be improved. So after 2-3 iterations it is likely that the
outcome statements will be of good quality.
So one should not look at writing the outcome statements as a mere formality of producing a
statement. one should write really outcome statements of good quality because the process does
not stop with just writing the outcome statements. Having written the outcome statements we
must design instruction to facilitate the students acquires those competencies. We must device
assessment whereby we can know what is the extent to which those outcomes have been attain,
then we have to close the quality loop at the level of the course.
There are several issues, which surround the quality of the outcome statement. So, we should be
looking at writing the outcome statements as a serious activity and the outcome statements must
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be of good quality, if the subsequent processes are to be carried out efficiently. So one should
pay attention to the way the outcome statements are written.
An exercise, write course outcomes of a course you are familiar with or taught paying attention
to all the dos and don’ts, making sure all the items in the checklist are taken care of. Please also
keep in mind the comments that we have made regarding the sample outcome statements that we
projected. Thank you for sharing the result of the exercise at nate.iiscta@gmail.com.
In the next unit we will look at tagging the Course Outcomes with the Program Outcomes,
Program Specific Outcomes, cognitive levels, knowledge categories addressed and the number
of classroom, laboratory or field sessions. Thank you and we will meet in the next unit. Thank
you.
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Lecture 19
Tagging Course Outcomes
Greetings, welcome to module 1, unit 18, Tagging the Course Outcomes. In the previous unit we
understood about the factors related to the quality of Course Outcome statements. We examined
how to write outcomes statements of good quality, what kind of errors could be committed while
writing the outcome statements and we also presented a checklist to ensure that the outcome
statements are of good quality.
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In this unit we will look at tagging the Course Outcomes with the POs Program Outcomes PSOs
Program Specific Outcomes, cognitive levels, knowledge categories addressed and the number
of classroom, laboratory and field sessions associated with the COs. We will also look at the
rational of why we need to tag the outcome statement with these elements.
Many universities describe the syllabi of their course in terms of units 5 or 6 or more units. All
units are associated with the same number of classroom sessions typically. If the policy is to
associate one CO with one unit then all the COs will necessary have the same number of
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classroom sessions. Because the units are equal sized, if there is one CO for one unit then all CO
will have the same number of classroom sessions associated with them.
Autonomous institutions are not required to follow the unit structure and may have the number
COs as decided by the course content and the teacher. Thus, different COs may have different
number of classroom sessions. And, we need to tag the COs with the number of sessions
associated with that CO, whether classroom sessions or laboratory sessions or field sessions or
combination of these. Why should be tag a CO with the number of sessions?
Later we will see that the COs have to be mapped to POs and PSOs and their mapping strength
has to be determined. We will see that associating the number of sessions required with a
particular CO would help us in determining the mapping strength. Another useful indicator
would be that if the number of classroom sessions is too small or too large it may be a pointer to
an outcome statement that may not be of very good quality.
If the number of classroom sessions associated with a particular CO is too small, probably the
CO is too specific and if the number of sessions is too large - probably the CO is also too
abstract. Again, there is no hard and fast tool as to what is the correct number of sessions that
should get associated with a particular outcome; but, very broadly we could say that if the
number is too small or if the number is too large probably we need to have re-look at the CO.
That is another reason why we try to figure out the number of classroom sessions associated with
a particular CO. This is only an approximate number, teacher can write this number based on her
experience of delivering the course it does not have to be a very exact figure, it can be an
approximate round figure that indicates roughly how much time would be required to deal with
the learning material related to that particular outcome.
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We have seen that the CO statement starts with an action verb from one of the cognitive levels,
so we should tag the CO with the associated cognitive level. The action verb enables you to tag
the CO with the cognitive level. We can use for simplicity sake, the acronyms R for Remember,
U for Understand, Ap for Apply, An for Analyze, E for Evaluate and C for Create. This is only
for convenience - one could write the full name also.
Occasionally we have seen that a CO may have two action verbs then it is tagged by two
cognitive levels. If we look at the way the action verbs are associated with the cognitive
processes. We have seen that sometimes the same action verb may be associated with two
different cognitive processes. For example, we have seen that ‘distinguish’ can be associated
with Understand, the cognitive process of Understand; as well, it can be associated with the
cognitive process of Analyze.
So tagging the CO with a cognitive level requires some judgments form the teacher. We should
not use the action verb blindly to determine what is the cognitive level associated with this
particular outcome statement. There is no sharp demarcation line between some cognitive levels;
there is a possibility of one action verb representing two different cognitive levels. So, one needs
to use judgement in such cases.
Now we tag the CO with the cognitive level because when it comes to assessment we need to
determine what should be the cognitive level of the assessment item. What should be the
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cognitive level of the question related to this CO, thus we need to tag the CO with the cognitive
level.
Also we should have outcomes at higher cognitive levels in order to promote deep learning. So,
when we tag the COs with the cognitive levels if you find that almost all the COs are at very low
cognitive levels, then we may have to relook at the way the course is planned to be delivered.
Thus, it is necessary to tag the CO with the cognitive levels.
Next we must tag the COs with knowledge categories, a CO statement includes one or more
categories of knowledge and CO statement itself may not explicitly indicate all the concerned
knowledge categories. Some knowledge categories may be implicitly addressed. The instructor
needs to decide these categories based on the proposed design of instruction and assessment.
As an example consider a design activity. The CO may dominantly include procedural

knowledge (we are assuming that the design is actually an apply activity). So, the CO may
dominantly include procedural knowledge, however it may implicitly include knowledge
categories of criteria and specifications and practical constraints. These may not be explicitly
stated in the CO statement but instructor must infer these based on a proposed deign of
instruction and assessment.
Now, why should be tag the outcome with the knowledge categories? The way the instruction is
planned would depend on the nature of knowledge category. If what the student is supposed to
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learn and demonstrate has a knowledge component which belongs to the procedural knowledge,
then the way is instruction is design would be different if the knowledge is to be of the
conceptual nature then the instruction would be different.
Thus tagging the outcome statement with the knowledge category would be helpful in designing
an appropriate instruction. However it is also true that in a very large number of institutes
including autonomous institutes much attention is really not paid to the knowledge categories.
The cognitive process alone is considered as an important attribute. However, if we can make
good use of the knowledge categories in designing the instruction we will be helping the students
with better learning.
We already know that students are expected to attain Program Outcomes specified by the NBA
and Program Specific Outcomes PSOs specified by the university or by the department. We also
know that the PO and PSOs are to be attained through courses, laboratory works, project works
and other activities in which all the students take part. Of these activities courses contribute in a
major way to the attainment of POs and PSOs.
Thus, we need to know what are the POs and PSOs which get attained when a particular CO is
attained. In other words, what is a relation between the CO and the POs and PSOs? If a particular
CO is attained by the student what does it mean in terms of the attainment of the PO and PSO?
Which POs and PSOs get attain because of the attainment of this particular CO.
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So, we need to map the COs to the relevant POs and PSOs. Again, there is no specific
algorithmic way of doing this mapping. The teacher has to look at the course content, what is
implied by the outcome statement, the Program Outcome statements, Program Specific Outcome
statements, what are implied by those statements and then see what are the POs and PSOs to
which a particular CO is related.
In fact, if we look at majority of the courses as they are offered at present, particularly in non-
autonomous institutions - they generally do not address strongly any PO other than PO1. It is
possible that PO2, PO3, PO4 and PO5 are addressed slightly by some courses, but that is also
rather doubtful but it is possible in some curricula. Hardly any course addresses complex
engineering problems. In fact the complexity of an engineering problem is not touched up on in
any curricula.
There may be some specific courses that address PO7, PO8, PO9, PO10 and PO11. Even some
activities may address PO12 - engineering society, environment and sustainability, ethics,
teamwork, projects, management and finance, communication, self-learning, lifelong learning.
These outcomes probably are addressed by some specific courses in some curricula. Projects can
potentially address many POs.
But the POs addressed must get reflected in the rubrics used to evaluate the projects. Tagging a
CO with any PO requires that assessment includes items related to the identified PO. Not only
assessment, instruction must clearly indicate that it is facilitating the attainment of that particular
PO. For example, if you tag a CO with PO12, (PO12 is lifelong learning) we must show
instructional activities design to facilitate learners acquire the knowledge skills and attitudes
required for lifelong learning.
We must also show that, that particular aspect is also assessed. Thus tagging a CO with any PO
requires that both instruction and assessment include items related to that identified PO. So the
mapping has to be done with certain care to ensure that the mapping can be justified.
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Even when a CO of a course has the potential to address multiple POs, it may be difficult to
conduct the necessary instruction and assessment to effectively address such POs within the
available time and resources. The constraint is that we have very limited time and the availability
of other resources also could be limited. Thus, even though the course has the potential to
address multiple POs, it may be difficult to conduct the necessary instruction and assessment.
Teacher has to use to discretion and if it is possible, feasible to conduct the necessary instruction
and assessment then she can map the CO to those POs. Assessment items, related to several POs
cannot be easily designed and even if designed, cannot be used easily in centrally conducted and
evaluated examinations.
A department can arrange for some activities outside the curriculum to address some POs. For
example, a department may include activities designed to promote lifelong learning among the
students. However, the scope and distribution of these activities need to be carefully planned by
the department. How much time would it consume? What are the resources required?
All these things have to be considered carefully by the department and then we can map the CO
to those POs. Thus, the mapping of CO with POs requires considerable care and careful
examination of the instruction as well as assessment that is being planned for that course.
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We need also tag COs with PSOs, if PSOs are written well there should not be any ambiguity
regarding the PSOs addressed by the course under consideration. All the COs of a course
typically address the same PSO or PSOs. Most often it is a single PSO that gets addressed by a
course. But occasionally there may be more than one PSO that is addressed by the course. But all
the COs of a course typically address the same PSO or PSOs
(Refer Slide time: 16:41)
This is an example of one mapping: Kinematics of machines credits 3:1:0, which means it is a
three hours of theory then one hour of tutorial and there is no laboratory session. So if you see
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there are seven outcomes which are written there. Let us look at as an example, the first outcome
CO1 illustrate the terminology of mechanisms.
Now this has three classroom sessions and one tutorial that means totally four hours. Now four
hours looks somewhat small but it may be acceptable but the teacher has to have a relook at this
CO, is it alright as an outcome statement of good quality. So there is a first sanity check that we
can have, the number of sessions, the number of classroom sessions, tutorial sessions, laboratory
sessions, field sessions devoted to a particular CO.
Then it gets mapped to PO1 and PSO1. The cognitive level, (CL indicates cognitive level), is at
Understand level and KC is knowledge category this is factual knowledge. So that is how we do
the mapping - the CO is mapped to PO, PSOs, cognitive level, knowledge category, the number
of classroom sessions including tutorials and laboratories devoted to this particular CO.
If you look at the second CO that is also mapped to PO1 and PSO1. That is also it be cognitive
level of understand, but the knowledge category is both conceptual and procedural and the
number of sessions devoted to that CO is six, five classroom sessions and one tutorial session. So
a total of six looks reassembly okay. So that is how we should look at the way we have written
the COs and a see if they are appropriate.
This is another example: Fluid Mechanics credits 4:0:0; that means four classroom hours per
week there are no tutorials, no laboratory sessions. Now if you see the first one CO1 understand
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the fundamentals of fluid mechanics and fluids that is also getting mapped to PO1 and PSO1, the
cognitive level is Understand, knowledge category is six and there are six classroom sessions.
But if you look at this course CO5 for example has fifteen classroom sessions devoted to that.
Now fifteen looks like a very large number fifteen out of total of fifty four sessions, it looks like
a very large number, designing instruction, designing assessment, may be somewhat difficult
when we have an outcome of such a large magnitude scope. So thus one has to relook. In fact if
you look at these it almost looks as if there are five units and there are five outcomes with one
outcome corresponding to each unit.
It may not be like that but it looks like that or there is a constraint that every course must have
exactly five outcomes. Thus we see that when we impose restrictions like that sometimes the
outcome statements may not be of good quality. So one has to use once discretions if one is
adopting a policy like that, so fifteen looks somewhat heavy.
Let us look at another course: Analog Circuits and Systems and this is 3:0:1 that means three
hours of classroom sessions, no tutorials, one laboratory session, one laboratory session typically
would mean two hours. Now this has got six Course Outcomes, the first one, ‘understand the
characteristics of linear one-port and two-port signal processing networks’; it is getting mapped
to PO1, PO10, and PSO1 and the cognitive level is Understand, the knowledge categories are
factual and conceptual.
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There are three classroom sessions, there is no laboratory associated with this CO. So again if
you see three looks like a very small number. So is the CO at a fairly low level of abstraction and
is it too narrow? We may have to revisit and look at that CO. Finally, we may decide that this is
acceptable but it needs a review.
Similarly if you look at CO4, design VCVS, CCVS, VCCS, CCCS and DC and SMPS voltage
regulators. It is getting mapped to PO3, PO4, PO5, PSO1. It is at the cognitive level of Apply
and the knowledge categories include the conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, criteria
and specifications and practical constraints. But if you look at the number of sessions devoted to
this CO, it is ten classroom sessions and four hours of laboratory. So again it looks somewhat a
heavy outcome, but after review the teacher may decide that this is acceptable.
So this is how after writing Course Outcome statements we must map them to POs, PSOs,
cognitive level, (CL is cognitive level), knowledge categories, (KC is knowledge categories); the
number of sessions, classrooms, laboratory as well as if there are field sessions, field sessions
devoted to that particular CO.
This would help us to first review whether the COs are appropriate then it would help us in
computing the attainment of COs, determining the mapping strength from COs to POs and PSOs;
and finally in determining the attainment of POs and PSOs. Thus, this is an extremely important
step in the total OBE process – ‘Tagging the course outcomes with relevant items’.
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So an exercise, write course outcomes of a course you are familiar with or taught and tag them
with Program Outcomes, Program Specific Outcomes, Cognitive Level, Knowledge Categories,
number of classroom, laboratory, field sessions associated with that particular CO and present it
in the table format indicated.
Once again please note that POs are Program Outcomes, PSOs are Program Specific Outcomes,
CL is Cognitive Level, R for Remember, U for Understand and so on. Remember, Understand,
Apply, Analyze, Evaluate and Create. So R, U for Understand, Ap for Apply, An for Analyze, E
for Evaluate and C for Create.
Then knowledge categories, four general categories, factual, conceptual, procedural,

metacognitive; then four engineering categories of knowledge. Then the class sessions, the
number of classroom sessions devoted to that CO, laboratory sessions and/or field sessions
devoted to that CO. So please present them in this tabular format and we suggest that for a
course that you are familiar with write all the course outcomes, whether five or six or seven
whatever be the number write the Course Outcomes for the entire course. Thank you for sharing
the results of the exercise at nate.iiscta@gmail.com.
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In the next unit we will look at the computation of the attainment of course outcomes and closing
of the quality loop at the course level. That means we set the targets for the attainment of the
Course Outcomes, we deliver the course, we compute the actual attainment of the Course
Outcomes.
If the Course Outcomes are lagging behind in terms of attainment what is the correct action to
be taken? And if the level of attainment is higher than the set targets what need to be done? All
these issues we need to discuss. So in the next unit we look at the attainment computation for the
course outcomes and closing the quality loop at the course level. Thank you and we will meet
with the next unit. Thank you.
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Lecture 20
Computing Attainment of COs
Greetings, welcome to module 1, unit 19, on Attainment of Course Outcomes. In the earlier
unit, we understood how to write outcomes of a course, and tag each course outcome with
POs, PSOs, cognitive level, knowledge categories and the number of sessions.
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In this unit we will look at the computation of the attainment of Course Outcomes and closing
the quality loop at the course level. So, the outcome for this unit is, ‘compute the attainment
of course outcomes, and close the quality loop at the course level’.
This figure depicts the overall process. We have a course, the course has Course Outcome
target; we set the targets for the attainment of Course Outcomes. The course is defined in
terms of Course Outcomes. These Course Outcomes are assessed as per assessment pattern.
The assessment pattern determines the assessment instruments. Performance of the students
in the assessment instruments determines the attainment of the Course Outcomes.
We have the attainment of Course Outcomes, and we have the targets set for the Course
Outcomes. By comparing these two we can determine the CO attainment gap. This gap leads
to either a plan for closing the CO gaps or enhancement of CO targets. If the attainments are
less than the targets, we need to plan for increasing the attainment level, the next time the
course is offered.
In other words, reduce the CO attainment gap. If the attainment levels are greater than or
equal to the target levels, we may enhance the targets to be achieved the next time the course
is offered. There is also another component in this diagram, the attainment of the course
Outcomes leads to the attainment of POs and PSOs through course/POs, PSOs matrix. We
will look at this aspect of attainment of POs and PSOs in the next unit.
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In the present unit our focus is on determining the attainment of Course Outcomes, setting the
targets for the Course Outcomes, determining the attainment gap and based on the gap acting
appropriately.
This is the sample course that we will use in this unit, Analog Circuits and Systems. It has a
credit structure of 3:0:1 that means three hours of regular classroom sessions and one credit
worth of laboratory session, which means that, two hours/week of laboratory work. We can
see that there are six Course Outcomes and totally there are 40 theory and 28 lab sessions.
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Let us look at the process for setting the CO attainment targets. There can be several
methods. Example 1 shows the first method: same target is identified for all the COs of a
course, we set the same target for all the COs. For example, the target can be ‘the class
average marks will be greater than or equal to 60 marks’.
That means with respect to every CO we expect that the performance of the students is such
that the average marks scored by the students would be greater than or equal to 60 percent.
This is a fairly simple method of setting the attainment targets.
Example 2 shows a more elaborate method for setting the targets. Targets are same for all the
COs, but now the targets are set in terms of performance levels of different groups of
students. We say for example, that the percentage of students getting less than 50% on the
average would be 10%, between 50% and 65% would be 40%, between 65% and 80% would
be again 40%. And the number of students scoring greater than or equal to 80 percent marks
would be 10% of the total student population.
That means this method classifies students into different categories, it does not provide any
specific clues to plans for improvement of quality of learning. Thus though this method looks
quite elaborate, it does not seem to be very helpful in terms of improvement plans that the
instructor has to make.
Example 3 shows yet another method for setting the targets. Targets are set for each CO of a
course and for different groups of students separately. We can see that the percentage of
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students scoring less than 50% marks is taken as one category, but within that category, the
targets are set differently for different COs.
For CO1, it is only 10% but for CO2 and CO3, it is 20% each, for CO4 it is again 10%, for
CO5, it is 20%, for CO6, it is 20%. All these percentages are within the category of the
students scoring less than 50% marks, similarly for other categories, thus this provides
considerable details, which can lead to specific plans for improvement. But this is fairly
elaborate and computation of the attainment values can become quite elaborate, complex and
somewhat messy.
Yet another method is given in example 4. Targets are set for each CO of a course separately,
but the target is set as a simple class average percentage. For example, for CO1, the target is
that the class average should be 70%, it means greater than or equal to 70%. CO2 the target is
80%, for CO3 the target is 75% and so on. This way of setting the targets does not directly
indicate the distribution of performance among the students. However it has the advantage of
finding out the difficulty of specific COs.
If the attainment of a particular CO is substantially lower than the target, this could indicate
that the students are having learning difficulties with respect to that specific CO, which
means that the instructor has to pay special attention to increasing attainment of the CO in the
next offering of this course and the student difficulties have to be overcome by specific plans.
Thus this way of setting the target gives specific plans for improving the performance in
certain COs based on the performance gaps.
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There can be one more method of setting the CO attainment targets. Targets are quantized
into certain levels, with three being the most common number of levels. That means, instead
of specifying a percentage, we specify the targets in terms of levels.
Level three is characterized by stating that the class average is greater than 70%. Level 2 is
characterized by stating that the class average is greater than 50%, but less than or equal to
70%; and Level 1, the lowest level is characterized by the class average be less than or equal
to 50%. Implicitly the aim is to attain level 3. This is yet another way of setting the CO
attainment targets.
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In this unit, we use the method indicated in example 4. That means targets are sets
independently for individual COs. So, for the example case study, we are setting the target for
CO1 as 70%, for CO2, 80% and so on. This method is fairly easy to use. It provides
information on the difficulty of attainment of targets CO-wise. Improvements also can be
planned CO-wise and computation is fairly simple.
However, institutes are free to adopt a different method for setting the targets for CO
attainment. Some Institutes adopt the approach where the targets are quantized into three
levels, that method is also fine. But what is important is that all the faculty use one single
common method for all the courses in all the programs.
Many institutes have generally a Cell for Internal Quality Assurance, what is generally called
as IQAC. If the institutes have such an IQAC, the IQAC can assume the responsibility for
specifying the common standard to be adopted in all the courses. It is important that one
single method is followed across the institute. Two popular methods are the method shown in
example 4 here and the method of quantizing that targets.
The attainment of COs can be computed directly and indirectly. Direct attainment of COs can
be determined from the performances of students in all the relevant assessment instruments.
We call it direct attainment, because it is determined directly from the performances of the
students, in Continuous Internal Revelation as well as Semester End Examination. This
method of determining the attainment from the performance of the students is called direct
attainment.
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Indirect attainment of COs can be determined from the Course Exit Survey. The exit survey
form should evidently permit receiving feedback from students on all the COs. Computation
of the indirect attainment of COs is based on the perception of the students. Primarily it is the
perception of the students, which is used to determine the attainment levels, thus this is called
indirect method and the percentage weightage to indirect attainment generally is kept at a low
value of say 10%.
The method of computing the CO attainment using the course exist surveys is optional as per
NBA. The department can use this method and have a weightage of 10% for this method or it
can ignore this method and determine the CO attainment based only on the performance of
the students. In other words, use only direct attainment. In this unit, we are using both direct
and indirect computation of the attainment of the COs.
Now, let us look at the direct CO attainment. Direct attainment of CO is determined from the
performances of the students in continuous internal evaluation and semester end examination.
The proportional weightages of CIE to SEE will be as per the academic regulations in force.
There is considerable variation in these regulations.
Depending upon whether it is a tier 1 institute, our tier 2 institute, there can be variation;
there can be variation within tier 1 institutes; there can be variation within tier 1 institutes as
well as tier 2 institutes. Proportions of 20 to 80, 25-75, 30-70, 40-60, 50-50 are all possible; it
depends upon the academic regulations being followed by the institute.
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Direct attainment of a specific CO is determined from the performances of the students to all
assessment items related to that particular CO. In order to do a computation in this method,
we need to have every assessment item tagged with the relevant CO. To determine the
attainment of a particular CO, we need to know, which are all the questions which are related
to that particular CO and what is the performance of the students with respect to those
specific questions.
So we need to know which questions are related to a particular CO and we also need data
about the performance the students in those specific assessment items. So, both these items
are important in order to determine the attainment of a CO in a direct way. Every assessment
item needs to be tagged with the relevant CO, we need the data about performances of
students, assessment item-wise.
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Let us look at direct CO attainment from Continuous Internal Evaluation. CIE is conducted
and evaluated by the department itself in both tier 1 and tier 2 institutes. Thus, both tier 1 and
tier 2 institutions have access to question-wise marks in all assessment instruments in CIE.
Because the assessment is done by the department itself, it can tag all the questions and it can
collect the responses of the students question-wise.
It will have access to question-wise marks in all assessment instruments in CIE. When
questions are tagged with relevant COs, the department has access to performance of the
students with respect to each CO. Hence, computing the direct attainment of COs from CIE is
straightforward for both tier 1 and tier 2 institutes. All the required data is easily available
and the department can compute the direct CO attainment from CIE in an extremely
straightforward fashion.
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When it comes to direct CO attainment from SEE there are certain issues. Semester End
Examination is conducted and evaluated by the department itself in tier 1 institutes. However,
in tier 2 institutes the SEE is conducted and evaluated by the affiliating university. In tier 1
institutes the Semester End Examination is the responsibility of the institute itself, thus
departments in tier 1 institutions have access to question-wise marks in SEE also.
We are making this claim assuming that the office of the Controller of Examinations is able
to provide such data. In other words, the questions in SEE are tagged with the COs and the
responses are tabulated question-wise. The Controller of Examinations should provide such
data to the departments. Assuming that such a process exists, the departments in tier 1
institutions have access to question wise marks in SEE also.
When questions are tagged with relevant COs, the department has access to performances of
the students with respect to each CO. Hence, computing the direct attainment of COs from
SEE is straightforward for tier 1 institutions.
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However, as we noted, SEE is conducted and evaluated by the University for tier 2 institutes,
thus the departments in tier 2 institutes get only total marks scored in SEE and not question-
wise marks. The total marks scored by a student are made available to the department, thus
the department will not have access to question-wise marks and some cases it may so happen
that even this information is not available to the department.
There are certain universities where the CIE performance is combined with the SEE
performance and the final grade obtained by the student is only communicated to the
department. Thus the department will have access only to the final grade scored by the
student; it does not have even direct access to the total marks scored in the SEE also.
In such cases, the department can work backwards and determine what could be the
percentage of marks scored in the Semester End Examination. However, question-wise
marks, it is almost impossible for a department to get when it is in a tire 2 institute.
Departments in tier 2 institutes have no means of computing the direct attainment of
individual COs from SEE, because the relevant data is not available with them.
But the SEE performance cannot be ignored either; the department has no mechanism for
computing the direct attainment of individual COs, at the same time, it cannot ignore the SEE
performance. The only possible solution, though not satisfactory, is to treat the average marks
in a SEE as the common attainment of all COs. One single score - the total score of the
student is treated as the attainment with respect to each CO.
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Evidently, this is not a satisfactory solution, but there does not appear at present to be any
alternative to this unsatisfactory solution.
Let us look at one example calculation to see how this process works. This is the assessment
plan for CIE in a tier 1 institute. A total of 40 marks are allocated for the CIE. The CIE
comprises of four assessment instruments, two assignments and two tests, the assignments are
five marks each and the tests are for 15 marks each. CO1 is to be addressed in test 1 only,
CO2 is addressed in assignment 1 and test 1, similarly, CO3 is addressed in assignment 1,
assignment 2, test 1 as well as test 2. CO4 is addressed in a assignment 1, assignment 2 and
test 2. CO5 is addressed in assignment 2 and test 2, CO6 is addressed in test 2.
This kind of a plan needs to be made upfront and the total number of marks allocated are also
mentioned here, for CO1, the number of questions related to that particular CO amount to a
total of five marks, for the CO2 we can see that in assignment 1 there are two marks
allocated, in test 1 there are five marks allocated, so totally there are seve marks allocated to
CO2.
For CO3 the total marks allocated are 1 + 1 + 5 + 3, that means it is ten marks. For CO4 it is
nine marks, for CO5 it is 2 + 4, six marks and for CO6 it is three marks. Thus we know the
total marks allocated to each CO. The number of questions can be different, but the total
marks we can see from the assessment plan.
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Now we need to determine, what is the average performance of the students in all these
assessment instruments. That would give us an indication of the direct attainment of COs
from the CIE.
So, this shows the class average for the same example, for CO1 out of the five marks the
average performance of the students in the class amounts to, 3.3 marks. So, we can say that
the CO attainment is 3.3 out of five which is equal to 66%; which is shown in the last
column. All the questions related to CO1 amount to 5 marks and the responses of the students
to these questions are evaluated and their average performance turns out to be 3.3 marks.
So, they have scored on the average 3.3 marks out of five marks, so the class average
percentage is 3.3 out of five which is 66, so we take this 66% as the CO attainment in the
CIE. Similarly, for CO2, CO3, CO4, CO5 and CO6 we will do the calculations. For example,
let us look at CO3, one mark is there in assignment 1, the average performances is 0.7. In
assignment 2 again there is a o mark question and the average performance is 0.75.
In test 1, it is 3.8 out of 5, in test 2 it is 2.3 out of 3. So, as a total if we consider 7.55 marks
out of 10 marks, which is 75.5 percentage.
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Now, for the same tier 1 college, let us look at the performance in the Semester End
Examinations, because it is a tier 1 institute, it has access to all the relevant data and it can
determine the performance of the students CO-wise. So, we get for CO1, the class average is
63%, for CO2 it is 61% and so on. Notice that, because it is a tier 1 institute, we are able to
compute the class average CO-wise. So, we get the attainment from SEE for each CO.
The computation of the direct attainment of a CO for a tier 1 college would be to combine the
class average in the CIE, with the class average in the SEE. The proportion in which they are
combined would depend, (as I mentioned earlier) on the academic regulations enforced at that
time. In this example, we are assuming that the relative weightages are 40% and 60%.
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That means the attainment of the particular CO is equal to 0.4 into attainment of that CO in
CIE plus 0.6 into the attainment of that CO in the SEE, which is nothing but the class average
in the CIE multiplied with 0.4 plus the class average in the SEE multiplied with 0.6.There can
be other ratios then the competition will vary accordingly. For example, for CO1, we have
seen that the class average in CIE is 66%, the class average in SEE is 63%; so 0.4 into 66
plus 0.6 into 63 that will be equal to 64.2. So, that is taken as the direct CO attainment.
Similarly for other COs.
Then the total attainment of a CO is computed by combining the direct attainment with the
indirect attainment in appropriate percentages. In most of the institutes the weightage given to
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the indirect attainment is no more than 10%, we already mentioned that the indirect CO
attainment is based on the perceptions of the students and thus it is given a low weightage.
In this example, we are assuming that the indirect CO attainment has 10% weightage and the
direct CO attainment has 90% weightage. So, the total attainment of the CO is computed as
0.9 into direct CO attainment value plus 0.1 into indirect CO attainment value. This
computation is shown in the following table. For example, for CO1, we have seen in this
table that the direct attainment value is 64.2. We use that 64.2 value here and we assume that
from an exit survey, the CO attainment values have been determined for all the COs and for
CO1 it is 78%.
From all the assessment instruments in the CIE and SEE put together the direct CO
attainment is 64.2 and the indirect CO attainment is 78. Combining these two 0.9 into 64.2
plus 0.1 into 78 gives us the total CO attainments as rounded value of 66%. So, it looks a
little bit complex, but it is fairly straightforward. Determine the direct CO attainment from
CIE, determine the direct CO attainment from SEE, and combine these two in appropriate
weightage to get total direct attainment.
Combine that with indirect attainment in appropriate proportion to get the total CO
attainment. That is how the calculations are done and this obviously can be done by a tool, if
a tool is available or this can be easily done in some kind of a spreadsheet like excel.
The final step is to determine the attainment gap. For each CO we have set a target. Now we
have computed the attainment, so we can determine the gaps. For CO1, the target that we set
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was 60%, the attainment is 66% that means the attainment is more than the target. So, the gap
is negative target but minus attainment if you take this is minus 6%, which means that when
the gap is less than or equal to 0, target is attained or exceeded.
For CO2 the target is 75% but attainment is only 70% that means, still there is a gap of 5%.
The attainment of this CO has to be better the next time the course is offered to reduce the
attainment gap. Similarly, for CO3 the gap is 5%, for CO4 it is minus 2 and so on. From this
table we can see that, we have been able to attain CO1 as well as CO4, in both cases the
attainment value is greater than the target.
In the remaining cases the attainment is lagging behind the target and the maximum gap
exists with respect to CO5. The target was 80%, but the attainment was only 71%. If the gap
is greater than 0, the target is not attained, improvements must be planned to increase the
attainment, the next time the course is offered. If the gap is less than or equal to 0, target is
attained or exceeded, so, attainment target may be enhanced next time.
The final step would be to close the quality loop. For each CO, we know the target, we know
the attainment gap. If the attainment gap is negative, it means that the attainment is greater
than or equal to target, so we can increase the target for the next offering of the course. So for
CO1, the gap is minus 6%, the attainment is greater than the target, so the action taken is to
increase the target to 70%.
For CO2, there is a gap of 5% that means that we must make specific plans for improving the
attainment of CO2 next time the course is offered. So, the improvement plans proposed by
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the instructor or explain in detail the need for macro modeling and the models of BJTs and
FETs. Another plan is present the parameters of presently available commercial devices.
Similarly, for all other COs wherever the gap is positive, actions are proposed to bridge the
gap, wherever the gap is negative, the target is increased.
A similar calculation we can see for tier 2 college. This process is quite similar to what we
have done for tier 1 college, except that the SEE data is used differently, because in a tire 2
institute we will not be able to get question-wise marks of the students. So, sample
assessment plan for CIE is quite similar.
The total marks for CIE, 25, 1 assignment and 2 tests. The class averages in the institute are
computed as we did with tier 1 college and the percentages are shown in the last column.
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Then, we have to combine the class average in the CIE with the class average in SEE. This is
where the competition in a tire 2 institute differs from the computation in a tire 1 institute.
We can see in the column under SEE that the same number is appearing. This is actually the
average performance of the students in the SEE that means it is across all the COs.
But because we do not have question-wise data, we are assuming that this value is same for
all the COs. This is not a satisfactory solution, but at present, there does not appear to be any
alternative. So, we use the same value of 63 for all the COs, rest of the calculation is quite
similar to what we have done for tier 1 college. Here the ratios are different, it is 25:75,
between CIE and SEE.
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So, 0.25 into attainment in CIE plus 0.75 into the attainment in SEE; gives the direct CO
attainment value shown in the last column. That in turn is combined with the indirect CO
attainment value obtained from the exit survey and that gives us the total CO attainment as a
rounded percentage shown in the last column. This enter process is quite similar to what we
followed in tier 1 college.
Then we have to do again an attainment gap determination. The last column shows the gap.
Only in the case of CO1, the attainment exceeded the target and there are gaps with respect to
all the other COs. With respect to CO5, we can see that there is a substantial gap, target is
80% but attainment is only 63%, so the gap is fairly substantial 17%. This is an indication
that we have to pay greater attention to CO5 next time the course is offered.
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Closure of the quality loop, similar as in the case of tier 1, when the target was attained the
target is revised, in the case of CO1, it becomes 65%. With respect to all other COs actions
are proposed to bridge the gap.
With respect to planning the activities for improving the CO attainments certain observations
are necessary. Action plans need to be as specific as possible. Avoid fuzzy phrases like,
‘motivate the students better’, ‘work harder’, these really are not translatable into any specific
concrete actions; Avoid statements which are of this nature; avoid fuzzy vague statements;
Make the plans as specific as possible.
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Indicate if any additional resources are required to implement the improvement plans. The
additional resources can be physical resources, or learning resources in the form of E-
resources. Physical resources can be additional equipment to be purchased or additional
facilities to be created. It is also a good idea to indicate the approximate cost of such
resources if they are not freely available. Indicate any additional resources required
Indicate if any changes in the lesson plan are required. If we are spending more time on a
particular CO that means that the total time available for addressing the remaining COs is
coming down. So it may be necessary to revisit the lesson plan. Indicate where such changes
would be required. If possible, have the action plans reviewed by peers. It is always good to
have a peer review of the action plans.
Increasing the CO attainment targets, when they are quantized can be slightly different. If the
target is specified as an absolute percentage, increasing the target would simply mean
increasing the number. If the original target was 70%, increasing the target would mean for
example, raising it to 75%. But when it is quantized, we increase the target by making the
bounds tighter, increasing the targets associated with the levels.
For example, level 3 might have been characterized originally as class average being greater
than 70%. When we want to increase the target we will make the bounds tighter. Class
average should be now greater than 75% if the attainment is to be considered as at level 3.
Level 2, earlier the range was 50% to 70%, now we make it as 60% to 75%.
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Earlier level 1 was class average is less than or equal to 50%, now, the level 1 is class
average is less than or equal to 60%. For example, if the class average is 55% according to
the original target it would have been considered as achievement at level 2, but now, it would
be considered as attainment at level 1 only. So, that is how we can increase the targets when
the levels are quantized.
By way of conclusion, we can first notice that there is no unique way of setting the targets for
the attainment of COs. We have discussed five different methods; there can be many more
methods for setting the targets for the attainment of COs. What is important is that one single
method is followed across the institute.
There is no unique way of computing the attainment of COs. There is no unique way of
increasing the attainment targets. If the target has been achieved, by what amount the target
should be increased? If we have set a target of 60% and the actual attainment is 65%, what is
the level to which the target should be revised? There is no unique way.
In fact, it is quite possible to retain the same target level with the justification that we would
like to observe if this level can be attained by the next batch also and if that happens, we
would like to increase the target. We can give a justification like that and retain the same
target level, thus there is no unique way of increasing the attainment targets.
Even when we want to upgrade the target, what is the extent by which it should be raised?
There is no unique answer to that. Again, there is no unique way of planning for
improvements in the attainment of COs, which means that in all these processes, the initiative
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of the faculty involved, the resources available with the department and the consensus
arrived-at by the faculty play an important role.
In the entire process of OBE faculty play a crucial role, the instructors how to decide how to
set the targets, how to determine the attainments, how to increase the attainment targets, how
to plan for improvement. Ofcourse it is true that with respect to setting the targets and
computing the attainments the process to be followed has to be uniform across the institute.
But for increasing the target levels as well as for planning for improvement, faculty has to
creatively think and arrive at the proper answers. Focus anyway is to present evidence based
demonstration that the department is striving to improve the attainments of the COs and is
achieving better attainments of COs with each succeeding batch of students that means the
department is on a growth trajectory.
An exercise: set CO attainment targets, compute CO attainment, and plan for improvement of
learning for the course, you have the Course Outcomes. Use hypothetical numbers if you do
not have access to the actual data of the performance of the students.
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In the next unit we will look at computing the attainment of POs and PSOs and closing the
quality loop around POs and PSOs, that is closing the quality loop at the program level.
Thank you, will meet with unit 20. Thank you.
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Lecture 21
Computing PO and PSOs Attainment
Greetings, welcome to module 1, unit 20 on Attainment of POs and PSOs. In the earlier unit,
we understood how to set targets and compute the attainments of Course Outcomes and close
the quality loop at the course level.
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In this unit, we will look at setting the targets and computing the attainment of POs and PSOs
and closing the quality loop at the program level. So the outcome for this unit: ‘set targets and
compute the attainments of POs and PSOs and close the quality loop at the program level’.
We already have seen that POs and PSOs are addressed through core courses, projects (both
major and mini), seminars, presentations, internships, co-curricular and extra-curricular
activities in which all the students participate. Predominantly it is the courses which
contribute to the attainment of POs and PSOs, but there are other important activities like
projects, seminars, which contribute to the attainment of POs and PSOs.
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For any activity to be considered for computing the attainment of POs and PSOs, all students
of a program are required to participate in that activity. This is an extremely important
requirement and that is how - even though electives play an important role in providing depth
and contributing to the attainment of POs; their attainments are not included in computing the
attainment of POs and PSOs.
Electives are important, however, they are not considered for computing the attainments of
POs and PSOs, as all students may not be crediting them. For activities to be included for
computing the attainment; related student performance should be measurable; this becomes
important when we consider co-curricular and extra-curricular activities.
Even if all the students are participating in these activities, in order to consider them in
computing the attainment of POs and PSOs, we must have appropriate rubrics through which
their performance is measured and quantified. Thus we need to have two considerations, all
the students must participate in that activity and their performance must be measured. In such
cases, we can consider that activity for computing the attainment of POs and PSOs.
This figure depicts the broad process of PO/PSO attainment and closing the quality loop at
the program level. PO/PSO attainment for the program through core courses, projects,
presentations, co-curricular activities, extracurricular activities, seminars, all such activities
that leads to the PO/PSO attainment. Initially we set targets for the attainment of POs and
PSOs, comparing the targets and attainments we determine the PO, PSO attainment gaps.
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This analysis leads to either plans for closing the PO, PSO gaps, are for enhancement of the
PO, PSO targets. If the attainment is greater than or equal to the target, then the targets are
enhanced; if the attainment lags behind the target, plans are made for closing the attainment
gap.
POs and PSOs are attained mainly through core courses. Each Course Outcome addresses a
subset of POs and PSOs to varying levels or strengths. These strengths are characterized into
three levels as per NBA level 1, level 2 or level 3. Sometimes we may apriori determine the
POs/PSOs a course should address and the COs may have to be written to meet the identified
POs and PSOs.
This may happen when the department decides that a particular PO is not being addressed
adequately by the curriculum and hence, decides to address that particular PO through a
specific course.
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The strength of PO/PSO mapping to the COs needs to be determined, because attainment of a
PO or a PSO depends both on the attainment levels of the associated COs and the strengths to
which it is mapped. The higher the attainment of a CO, the higher will be the attainment of
the associated PO. The stronger the mapping strength between CO and PO, the stronger will
be the influence of that CO on that particular PO.
Thus the attainment of a PO or a PSO depends both on the attainment levels of the CO and
the strength to which it is mapped. So, it is necessary to determine the mapping strength
between a CO and the relevant POs and PSOs. The mapping strength as per NBA has three
levels, 1 is low, 2 is medium, and 3 is strong.
Several methods can be worked to determine the strength of the PO, PSO mapping, but
implementing them across a few hundred courses can become a burden. So, once again, it is
convenient if the entire Institute follows one common method of determining the strength of
mapping between a CO and a PO.
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One simple method is to relate the level of mapping to a PO, or PSO with the number of
hours devoted to the COs, which address that particular PO that is taken as a whole. How
many COs address a particular PO and how much time is spent on all these COs together? In
other words, how much time is spent on content that is related to a specific PO?
If greater than 40% of classroom sessions, tutorials, lab hours address a particular PO, then it
is considered that that PO is addressed at level 3. If between 25% and 40% of the classroom
sessions, tutorials, lab hours addressed a particular PO, it is considered that the PO is
addressed at level 2. Between 5% and 25% it is considered as level 1. If less than 5% of
classroom sessions tutorials, lab hours addressed a particular PO it is considered that the PO
is not at all addressed.
There is nothing magical about these numbers of 40%, 25%, 5% and etcetera, it is just a
reasonable value. Institute can adopt any other reasonable values; the value should be same
across the Institute. IQAC after some brainstorming can arrive at certain suitable numbers to
be used and the entire Institute can use the same numbers.
For example, a particular Institute may wish to say that it is considered that the mapping is at
level 3, only when more than 60% of the classroom sessions/tutorials/lab hours address a
particular PO, it is perfectly fine. These are all subjective judgments and any reasonable
numbers can be used, the only requirement is that the entire Institute must follow one single
process.
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As an example, let us look at this course of Analog Circuits and Systems with the credits of
3:0:1, three credits of theory and one credit of lab. So the Course Outcomes are given and the
POs and PSOs addressed by that particular CO are also mentioned. You can see for example
that CO1 is related to PO1, PO10 and PSO1 and it has three classroom sessions and there are
no lab sessions.
Similarly, if you look at CO6 it addresses the PO3, PO4, PO5 and PSO1. It has six classroom
sessions and eight laboratory hours. So, we determine what are the POs and PSOs addressed
by a particular CO. Earlier we already have tagged the CO with the number of classroom
sessions, tutorial sessions if they are, as well as lab sessions.
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Now we determine for each PO which are all the relevant COs. Looking back at this table, we
see that PO1 is addressed by CO1, CO3 - that is all. So, we make a table for each PO, which
are all the COs which addressed that particular PO. PO1 is addressed by CO1 and C 3, CO 1
has three sessions, CO3 has eight sessions, so the total number of sessions devoted to PO1
would be eleven. Similarly PO2 is addressed only by CO2, the total number of sessions is
thirteen.
Similar calculations we will do for PO3, PO4, PO5, PO10 and PSO1. It is clear that the
remaining POs are not addressed by this course at all. PO6 to PO12, PSO2 they are not
addressed by this course. So we determine how much time is being spent on content that is
related to particular PO.
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Based on the number of sessions devoted we determine, what is the mapping strength
between the course as a whole and that particular PO and PSO. For example, for PO1, we are
spending eleven hours out of 68 hours of total that means 60% of the classroom sessions and
laboratory sessions are devoted to PO1, so, we claim the mapping strength is 1.
Similarly, the mapping strength is 1 for PO2, for PO3, PO4 and PO5 the mapping strength is
3, because 44 sessions out of a total of 68 sessions that means 65% of the sessions are
devoted to those POs, so, the mappings strength is 3. For PSO1, the mapping strength is again
3, 100% of the sessions are devoted to PSO1. That is how we determine the mapping strength
between the course and the POs and PSOs.
Once we determine the mapping strength like this, the same number applies to individual CO/
PO mappings that means that once we say that the mapping strength of the course to PO1 is
1, CO1-PO1, CO3-PO1, the mapping strength will be 1 each. CO2-PO2, mapping strength
will be 1, CO4-PO3, CO5-PO3, CO6-PO3, the mapping strength will be 3. That is how the
mapping strengths are plotted in the table.
Finally, we get one single line indicating, what is the mapping strength between this course
and POs and PSOs, we see that there is a mapping between this course and PO1, PO2, PO3,
PO4, PO5. No for PO6 PO7, PO8 and PO9. PO10 there is a mapping strength of 1; PO11,
PO12 again it is 0 between this course and PSO1 the mapping strength is 3, between this
course and PSO2 the mapping strength is 0.
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So, that is how we determine the mapping strength between the course and the POs and
PSOs. That means that this course contributes to the attainment of POs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10
and PSO1. It does not contribute anything to the attainment of the remaining PSOs or POs.
There is an alternative method of CO-PO/PSO mapping. The present version of the software
used for uploading the SAR expects individual CO-PO/PSO mapping entries. Then it
calculates the course - PO/PSO mapping strengths automatically by computing the average
mapping lengths, column-wise.
It is possible to compute the mapping strength as discussed already and enter these mapping
values. Alternatively, teacher can estimate the mapping strengths between specific COs and
POs or PSPs based on her subjective perception, taking into account the number of class
sessions as well as the nature of the course content. Such estimated values can be entered into
the system.
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This is an example which shows only the non-zero mapping entries, the mapping strength
between CO1 and PO1 is estimated as 1 by the teacher. Now how the teacher estimates that
the mapping strength between CO1 and PO1 is 1, it is her subject to perception regarding the
content that is related to CO1 and the nature of PO1. She may also take into account the
number of classroom sessions devoted to CO1.
But, ultimately it is the perception of the teacher and the teacher must be able to justify, why
this mapping value is considered as correct by her. So, teacher enters CO1-PO1 mapping as
1, CO3-PO1 mapping as 3 and no other CO is mapped to PO1 and thus the average mapping
strength to PO1 if you see, it is 1 plus 3 divided by 2, which is 2.
This calculation is done automatically by the tool, of course that is how the tool works today.
Future’s versions may change at the time of uploading the SAR, one has to look at what are
the specific features of the software and adopt the processes accordingly. Similarly, teacher
enters the mapping strengths between other COs and POs, and the system automatically
calculates the average mapping strengths.
Thus according to the tool, the course has a mapping strength of 2 with respect to PO1, 2 with
respect to PO2, 2.3 with respect to PO3, 2.3 with respect to PO4, 2.7 with respect to PO5, 1
with respect to PO10 and 2.7 with respect to PSO1. Notice that fractional values are quite
possible, because it computes the average column-wise. For example, for PO3, the mapping
strengths are 3, 2 and 2, so the average value is 2.3 - fractions are possible.
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So, based on this alternative method if you do, the mapping strengths would be that 2, 2, 2.3,
2.3, 2.7 and to PO10 it is 1 and to PSO1 it is 2.7, of course here we are showing only the non-
zero values. The mapping strengths to PO6 to PO12 and PS 2 are equal to zero in this course.
In the rest of the module, we will use the first method. However, instructor is free to use the
second method if the institute has a policy of using the second method.
The actual attainment of a PO or PSO depends both on the attainment of the relevant COs as
well as a scale factor which depends upon the mapping strength. So, the attainment of a PO
or PSO is equal to average attainment of the relevant COs. if there are four COs which are
getting mapped to that PO, what is the average attainment of all those four COs? That is
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multiplied by the actual mapping strength divided by the maximum possible mapping
strength which is 3. So, that is a scale factor.
If the mapping strength is 3, then the average attainment of the relevant COs, becomes
directly equal to the attainment of POs or PSOs. The lower the mapping strength, the lower
will be the value attributed to PO or PSO.
The total CO attainment from the earlier unit that is module 1, unit 19, we have copied the
same values for a tier 2 college; these are the total CO attainments rounded percentages. CO1
63%, CO2, 67% and so on. We will use these values and the mapping strength to determine
the attainment of PO and PSO.
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So, if you see the POs and PSOs attainment, PO1 is addressed by 2 COs, CO1 and CO3; the
mapping strength is 1. So first we determine, what is the average attainment because of the
relevant COs? That means the average of the attainments of CO1 and CO3. We saw that CO
1 attainment is 63 and the CO3 attainment is 67. So on the last column if you see, first we
determine the average, 63 plus 67 divided by 2 that gives us a value.
Now this is modified based on a mapping strength, mapping strength is 1, so this average is
multiplied by 1 by 3, giving us a rounded percentage of 22. In a similar way, the calculation
for PO2 shows that the attainment is 22%. If we look at the calculation of the attainment of
PO3 or PO4 or PO5 or PSO1, we see that the scale factor is 1, because the mapping strength
is 1 and the maximum possible mapping strength is 3; and the actual mapping strength is also
3, so, the skill factor becomes 1.
Thus the average attainment of the relevant COs becomes the attainment of that particular
PO. For PO3, the relevant COs are CO4, CO5 and CO6 their average attainment of 66
becomes the attainment of PO3, that is how the calculations are done for the attainment of
POs and PSOs.
So, this summarizes the contribution of this particular course, towards POs and PSOs. One
row shows the mapping strength another row shows the attainment. In other words, because
of this course, the attainment of POs are - 22% for PO1, 22% for PO2, 66% for PO3 and so
on. This is the contribution from this one single core course.
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We will have to determine the contributions from all other activities to determine the direct
attainment of the POs and PSOs. So, if there are some 30 core courses we will have to
determine the contribution from each course, there will be one such row corresponding to
each core activity.
Whether it is a core course, or whether it is a core seminar or whether it is a project work that
is a core activity or whether it is a co-curricular or extracurricular activity in which all
students participate. Each core activity becomes one row in such a matrix.
So, this is how a matrix will look, each course is shown and its contribution towards the
attainment of POs and PSOs is also shown. So when we take the average of a column, it gives
us the direct attainment of that particular PO or PSO. For example, if you look at PO1, there
are contributions from several core courses and other activities - 0.22, 0.22, then 0.86 like
that, the average is 0.69; that means the average direct attainment of PO1 is 0.69.
Similarly, the average direct attainment of PO2 is 0.7, similarly, we calculate the average
direct attainments of all the other POs as well as PSOs. We can see that the average direct
attainment of PSO1 is 0.82, the average direct attainment of PSO2 is 0.78.
These calculations are also done automatically by the tool at present. The present software
through which SAR is uploaded does this average calculations automatically, it takes the
number of non-zero entries in a column as the denominator and determines the average and
calculates and outputs that value automatically.
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We can show the attainments of POs and PSOs normalized to 1, because it becomes easier to
understand. Attainments are calculated for all core activities including core courses, seminars
projects, performance in any co-curricular and extracurricular activity, which is evaluated as
per declared rubrics is also treated as a course; then the average attainment of POs and PSOs
are computed.
As I just now mentioned, the present version of the software used for uploading SAR, uses
the number of non-zero entries in a column to compute the average automatically. Future’s
versions may change this procedure and if the procedure is changed, the institute has to adapt
to that procedure. That is how the direct attainment of POs and PSOs is computed.
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The total attainment of POs and PSOs is computed using the direct attainment as well as
indirect attainment which is based on the relevant surveys. The indirect attainment is
computed based on graduate exit survey, alumni survey and employer survey. We will look at
the details of how these surveys are conducted and how the data from these surveys is used to
determine the indirect attainment in a later unit.
Here, we are assuming that these surveys are used to determine the indirect attainment of the
POs and PSOs. The direct attainment is combined with indirect attainment using suitable
weights. Typical values used by most of the institutes at present are 0.8 and 0.2. Thus the
total attainment of a PO or PSO will be computed as 0.8 times direct attainment plus 0.2
times indirect attainment.
This is one example calculation for PO10. Direct attainment based on all relevant academic
activities, which means all the core courses which map to PO10, all the other activities which
map to PO10 including project, seminars, co-curricular, extracurricular activities, based on
the performance of students in all these activities, the direct attainment has been computed as
0.25, normalized between 0 and 1.
Indirect attainment based on all relevant surveys was determined to be 0.35. Combining
them, the total attainment of PO10 for this batch of students will be 0.8 multiplied by 0.25
plus 0.2 multiplied by 0.35 is equal to 0.27. This type of calculation has to be repeated for
every PO and PSO.
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Then we need to look at setting the targets for POs and PSOs. There is no unique method or
prescribed method for setting the targets for POs and PSOs. It is the perception of the
department regarding various contextual factors, like the quality of the student intake, the
quality of the resources available, performance history of the students, these are all the issues
which the department has to take into account and set reasonable targets.
So set the attainment targets with consultation. Among the POs, probably only PO1 is really
addressed well by most of the courses not many POs from PO6 to PO12 are addressed
directly by most of the programs. There need not be any concern, if the target for a PO is
quite low, for example 0.3. Particularly tier 2 institutes will have difficulty in attaining some
of the POs, because most of the curriculum do not address those POs.
So the institute can set a modest target to begin with and as that level is achieved, it can aim
for higher levels of attainment. So, a department does not have to have too much of worry if
the target is set low. All PSOs, on the other hand are generally addressed well. Thus the
targets can be reasonably high.
For example, realistic targets of 0.6 and above are feasible for PSOs. Because PSOs are
developed based on the curriculum and typically, that means that PSOs are addressed well by
the curriculum. So the program can hope to achieve higher attainment levels. So values of 0.6
and above are quite feasible in most of the programs. In anyway, absolute targets are of less
concern then continual improvement.
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Closing the quality loop at the program level, this is the final stage. For each PO and PSO we
have set the attainment target, we determined the total attainment value, then we need to
close the quality loop at the program level. If attainment is less than target, then plan
improvement actions. If attainment is greater than or equal to target then increase the target
realistically.
Wide choices exist for improvement plans because we are considering the improvement plans
or the entire four year program. So, we can have the improvement plans in any particular
year, any particular semester with respect to any particular activity. So, there can be wide
choice with respect to the semester, the course, the activity, where the improvements are
being planned.
When we look at the improvement plans for a specific course it is quite a limited choice, but
when we look at improvement plans for PO or PSO the choice is quite wide.
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One example PO10, combined attainment is 0.25, the target was set as 0.35, so, there is a gap
of 0.10. The improvement action plan says, ‘add an extra communication lab in the third
semester as a value added core course’. So, this activity is being planned in the third
semester. Introduce a seminar starting from the third semester, add in the 4 th semester a 5 day
workshop on communication skills.
We can see that the improvement action plans are actually spread over both 3 rd semester as
well as 4th semester. This also means that this cannot be carried out for the next immediate
batch. It has to be done only for the batch coming after that. These are all the considerations
that a department must take into account while planning the action plans for improvement in
the attainment of the POs and PSOs.
Again, if this involves any additional infrastructure, the department must prepare an estimate
of the cost involved and submit it to the management. For example, if we are adding an extra
communication lab that would cost. So some kind of an estimate would be required. Make
the improvement plans again as specific as possible; avoid vague and fuzzy phrases like
‘motivate the students better’.
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So, as conclusions we can say, determining the strength to which a PO or a PSO is addressed
and computing the attainments or approximations at best, because we are looking at the
computing the attainment of PO or PSO over a four year period based on several core courses
and several other core activities. Each one depends on the mapping strength also, thus the
final calculations anyway are approximations at best.
Even if a more precise computation of PO/PSO attainment is possible, the effort involved
may not be really worth it. What is important is to follow one method across the institute,
strive for continual improvement in attainment and demonstrate the improvements with the
evidence. The core philosophy of NBA is that the department strives for continual
improvements.
If we can demonstrate with evidence that such an improvement is happening, then that would
show the quality path being pursued by the department. That is extremely important, and in
fact that is more important than the actual numbers.
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An exercise: set realistic attainment targets for POs and PSOs, compute their attainments and
plan for improvements of their attainments, for the program for which you are working. Use
hypothetical numbers if you do not have access to the actual data.
This concludes our module 1 and in the next module, we will look at Instructional System
Design for an engineering course in the framework provided by NBA. So that will be module
2. Thank you very much, and we will meet again with module 2. Thank you.
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Professor N.J. Rao
Department of Electronics System engineering
Lecture 22
Course Design
Greetings and welcome to Module 2, Unit 1 on Course Design. In the earlier unit, we understood
the NBA accreditation processes and the nature of Outcome-Based Education in Module 1.
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Module 2 is now going to mainly look at Course Design. What does it consist of? It presents a
process to design a course in any engineering program within the framework provided by NBA
and Outcome-Based Education. Because NBA accreditation and Outcome-Based Education -
they provide the framework within which all engineering programs have to be conducted. Our
Course Design process is also defined in the framework provided by NBA and Outcome-Based
Education.
The courses of engineering programs are proposed to be designed using the Instructional System
Model of ADDIE. ADDIE is an acronym for Analysis, Design, Development, Implement and
Evaluate. Here, this module will also present one complete set of sub-processes of ADDIE in
Course Design.
As we will see in this module that the sub-processes are not universally defined under ADDIE
the sub-processes can be defined by the instruction designer or the course designer. Here the
sub-processes are identified to make sure that your course is conducted in the framework of
NBA and Outcome-Based Education.
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In Unit 1 of Module 2, we understand the role of Course Design in facilitating good learning of
the students.
Let us look at the components of teaching as given by Fink. Fink has provided a model of the
teaching. He identifies mainly four components - Knowledge of Subject Matter, Teachers-
Students Interaction, Design of Course and Course Management. As we can see all the
components are not mutually exclusive; there is certain overlap.
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Also the vertical line represents the activities that need to be done on the left side prior to the
actual start of the course or that is the beginning of an instruction or interaction with the students
and the right side presents during the course the kind of components that play a major role.
Now, let us look at these four components.
Knowledge of Subject Matter: We make an assumption that most college faculty have command
over the subject matter. There may be exceptions but by and large, will make this assumption
because faculty are selected by a college based on their knowledge of the subject. Because most
of the colleges have their own faculty selection processes where the proficiency in the required
subjects is kind of tested out.
But what happens sometimes the faculty are required to teach subjects in which they are not
specialized so you do have situations where the faculty are not necessarily have the required
command over the subject matter. In such cases they can take advantage of the training programs
that are generally provided in their subjects. Generally, UGC, AICTE - they keep conducting
programs for the benefit of faculty where their subject knowledge is kind of updated.
We make an assumption knowledge in the subject matter is generally not a major bottleneck to
better teaching and learning. We make an assumption it is not necessarily true all the time.
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Teacher-student Interaction: It refers to all the interactions teachers have with their students.
What do these interactions mean? These interactions include ‘lecturing’ in the classroom,
‘tutoring’ if you have a tutorial or ‘mentoring’ you talk to students outside the classroom
regarding their difficulties, their future plans and so on. ‘Leading discussions’ in the classroom,
communicating with the students these days by Email and WhatsApp or any other tools that
people used.
As you can see Teacher-Student interaction can come under any of these categories and this is
where the difficulty comes. It is a skill that runs the full spectrum from poor to excellent.
Somehow this skill is not uniform across all faculty; some are good at communication or
interaction with the student, some are not and unfortunately the kind of skill level where you
start your career somehow on this dimension does not change with the time - which is an
unfortunate thing.
Every teacher should strive for continuous improvement in student interaction. There is nothing
like saying that now I have mastered; there is no need to further improve. Because teacher-
student interaction can continuously improve there is nothing like that you have reached the
plateau.
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Another aspect called Course Management. It refers to planning and implementing different
events in the course. What are the different events in the course? This includes when do you start
the classes in a semester? When do you conduct exams? When do you have holidays or when do
you give a preparatory holiday? When do you conduct exams and so on and on? All these
aspects of course management are planned and monitored at the Institutional Department level.
Fortunately, this is a practice in most of the institutes whereas in some institutes the faculties
seem to have unlimited freedom in terms of even in course management which is not particularly
a good thing. But here because its a department requires or institution requires and NBA also
kind of expects this to be done and even in a very-very remote/poorly equipped or rural
engineering college also this Course Management generally happens fairly well.
The only thing the teacher needs to pay special attention is to give prompt feedback on student
performance in assignments and tests. When to conduct the assignment and test is decided by the
institution. But giving feedback on the performance of the students is something that teacher
should particularly pay attention to. Fortunately these days, websites and internet communication
can greatly facilitate Course Management without taxing the teachers.
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When you want to give individualized feedback it can mean quite a lot of work to the faculty
member. Using internet communication you can reduce the amount of work that needs to be
done by the teacher.
We come to the Course Design: What does it consist of? Course design consists of writing
course outcomes that clearly state what the students are expected to be able to do at the end of
the course. This is something we have spent a lot of time in module 1; How to write course
outcomes? How to compute the attainments of these outcomes and so on?
Then the next part of course design is designing assessments that are in alignment with what the
students are expected to be able to do. Or we can say Designing assessments/assessments that are
in alignment with the Course Outcomes. This also we mentioned but this is now mainly part of
Course Design.
Then planning instruction including formative assessments that facilitate the students to attain
the stated Course Outcomes. Planning instruction is also part of Course Design. These are the
three stages of writing course outcomes, designing assessment and planning instruction are the
three parts of Course Design.
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Here Course Design, if you look at how people do at present. Most of them simply follow the
process they experienced as students. And what does it consists of? It consists of merely
identifying the list of topics, identifying the textbook and you follow your textbook exactly
chapter-wise and presenting the information in the classroom.
But the Course Design has the greatest potential for solving the problems that faculty frequently
face in their teaching and improving the quality of learning significantly. Actually, by good
Course Design, it is possible to overcome some of the limitations some of the faculty have with
respect to communication or with respect to the competency in the subject; if you follow a
systematic Course Design process some of these issues can be resolved even before you enter the
first class.
Which are the problems teachers face frequently? ‘Getting the attention of the students in the
class or what we call student boredom’. This is I am sure all of you would have experienced this,
students somehow suddenly lose interest for a variety of reasons in the classroom. Getting the
students to solve assignment problems on their own this is a major issue.
The first thing is they do not have the motivation to solve and then they consider somehow it is
unimportant. One or two people solve the problems and others merely copy them. But this is
where actually students learn if they make an attempt to solve the assignment problems on their
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own, students do learn. Another issue getting the students to prepare before the class - this has a
great value if they can be persuaded to read a little bit of material before coming to the class, the
classroom interactions can be made lot more beneficial.
Then on top of that poor retention of the knowledge. That is you just remember briefly maybe
for the sake of test and then you forget or when you require this material or these concepts or
procedures in the courses in the following semesters; students do not seem to be retaining their
prior knowledge.
Let us take a look at graphic way of representing the role of Course Design. Once again this is
not a unique relationship but it is a representative relationship and most of the elements that are
of concern for Course Design and learning are included. These are the outcomes that we are
interested in attaining.
The student needs to attain these outcomes - what these outcomes are we have already defined.
When do you say the student has attained these outcomes? By and large, if he gets a good grade
or good marks in a particular course we equate it or we consider it is synonymous with attaining
the outcomes. But is it true? The outcomes, you can say outcomes represent the grades or marks
provided you have your assessment right.
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That means if I ask very elementary, very superficial questions and if the student gets good
marks it does not mean that he has attained the outcomes. Or sometimes I may also make the
assessment very difficult and then also what happens - most of the students perform poorly and
even then the grades or marks will not represent the outcomes.
Then there is another issue, the evaluation is very lenient or very difficult if in either case, the
marks do not represent the outcome attainment. The first thing is assessment and evaluation
should be right. Let us say we vaguely talk about if it is one each that means evaluation is done
right and assessment is done at the right level. How to do it right? We will see in the following
units. But if these two are done right then we can consider outcomes are represented by grades
and marks.
There is another issue which is also universally valid across the world. This is what we call I
named it as one minus assisted performance. If assisted performance is zero then it represents
one that means outcomes and grades and marks are directly correlated.
What is assisted performance? Different places different things happen; in some places they
allow students to copy from each other or they allow people to get what we call generally slips or
refer to some material that which is I can carry inside or even sometimes invigilators themselves
will supply the information and not only that what we call grade inflation; even after evaluation
you start doing moderation and keep adding marks and so on.
If all such things happening - I am calling it as assisted performance - one minus assisted
performance. If this is equal to one that means assisted performance is zero then in that case if
we have the right assessment and no assisted performance and right evaluation; outcomes;
attainment and grades or marks are directly correlated or directly equivalent.
Let us look at the blocks there are in green colour - they are all part of Course Design, they are
all the activities included in the Course Design. The Finks model is presented here subject
knowledge, student-teacher interaction, course management, and course design or instruction
design and all these four together will lead to instruction.
Take this instruction will determine what grades and marks students are likely to get. If the
classroom interaction is poor it will have an impact on the grades and marks. Also, if you do
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your instruction well students are likely to put more efforts in their learning. More effort will
lead to better marks and effort itself is a function of their perception of what assessment is and
the motivation of students and the right level of a challenge.
If the student considers the subject is too difficult for him, he will not put the effort. If he
considers the subject is too trivial/superficial then also he will not put the effort. The motivation
is a very complex thing in the sense all students are not expected to have equal motivation in all
subjects. He may be intelligent but he is not motivated such a situation will come.
Here if you look at motivation and the right level of challenge and his perception of assessment
will determine the effort that he is going to put in and this effort and the instruction together will
decide how many marks he will get.
There is another factor does the student have the required prerequisite knowledge or prerequisite
outcomes; has he mastered that? I may be intelligent but I have not mastered and also the
cognitive ability of the student. Obviously, some students have better cognitive ability some do
not have. Actually, If you take our engineering colleges across the country you will have a very
wide spectrum of this cognitive ability so this also will decide how many marks and grades that
you get.
What happens is, because of this complex relationship, the system somehow seems to keep on
getting adjusted either knowingly or unknowingly; either by way of poor evaluation or making
the assessment very poor or sometimes assisted performance in trying to make sure that the
students do get the good grades and marks.
Broadly, this presents the inter-relationship among all the activities that are involved of which
many of them come under what we are calling as Course Design.
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What are the features of a good course? These are all kinds of wish statements, nice statements to
talk about ‘when do you call something as a good course?’ A good course challenges students to
all relevant cognitive and affective levels of learning. We are familiar now with all these words
cognitive and affective levels of learning. A good course uses active engagement with new
knowledge.
A student is not merely passively listening to the information given in the class but he is actually
engaged with that; what that active engagement we will see it in subsequent units. Good courses
have teachers who care about the subject, their students and about teaching and learning. Good
courses have teachers who interact well with the students and they have a good system of
feedback, assessment grading and preferably using ICT tools.
Also, they incorporate experiences that can lead to attainment of at least some of the Professional
Outcomes namely PO6 to PO12. Till now the Course Design whatever methodology people
followed never really bothered about these seven professional outcomes. Some activity, some
experiences students should have that address at least one or two of these Professional
Outcomes. Otherwise, we will not be able to meet these seven Professional Outcomes which are
required to be met as per NBA accreditation.
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As we said course design is the key, key for good learning and now we also require a framework
and a process, so that it is not left to chance occurrence or only certain faculty believe in it and
even they believe in it, they may or may not be able to design a process. Here we consider a good
course design requires a framework and a process. We need a process to ensure learning does not
occur in a haphazard manner but is developed using a process with specific measurable
outcomes.
Such a framework is normally called the (ISD) Instructional System Design framework. Any
Instructional System Design framework that you follow provides guidelines teachers can follow
in order to create a course. It gives you a series of process steps but the actual decision at each
process steps. The academic decisions are all done by the teacher; they are not given what
exactly should be taught; or what outcome to be written; all the academic decisions are done by
the teacher.
But when you follow one Instructional System Design model it gives you a set of steps or a set
of processes. But unfortunately, some faculty members feel use of any framework is restrictive
and limits the freedom that should be associated with the learning. They consider learning means
there should be absolute freedom for the teacher and the student to interact with each other and
explore the concerned subject.
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This is, in my opinion is a wish statement it may work with when you have highly qualified
faculty, highly motivated faculty and highly what do you call the top of line students in the
classroom it may work. Even then I have my reservations about such kind of unrestricted
freedom that people expect with respect to teaching and learning.
As I have mentioned earlier the Instructional System Design model only presents a framework of
doing a series of things in a particular sequence. All the freedom that is required to do the actual
activity right from the first stage to the last stage rest with the faculty members. I do not think
that is considered as restricting the freedom of the faculty member in any way.
There are several ISD models developed and practiced in a wide range of contexts. People
developed ISD models to meet different requirements because these models are also used by the
military, used by the corporates or in educational institutions at school level, college level and
professional program level and so on and on.
In this module, we use the ISD model called ADDIE which we have already explained ADDIE
stands for Analysis, Design, Development, Implement and Evaluate. We also use the taxonomy
of learning, teaching, and assessment as per the Revised Bloom-Vincenti taxonomy. Which we
have elaborated in module 1.
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As an exercise, we request you to describe the process you follow in designing your course. The
idea is whatever process you are following can you write it as a series of steps or as a diagram
that you may be following already. Maybe you have not stated on a piece of paper anywhere but
we request you take little time and translate the process that you are implicitly following into a
series of steps or as a diagram. We thank you if you can share your output with us at this
particular E-mail – nate.iiscta@gmail.com.
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In the next unit, we try to understand the nature of Instructional System Design models and
particularly features of ADDIE. Thank you very much.
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Professor N.J. Rao
Department of Electronics System engineering
Lecture 23
ISD and ADDIE Models
Greetings and welcome to Module 2, Unit 2 on ISD and ADDIE. ISD is Instructional System
Design. In the earlier unit, we understood the significant contribution ‘systematic design of a
course’ can make to the quality of learning. If you systematically design your course following a
certain process, then it will have a great impact on the quality of learning by the students.
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In this unit, we will try to the nature of Instructional System Design Models and particularly the
features of ADDIE.
First, we have to understand various terms in this area. These words are one is ‘instruction’, the
other one is ‘instruction design’, the third one is ‘instruction designer’ and the fourth one is
‘instructional system design’ and other words are like ‘learning theories’.
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What is the instruction? Instruction is a set of events embedded in purposeful activities that
facilitate learning, this is a formal definition. That means the instructor or whom we call the
teacher arranges certain events/organizes certain events which will facilitate learning and these
events can be external to the learner and some are internal mental events of the student.
External events are like printed pages, that is the student is asked to read something or
instructors’ lecture or the activities of a group of students and so on. There can be several
external events that can be organized by the instructor. Internal mental events include directing
the attention of students, making them rehearse, reflecting and monitoring the progress.
Instructional design, what does it do? It applies the principles derived from learning theories to
design external events we call instruction. There a whole host of learning theories and in a
particular instructional design I may be taking the help of some of the available learning theories
based on that I plan my external events which we call instruction.
Principles of Instructional Design, what do they do? If you derive some principles of instruction
they would help teachers or instructors to decide (these are only some examples) when it would
benefit students to be put into groups? When practice and feedback will be most effective? And
the pre-requisites for problem-solving and higher-order learning skills. For example, you can
also decide on what sequence should I instruct so that the students learn the higher-order
thinking skills.
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There is a whole host of things that can be done following various Instructional design theories
we will not be going through that. We appeal to you as a teacher we request you to kind of
explore various instructional design theories. You may like some of them or you may find them a
particular design theory is more meaningful with respect to your course and so on. These
principles have an instructional design that would also help producers of instructional materials.
There are some agencies which full time focus on developing instructional materials, especially
at the school level or at the corporate educational level. It will also help curriculum material
developers, web-based, e-learning course designers and sometimes knowledge management
system designers. Any of these people or any of these activities can greatly benefit from
instructional design theories.
Instructional-Design Theory is a theory that offers explicit guidance on how to better help people
learn and develop. We are re-wording whatever we have stated in the previous slide, we are
stating a little more formally. It is a design-oriented theory we have explained earlier in module
1, what is a design-oriented theory but let us restate that a design-oriented theory what it does it
tells you it is a prescriptive theory that is if you do things in one particular way it is likely to lead
to better learning that is what it is.
But it is not a unique one. So based on the instruction designers’ or instructors’ knowledge of the
subject and experiences and so on, they will make use of the instruction theories or learning
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theories to define a series of instructional activities that are likely to lead to better learning. That
what design-oriented theory is. It identifies methods of instruction, methods of instruction would
mean ways to support and facilitate learning and situations in which these methods should or
should not be used.
All types of methods of instruction cannot be used in all situations. The way you would handle
let us say very top of the line students the way you instruct them you cannot use the same
method for students who do not have that level of cognitive ability, one should not use also.
The Instructional Design Theory will also tell you under what conditions can you use a certain
method of instruction. And these methods of instruction can be broken into detailed component
methods and there is a certain sequence and how do I organize my component methods in what
sequence; I try to use these components to achieve my level of the outcome - will also be part of
Instructional Design Theory.
Any method that you suggest is/are probabilistic rather than deterministic. In the sense, there is
no guarantee that all 100 percent of your students will achieve the stated outcome because the
number of factors that influence learning are so many you can only say these are probabilistic
rather than deterministic.
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As we mentioned Instructional Situations, what are they? Instructional Situations are the nature
of what is to be learned. It can be a Mathematics subject or it could be a descriptive subject like
Material Science or it could be an Engineering Science subject or it could be an Engineering
subject and so on. You cannot apply the same method to all that means Instructional Situation is
different.
The Instructional situation is also characterized by the nature of the learner which I have just
mentioned a little while ago. The nature of the learning environment, what kind of environment
do you have? And the nature of the instructional development constraints. For example, you may
have certain systems ordained by the university or by the accreditation agency or by the college
management - there are certain constraints that are imposed and you have to operate within that.
Your instruction will have to get adjusted to the ID constraints that you have in your situation.
We call it instruction should be E3. What are the goals of instruction? It should be Effective,
what do you mean by effective? It must lead to attainments of the Course Outcomes - that is
effectiveness. If I have attained my outcomes then I am effective.
It should be efficient that means I have to operate/I have to do my instruction with limited time
and other financial resources. I cannot say that I need more number of lectures, I need more
amount of resources, I need more number of books and you can keep on putting many other
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constraints on the resources. It should also be efficient. Though we may not be able to achieve
efficiency in all situations.
More importantly it should be engaging or in other words appealing. That means the student
should be wanting to interact with the new knowledge they are required to acquire. They should
be engaged with the new knowledge that is being imparted to them.
So, Effective and Engaging are two most important thing and sometimes if it is also efficient it is
good I may not be able to achieve efficiency all the time. We call it E3 instruction these are the
three goals of any instructional methods that you want to use.
Sometimes people conduct a workshop for 3 days, 4 days just to emphasize one particular
concept, so certainly such a workshop will be Effective and Engaging but certainly not efficient.
You cannot afford such inefficient methods all the time in your classroom because whenever you
teach a course in a semester you have limited number of hours available to you and you cannot
also take it for granted that the student is available to you 100 percent of the time throughout the
semester. The kind of exercises, kind of preparation you want your student to do should take
these constraints.
For example in a semester, a student has, takes about 5 to 6 courses and maybe 2 laboratories
and he still has to get involved in some co-curricular and extra-curricular activities and so on.
The instructor needs to pay attention to efficiency while being Effective and Engaging.
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We look at now what you call Instructional Systems Design (ISD) models. First of all what are
these models? They are systematic guidelines instructional designers follow in order to create a
workshop, a course, a curriculum, an instructional program, a training session or the instructional
materials and products for educational programs. ISD models provide you guidelines for doing
any of these activities.
ISD provides a model to ensure instruction does not occur in a haphazard manner. It gives you a
structure to be followed. That way if several people are involved in designing a course, let us say
two teachers are trying to design a course together which is a desirable thing and they can
interact effectively with each other if they follow one of the ISD models.
Instruction is developed using a process with measurable outcomes that is one of the purposes of
ISD model. The responsibility of the instructional designer is to create instructional experiences
which ensure the learners will achieve the goals of instruction, so the goal is to attain the
outcomes or goals of instruction what we are calling it, effectiveness - the instruction should be
effective. Following an ISD model will make the instruction effective.
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We come to a specific model called ADDIE. As we said ADDIE is an acronym for Analysis,
Design, Development, Implement and Evaluate. ADDIE is a process for the development of
learning products - it is a learning product. The ADDIE concept can be applied for constructing
outcome-based learning because that is the constraint that we have, NBA accreditation and OBE
framework and ADDIE merely serve as a guiding framework.
We will see following an ADDIE it does not constrain you at all, we will be elaborating on that;
ADDIE evolved since 1975 into a framework that facilitates active, multi-functional, situated
and inspirational approach to instruction. It can meet all the requirements of instruction. It could
be a multi-disciplinary course and as we said every course is situated in a particular environment.
So, you have to take an instructional situation into consideration. It also engages the student it
can engage the student and it can also be inspirational, it need not be excluded that such a
constraint one is not inspirational.
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As you can see ADDIE is not a very recent one - it has gone through there is a lot of experience
that is gained. ADDIE first appeared in 1975, it is not attributed to any single individual or a
group of people it was created by the Center for Educational Technology at Florida State
University for the US Army and then it was quickly adopted by all the US Armed Forces.
Even today all programs of US Armed Forces are designed and conducted in the framework of
ADDIE. The first model in 1975 was the waterfall model. If you are familiar with that, that
means anything that you have a certain number of stages; after you complete the work in the first
stage then you go on to the second stage; after you complete the second stage you move onto the
third stage and so on.
As you can see they quickly given up and it has got shifted to the dynamic system model in
1984. But somehow some authors seem to keep on referring to the 1975 model rather than the
1984 model. US Defense services design and conduct all their training programs in the ADDIE-
ISD. If you look at all the presently available ISD frameworks though they have different
names they are minor variants of ADDIE.
Because ADDIE these five stages seem to be natural to any kind of Instructional Design. Though
some people consider that we greatly differ from ADDIE essentially it is a minor modification of
ADDIE. That is why we choose the generic version of the ADDIE and it can be adopted to any
situation.
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This is a model let us look at some features of this. So, ISD model has the five phases -
Analysis, Design, Development, Implement, and Evaluation. Evaluation appears here as well as
here as you can see, why is it so? The vertical part - this evaluation is what we call formative
evaluation whereas this is summative evaluation. We will presently come to that.
Another major feature of this is after you do the analysis you come to design. But it does not
mean that the work in analysis phase is over and it is final – no - actually after you do any
activity in a phase you get it evaluated by your peers or some stakeholders and based on their
comments and inputs you may want to redo your activities of the analysis phase. That is one kind
of a feedback.
The other one is when you are doing the design phase work you feel that you need to go back
and redo some parts of the analysis phase. There is a feedback to this. A similar process happens
at all five stages of ADDIE. At the end after you complete all this you kind of evaluate what you
have done and see next time you do your instruction whether you want to make any fundamental
changes. As you can see anything that you do anywhere has an impact on all the other phases of
ADDIE.
You cannot say that it is a really waterfall model. If it is a waterfall model this feedback and
these feedbacks should not have existed. It is not a waterfall model, it is a system design model
and to that extent, there are plenty of feedbacks and iterations that are involved.
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It also tells you when you have such a model, it is not necessary that I have to do analysis
completely to my satisfaction before I move on to design or before I move on to development.
Based on some preliminary understanding of the analysis phase activity, I may go to any of the
stages and start working on it and keep adjusting it. There is no need to wait for the previous
step to be completed before attempting a particular activity in a follow-up phase.
What we present is - what are the activities in each phase as per the first-level description, these
are not the final. Approximately these are the activities that need to be done in each phase. What
are they?
First, in analysis phase you have to identify the needs of the target group, do not necessarily refer
to your engineering program; it can be any kind of training program that you want to organize
you first have to find out what are the needs of the target group. And identify the entry-level
capabilities of the target group. What do they know and what do they have and then translate
these needs into a set of learning outcomes.
When you particularize to our engineering program, for example, identify the needs of the target
group - I do not have to work because the curriculum is already designed and somebody has
given me already the course and course contents.
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Then identify the entry capabilities of the target group. In a formal engineering program, I have
to consider approximately the students who come to my course have common background they
may differ in their abilities but they have some common background like for example they are
graduates of 12th standard if you are looking at the first-semester course. If you are looking at
the 3rd-semester course we consider all the students have gone through the first 2 semesters
before they come to the 3rd- semester and so on.
The specifics will differ depending on the situation that you have but these three activities need
to be addressed in Analysis phase. We will come later when we are working in the following
units what are the specific processes that we do when we apply the analysis phase to the design
of an engineering course. In Design phase we select delivery technologies and also generate
summative assessments. Design of assessments will become the major activity of the design
phase.
In the Development phase which is also getting called these days as Learning Design in that we
design instructional events. The term that you are more familiar with is the ‘lecture schedule’ or
‘instruction schedule’ and so on. Develop instructional material - Instructional material is what
the instructor uses not necessarily completely shared with the students. What it is, we will see at
the appropriate time.
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Third activity either develop or select learning materials. Learning materials are what learner
uses to learn, it can be textbooks or it can be an internet source. Then in the implement phase,
you actually conduct instruction and conduct assessment and track the learner’s progress and
provide support if needed.
We look at the next phase Evaluate. As we saw in the diagram ‘Evaluate’ the term appears in
two parts of the diagram. One is formative at the end of each phase we present our output to the
concerned stakeholders and based on their evaluation and their feedback we may make some
revisions to the activities of that phase.
The summative part that is the last phase that we talk about - we do summative evaluation by
probing the learners and the instructional systems to decide whether revisions are necessary, in
which case the process would be repeated with the next version of the instruction. What does it
mean? One of the things we do in summative evaluation is to compute the attainment of course
outcomes and compare with the targets that we have set for our reasons.
If you are falling short of the targets then what do you do? You review the entire process of what
you have done during the semester, based on that you identify specific steps that you want to
take when you offer the course next time to improve the attainment. That means either you come
closer to the target or you may want to even increase the target levels as well. That is what the
summative evaluation should be doing.
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Once again - what are the important features of ADDIE? It is not linear but iterative. Somehow
in the literature; some books and some individuals keep complaining about they somehow
attribute waterfall model to ADDIE which is not correct at all. Activities in any phase have
impact on all other phases and hence the presence of feedbacks at all places.
The output of any phase is subjected to formative evaluation by the concerned stakeholders. The
sub-processes in any phase are context-dependent. This is where the specificity comes. It is not
as if you have one universal solution for designing anything under ADDIE. The sub-processes
will differ.
What we are going to do we give one set of sub-processes in each phase and based on your
experience if you find some of the sub-processes are not appropriate to your context or your
course feel free to change them. But write a set of sub-processes for yourself and follow them.
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Some of the other ISDs used in the literature are Rapid Prototyping it is called and one of the
most popular one is Dick and Carey Systems Approach Model. They do not even mention about
ADDIE somehow it seems to have evolved on its own and it is also highly popular for training
programs, especially where physical skills are involved.
The other things are Instructional Development Learning System, Object Resources Activities
Model, Smith and Ragan model, Morrison/Ross/Kemp Model, Understanding by Design or what
we call Backward Design Model and the most recent one is SAM (Successive Approximation
Model). If you compare all of them and compare them with ADDIE they are all minor variants or
re-discoveries of ADDIE.
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In the next unit, we will perform the steps of Analysis Phase with respect to a specific course -
that is the goal of the next unit. Thank you very much.
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Professor N. J. Rao
Lecture 24
ADDIE Analysis Phase-1
Greetings and welcome to Module 2, Unit 3 on Analysis Phase. In the previous unit,
we looked at the instructional system design model of ADDIE and we had a brief
glimpse about what each phase of ADDIE is.
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Now we will be looking at the Analysis Phase more in detail and this specifically will
be addressing “identifying the sub-processes of analysis phase in the context of
designing courses in engineering programs”. Please note that these sub-processes
become specific to designing courses in engineering programs. With minor
modifications, they can also be used for designing courses in other types of programs.
Also we try to understand the nature and the role of sub-processes of analysis phase
including Course Context and Overview and Course Outcomes. These two are 2 sub-
processes of analysis phase and we will be looking at how to follow these processes.
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Now, we propose, (as we said it is all design activity and it is not unique) based on
our experience with several faculty of the undergraduate programs in engineering, we
are proposing this set of sub-processes of analysis phase.
First thing is, writing the Course Context and Overview; preparing concept map of the
course; writing course outcomes; Creating sample assessment items for each one of
the COs; Locating the course outcomes in the taxonomy table’ preparing course PO-
PSO matrix (which it happens to be a row in the case of a course); and then,
elaborating course outcomes into 15 plus or minus 5 competencies; and having the
output of analysis phase peer reviewed, (that is formative evaluation), and make the
changes needed.
As you can see, we are talking about eight sub-processes. Some of them can be
combined into a single one or something can be broken into more number of
processes as we feel convenient about it.
Now, first one is context of concern. What is our context? Our context is four year
undergraduate engineering program. All learners of a course belong in India to the
same age group and have similar academic background. However, their cognitive
abilities and motivations can considerably vary, depending on which engineering
college you are talking about.
But if you take the scenario of USA, you are likely to have students into engineering
programs belonging to several age groups. They will not be immediately after 12th
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standard. They may come to engineering program after working in the industry or
outside organizations for several years and then may want to come back and do. So,
the context becomes completely different there.
In India, an engineering program needs to attain POs identified by NBA, which we

have stated very clearly in the Module 1 and PSOs identified by the department
dominantly through the core courses. Here, PSOs are identified by the department.
This identification itself will have to go through a very structured and documented
process.
Generally, you have POs and PSOs to start with before you design the curriculum.
That needs to be done in that sequence, but in actuality it may not happen exactly that
way. These POs and PSOs have to be dominantly attained through the core courses rr
the teaching learning activities, that involve all the students of the program. So you
cannot include elective courses into this.
All courses in engineering programs are elements of a pre-designed 4 year program.

So, our context is when you look at a course it should be seen as an element in a 4
year program; and every course belongs to a designated curriculum component. What
are curriculum components? They will be engineering science, basic science,
humanities and social sciences, professional core, professional electives, open
electives, project and so on.
So, any core course you take from the program, it belongs to one of the curriculum
components. All courses are of 1 semester duration and are to be conducted as per
pre-defined schedule. So, schedule is defined, the number of working weeks are
defined and the entire timetable is already pre-fixed and you have to conduct the
course in that pre-defined schedule.
All courses also have similar assessment and evaluation mechanisms, either it is
decided by the university or it is decided by the autonomous institution. The processes
of assessment and evaluation are common at least for all the courses in a given
program.
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Now, let us look at course context and overview. We recommend you write as much
as you can but let us say it can be anywhere from 500 to 1500 words. So about one
and a half typed pages you can write up to that. What are the elements that you want
to write in a course context and overview? Category of the course it belongs to, that
means, what curriculum component it belongs to - we have given the list there.
Then the semester it is offered, and its prerequisites - it could be a 3rd semester course,
4th semester course and then what are its prerequisites - you have to identify. Broad
aim of the course and its relevance to the program. Why is it included in? First write
what is a broad aim of the course and try to write a justification why it was included
in the program at all.
Also, you can identify the courses who to which it is a prerequisite. If you take the
curriculum which is already pre-designed, you may be able to trace the relationship of
this course to courses that follow this in later semesters. So you can also relate this
course to the other courses.
Try to write importance of the course to the profession. Why is it important to a

particular branch and the kind of jobs that you do; why are we learning that, why is it
important to the profession?
Mostly, in the last one, will have to be very elaborate. Assumptions made and the
approach taken in instructions and reasons thereof. So while designing the course, you
make certain assumptions, about either the relative importance of the topics, or your
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view why this course is required, and you make several assumptions before you
actually work out the remaining processes.
Then you also write, what is a approach you are taking in the instruction, and this
approach may differ for certain outcomes from the other outcomes. You may not want
to take the same approach to all the components of the course. For example, some part
of the course could be purely theory and lot of mathematics involved. You will take
one particular approach for that. Some may be design oriented. Some topics may be
design oriented and then your instruction will be completely different from that.
So try to explain first to yourself as well as to the learners that what is the approach
you are taking for instruction, and explain why you are trying to take that. This
particular thing, the assumptions and the approached is taken, can differ from one
instructor to the other with respect to the same course. Or, if there are several batches,
several sections for the same course, all the teachers concerned can sit together and
try to take a common approach of instruction. It would be nice if all the concerned
teachers can sit together and take a common approach.
Now, one of the things is, one tool actually called concept map. It is a graphical tool
for organizing and representing conceptual knowledge. It is a simple one. It includes
concepts and also it captures relationship between concepts – you indicate that by
connecting lines linking two concepts and also while connecting you write some
phrases, specifying the relationship between the two concepts.
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We will presently show the examples. So concept map is really identifying concepts
and arranging them in a particular order and linking one concept to the all the
concepts that are related to that.
The concepts are represented in a hierarchical fashion with the most inclusive, most
general concepts at the top of the map and the more specific, less general concepts
arranged hierarchically below. So there is a hierarchy of these concepts. What
happens if consider concept map has 3 levels, the lowest level concepts one or more
together or become prerequisites to the concepts which is one level above. That is
how you can link the concepts.
Also, the hierarchical structure for a particular domain of knowledge also depends on
the context in which that knowledge is being applied or considered. So, you may,
based on your assumptions, what are the prerequisites. If certain prerequisites are not
there then the present course itself have to capture the prerequisites and the related
concepts into the concept map. That is why it depends on the context.
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Now, this is an example of a concept map. How does it look like? This is system
software. Here you have a line connecting from here to this and there is a phrase, if I
read system software is an interface between hardware and application software, So,
interface between hardware and application software is a concept.
Again interface between hardware and application software consists of assemblers,

loaders and linkers, macro-processors, compilers, operating systems and text editors.
Now, in this particular box, I have put several elements. All of them are concepts; I
could have done by spreading them out into multiple boxes. But here, for the sake of
brevity, we try to put multiple concepts at the same level in one box.
Each one, assembler is a concept, loaders and linkers is a concept, macro-processor is

a concept and so on. And these are specific to the architecture of the computer. As
you can see, you are now tracing the entire system software in terms of this.
And then what we are doing is, having described this, now system software includes
these elements and I may not be dealing with all of them; all the things that are listed
here. I may confine myself only to these four and each one again, I elaborate. So,
assemblers have mission dependent features, mission independent features; can be of
a single pass or multiple pass.
So, we elaborate each one and as you can see, though I am putting multiple elements
in each one but each one of them is a concept. Now, I chose to even number them. For
example, it is 1.1, 1.2 like this, and as it traverse along I keep changing the numbers
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like this. Once I create a concept map like that then it becomes much easier to write
the course outcomes.
For example, I can write one course outcome to represent the entire thing. And I can
write one course outcome to represent them. So immediately that I can see, I need to
write 5 course outcomes when I have a course like this.
Now let us look at yet another course. This is one of our favourite ones - designed by
very senior professor in this area - electromagnetic fields. Electromagnetic fields,
here, are seen as can be static charges, moving charges and accelerating charges. Here
static charges produce electrical fields, moving charges produce currents which
produce magnetic fields and accelerating charges produces electromagnetic fields.
And then these are elaborated, (each one is elaborated) further, both into its
applications and the kind of what characterization each field has and all those
concepts are presented here. When you look at it, I may or may not be able to just
write one course outcome here for this and one course outcome for that. I may break it
into 2 or 3 course outcomes for each one of them, depending on to what level of detail
I am dealing with this.
This a great way of presenting a completing a course to students in a graphic form and
with a bit of shuffling I can also relate it to in what sequence that I would go and why
I am going from one point to another and the relationships and prerequisites of the
concepts.
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Let us talk a few aspects of drawing C-map. C-map tool is very easy to use. It is one
of the simplest one to learn. A new person can learn it about in 5 minutes and within 5
minutes you can start focusing on the subject matter rather than on the tool. It has
many editing features that enable you create a good hierarchically organized map.
So when you first draw the map it would not look like what the samples that I have
shown you. It will be quite dispersed and all boxes go in all kinds of directions but the
editing features of that will enable you to kind of bring it into a nice well-organized
map. And it can be drawn on the content given to you and your view of the course.
We found faculty creating C-maps of their courses found it a very enjoyable and
enriching activity. When we conducted workshops where people were asked to write
that, it took time for them so one has to be a little patient. It may take half a days
worth work with 2 or 3 people working together. And finally you get a picture of your
own course which possibly you would not have ever experienced that.
If the concept map becomes unwieldy because there are too many layers and too
many boxes around and you find it difficult to kind of put it together in a systematic
fashion, you can break a concept map into multiple concept maps. You will be able to
learn that very easily, once you get used to that.
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We talk about now Course Outcomes, which we have done extensively in module 1.
Now to say course Outcomes represent what the student should be able to do at the
end of the course. That we have stated already. And Course Outcomes statement
should have elements including action verb, categories of knowledge, conditions
which are optional, criteria which are optional.
They are written in the framework of revised Bloom-Vincenti taxonomy of learning

as per the procedures presented in detail in module 1. And this business of writing
course outcomes becomes integral part of Analysis phase, that is why we are
mentioning here but we will not talk about all these details once more.
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And, just, few more details, the number of COs should be 6 plus or minus 2 for
courses with 3 to 4 credits. Course Outcomes should be tagged with POs and PSOs
addressed or required to be addressed - the cognitive level, knowledge categories,
number of sessions, a course can include classroom sessions, laboratory, a tutorial or
field sessions. So whatever you have, you have to tag each Course Outcome with this.
Some concerns while writing the course which we have mentioned earlier, many
universities present the syllabus of a course as units. Some feel that the number of
COs should be exactly equal to the number of units. That kind of equivalence is not
pedagogically or academically justified. Unitization of syllabus was one of
administrative convenience and has no pedagogic bearing on the writing outcomes.
The number of COs should be decided by the nature and scope of the content. So one
unit may have more than one outcome. Sometimes one Course Outcome make may be
straddling two units also. S, it depends on the nature of the content rather than strict
unitization.
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Now, coming to C-maps and COs, drawing C-maps is not a prerequisite to writing
COs. We are saying it is desirable and it is a great experience. It will greatly enhance
your understanding of the subject from a concept perspective but it is not a
prerequisite to writing COs. So, it is not mandatory anywhere for you to prepare a
concept map but if you can do it, it will greatly facilitate in writing good COs.
Now this is a sample COs of Electromagnetism. I will read only first one. CO1 ‘locate
the position of a point in a given or its transformed coordinate system’. Locating the
position of a point, that is the Course Outcome, and it is tagged with PO1 and PSO1.
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It belongs to Apply because you are locating that and knowledge categories are
conceptual and procedural. Class hours are seven, tutorial hours are two. That is how
you tag each course outcome with the corresponding cognitive levels, knowledge
categories and others.
So, this is a kind of sample for you to look at. You can actually take the same table
and kind of replace the particular CO with the CO corresponding to your course.
As an exercise, we request you to prepare a concept map of your course preferably in

collaboration with a colleague and write the COs of your course in the format given
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and tagging them as per the procedures mentioned. A table format is given. Please do
that. Why we did not further elaborate on writing COs is, it has been extensively
dealt-with in module 1.
In the next unit, we will be looking at nature and role of other sub-processes of
Analysis Phase with respect to the engineering course. Thank you very much.
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Professor N. J. Rao
Lecture 25
ADDIE Analysis Phase-2
Greetings and welcome to NATE module 2, U-4 on Analysis Phase. In the last unit,
we understood the nature and the role of sub-processes analysis including Course
Context and Overview, Course Outcomes and Concept Map. These three issues of the
analysis phase are the sub-process of the analysis phase, were explored in the previous
unit.
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In the current unit, we will look at the remaining sub-processes of Analysis Phase.
These include creating sample assessment items for all COs, locating the course
outcomes in the taxonomy table, preparing course PO/PSO strength matrix of the
course and elaborating each CO into competencies. These are the remaining sub-
processes of that.
As we said several times in the previous unit, that these sub-processes are not unique.
This, we found, in the context of NBA accreditation and OBE frame work. These
processes make sense with respect to Analysis Phase.
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The first thing that we want to do, having written COs, it may not completely
communicate what is implied in that to the student. For example, if a certain CO is
given to us, how do I learn or how do I prepare for whatever - assessment that comes
subsequently.
One of the things is having written the course outcomes as the first stage then we talk
about the alignment of assessment items with the course outcome. That means I
should be able to write some assignment items, some are of what you call in common
language is questions that need to be solved to demonstrate that the students have
attained course outcomes.
I also communicate as a teacher to the students, I give a course outcome and I give a
sample test item. That means the level of the question if a student is able to solve a
question of this category. We also provide sample answers as well and this is a way
to be solved. If I can demonstrate that, the student would understand how to exactly
prepare to demonstrate that he is attaining the course outcome.
Then, here we talk about alignment. What kind of question should we ask? Here
alignment means the assessment items are at the same cognitive level as that
represented by the action verb of the CO statements. They should be in complete
alignments with COs. When we write sample assessment items like this, we do not
write assessment items which are at a cognitive level lower than that represented by
the action verb.
This is one thing you should remember, at the level of preparing for the Analysis
Phase, the sample test item should be in complete alignment with the cognitive level
of the CO statement. Sometimes when we are designing the sample test items, you
may notice somehow you do not feel happy with the way CO statement is written.
In that case, from the sample test items that we have written, we may want to go back
and slightly reword our CO statements. That is where the iteration part comes. There
need not be any hesitation to go back and correct the CO statements. That is why
writing good CO statements requires designing sample test items and if necessary,
going back and modifying the CO statements accordingly.
There is another issue, the difficulty levels of sample test items should be carefully
chosen, based on the perception of the cognitive abilities of the students. For
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example, the syllabus or the COs of a particular course may look the same as that of
an institute where instructional situation is completely different.
The batch of students that you have maybe are different. In that case, the difficulty
levels of the sample test items should be carefully chosen. Otherwise, you will not be
able to achieve the goal where the students will, or able to solve questions of that
type.
Now let us look at an example. In the course “Data Structures”, one CO is written,
“Write programs using data structures including arrays, stack, queues, and linked
lists”. Some sample test items are given for this CO are: perform insertion of number
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100 and deletion of number 87 from the linked list given, which is a series of numbers
were given.
When you look at these four sample test items, you will find there are two sample test
items given with respect to arrays, both are relevant and are completely acceptable.
Two test items are given with regard to the linked list. But nothing is given with
regard to stacks and queues.
As you can see, all samples appear to be related to linked lists and arrays and
examples of stacks and queues are required. What happens when we write our sample
test items as shown here while they are correct, but they are not complete. That
means they do not completely represent the scope of the CO that was written.
Let us look at how do I create a better set of items which are in alignment with the
CO. As you can see, all of them belong to the same cognitive level apply as that of
the CO. Here we have one link, one example of the linked list, first one, and one
example from the array and one example that is related to stack and the one- sample
test item related queue.
These are representative sample test items. Actually there need not be any limit on the
number of sample test items that you can write. If you want to demonstrate to the
students that the variety of questions that can come, that they should get prepared for,
you can give more number of samples which actually will represent the scope of the
CO as you have it in mind. As a course designer, you have it in mind.
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Sample test items associated with the CO completely communicate to the students.
What is it that they should learn and what kind of skills they should acquire with
regard to demonstrate the attainment of that CO.
Let us look at another, the next issue. Here we look at a course called analog circuits
and systems. It is a 4:0:1 that is four lecture hours per week and one laboratory.
Laboratory and lectures are integrated into one. We have written the COs, and each
CO here, as we have already tagged them, I am picking only from those tags, the
relevant portions here.
For example, understand analog signal processing functions in present-day electronic

products. The cognitive level is U and the knowledge categories, they are four, these
include factual, conceptual, criteria and specifications and practical constraints. These
are four knowledge categories and the cognitive level is U. Similarly, for all the COs,
we have tagged accordingly.
For example, the (second) CO2 belongs to apply, conceptual and procedural. The
third one belongs to understand category but it is conceptual and procedural
knowledge.
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You have the other ones listed. There are actually nine COs in this. We want to keep
them in the taxonomy table. We are calling the Revised Bloom-Vincenti taxonomy
table.
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As you can see, these are the cognitive levels, and all the eight knowledge categories
are shown here. Then, as you can see some of the COs will appear more than one
knowledge category. For example, CO1 is appearing in the factual, conceptual,
criteria and specifications, and also practical constraints. One CO has appeared in the
four cells of the taxonomy table.
Similarly, all the other COs are accordingly mapped, and now you can see how you
are covering many dimensions of the many knowledge categories. What happens
depending on how many cells you are in, your instruction will correspondingly
depend on that and similarly, the kind of sample test items that you are going to write
will also differ.
For example, a sample test item can address more than one knowledge category. But
when you write sample test items, you have to make sure that your samples are truly
addressing all the relevant knowledge categories as well. As you can see, there are
only two cognitive levels that are applicable but many knowledge categories are
relevant in this particular course.
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We now look at the strength of CO-PSO mapping which we have seen this mapping is
required to compute the attainment of POs and PSOs. We are only recalling or re-
capturing what we have done in module 1. The attainment of a PO-PSO depends both
on the attainment levels of associated COs of core courses and the strength to which it
is mapped.
So each course outcome addresses a subset of POs and PSOs to varying levels and
the strengths are mapped as 1, 2, 3 or low, medium and strong and also you require to
determine the level at which a particular PO/PSO is addressed by the course and that
is called mapping strength. We have presented some procedures for determining such
mapping strengths in module 1. We are going to just follow that.
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The same CO-PO-PSO mapping, the strength of mapping is demonstrated here. In this
particular course, you have like this - PO1 is addressed to strength 1. PO2 is
addressed to strength 1 and PO3 is addressed to strength 3 and so on.
You also have to demonstrate to the outside world that if somebody asks you ‘show
me how you are addressing PO3 to this strength 3’. We should be able to first
demonstrate to the number of sessions that we have and also based on the type of
questions that you are asking, in various assessment instruments.
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We have another situation. Sometimes the scope of a Course Outcome can be very
large. Like when we map the number of sessions that are required to address a
particular CO, we have seen samples going anywhere from 10 up to 15 and so on.
That is how it is written. But what happens is, we also need to plan an instructional
unit.
That means an instructional unit has a very specific goal and if I am associating some
12 classroom sessions with that, it becomes a very large instructional unit. It may not
be very good to try to integrate so much of the material into one unit. In such a case,
we want to elaborate a given CO into outcomes with less scope so that my
instructional unit now becomes a bit smaller.
We call the outcomes with scope less than that of a CO as competencies. The word
competency also is nearly synonymous with Course Outcome. But here for
convenience, we are calling a subset of CO with less scope than the original CO as
‘competencies’.
Let us look at a sample. Here, CO5 of one of the courses that we have written ‘design
circuits that perform analog linear signal processing functions, including
amplification, summing, differentiation and integration, and non-linear signal
processing functions including log, anti-log amplification, current sensing,
rectification, and DC voltage regulation’.
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Very long list. They are all analog linear signal processing functions and some non-
linear signal processing functions as well. The number of sessions that originally
planned were eleven. So for us to plan our instruction better, we propose to break
them into or elaborate them into four competencies.
We are going to label that as CO5-C1, CO 5 competency 1, Design Amplifiers. These

are the types of amplifiers we are going to look at VCVS, CCVS, VCCS, and CCCS
starting with ideal Op-Amps called nullors and using the state-of-the-art commercially
available components. This, it was felt, that we can do it in four classroom sessions.
The second one, design summing amplifiers including instrumentation amplifier and
simple integrators and differentiators, another four sessions. Whereas, competency
three - design log and anti-log amplifiers and current sensors can be done in one
session. Whereas C4, Design precision rectifiers and DC voltage regulators has two
sessions. Then it becomes, now my instructional unit, CO5-C1 will become one
instructional unit that lasts for four classroom sessions that is the implication of that.
We elaborate a CO into competencies where required. It does not mean that every
CO will have to beelaborated into competency. If somebody feels there are six
sessions that are required, but I want to handle it as a single CO, no need to elaborate
into competencies, it is perfectly fine.
We request you to describe any additional sub-processes you consider necessary to be

included in the Analysis Phase of ADDIE with respect to designing your course. Why
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we are asking this? Based on the kind of sub-processes that we have given, do you
feel anything additional is required with respect to your course? Your course may
have some peculiar requirements. In that case, we would appreciate it if you can
describe any additional sub-process you think are necessary.
Also perform all the sub-process of Analysis Phase with respect to the course you
taught or familiar with. That means we have given you about eight sub-processes.
Can you perform these eight sub-processes with respect to your course? It is going to
take some time.
What we are going to do, at least with respect to the context and overview of your
course, we will make one sample available to you, which you can consult and write
your context and overview in a similar fashion. For others, we have already given
you samples in these presentations.
In the next unit, we try to understand the sub-processes of the Design Phase of the
ADDIE. We are only talking with respect to the phases of ADDIE. Thank you very
much for your attention.
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Professor N. J. Rao
Indian Institute of Science, Bengalurru
Lecture 26 - M2 U5: Design Phase
Greetings and welcome to Module 2 Unit 5 on Design Phase.
In the last unit, we looked at some of the sub-processes of Analysis phase and these included
creating sample test items for COs, locating the Course Outcomes in the taxonomy table and
mapping the strength of POs and PSOs with respect to COs and elaborating COs into
competencies where required. These were the sub-processes we have extensively looked at in
the last unit.
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Now, in the current unit, we try to understand the nature of assessment and identify the sub-
process of design phase.
What is Design phase? Design phase is concerned with identifying what the learners should
be able to perform to demonstrate the attainment of the learning objectives. Here, this is a
broad definition of Design phase, but in our case, we have to demonstrate the attainment of
course outcomes in the context of OBE and NBA. So, we have written COs then we have to
say what the learners should be able to perform to demonstrate the attainment of those COs.
So, it is all related to what are the things that we are identifying as the learner should be able
to perform; and that is where the assessment comes into picture.
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Let us look at the formal definitions of the terms associated with this. There are two terms;
Assessment and Evaluation. Assessment is a measure of performance. For example, if in a
mathematics course, the measure of performance is the student should be able to solve some
problems as given. Or in a laboratory course, the performance represents conducting an
experiment that means I have identified that as a measure of performance.
Whereas evaluation is when this having the student has performed, either has written an
essay, solved a problem or conducted an experiment, then you are interpreting the
assessment. That means, you are now trying to give a value how well the student has
performed.
In our language, you can say how many marks do I give, what grade do I give for his
performance. That is giving marks are identifying the grade constitutes evaluation. These are
the two things obviously every student is familiar with. Unfortunately, these two terms are
used in some context in interchangeable fashion, which is not appropriate.
Now coming back to assessment, one can very directly say it is the assessment that drives
student learning. When something is presented, why is he following? What should he follow,
to what depth should he follow? That is all decided by his perception of the assessment. So, a
student’s perception of the assessment is the one that drives student learning - that he has to
prepare to perform well in those assessments.
So, either when I give my sample test items, when I write my COs, in the Analysis phase, or
the problems that I solve in the classroom or the questions that I ask in the classroom, these
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are the assessment tools that we are using, and they tell the students what we consider to be
important. You have to tell them what is important.
If you do not tell them very clearly, they get that information by looking at the previous
question papers and also talking to the senior students. That will form the basis for them to
prepare. So, essentially, teachers are guiding students to learn through their assessments.
Summarizing the whole thing, assessment is a glue that links the components of a course,
which are the components of a course? The content, instructional methods and skill
development -these are all linked through the glue of assessment.
Here some terminology - we have used to the word questions. Question is some kind of a
statement, question plus some additional related information are called test items or merely
items. In today's standardized terminology, in education, test items are items. The additional
information we are talking about, one thing we certainly know one information is how many
marks you allocate for a question.
But there can be many other types of information. Like for example, the time expected to be
taken to solve by an average student. And sometimes we have a sample answer written for
ourselves, not given in the exam paper, but you write the sample answer, you may sometimes
give hints. And also you can tag a test item with regard to Course Outcome code, competency
code.
For example, course outcome code is you have a code for the course. We can say C123 like
that and then you have C123-CO5 is the code for course outcome and in that if you have
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competencies, you will add again C1, C2, C3 and so on. And you can also have tags like
cognitive level, knowledge category, difficulty level and few more are there, but depending
on the requirements, you can have several such tags linked with a particular question.
And now the assessment items, what kind of assessment items do we have? Items that require
short or long written responses that is quite common to us. Then you have quizzes,
assignment problems, simulations, laboratory experiments to be conducted, projects to be
done, fieldwork, reports to be written, presentations to be made, and if you want depending
on the course, you can have additional test items/assessment items.
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Assessment instruments are collections of assessment items. For example, if you have a mid-
term test, it will consist of several assessment items in that. So, a collection of assessment
items is called assessment instrument and any assessment instrument have a purpose and a
context. It could be a quiz that I give it in a classroom.
So the purpose is to find out whether they have understood the previous information before I
move forward. And that quiz is only to get a feedback about the current knowledge of the
students. Assessment instruments can contain different types of items. Some can be what we
call explanatory type of questions where you write a few paragraphs or few lines, or it can be
solving a particular problem.
So, examples of assessment instruments include quizzes, midterm tests, final exams, group
projects, and so on.
Types of assessment are formative assessment and summative assessment. Formative

assessment is meant to guide the learning process. That is why it is called assessment for
learning. So I can ask a question in the classroom and I look for students to respond to that. In
that process I am facilitating their learning, I am not giving any marks or grades for their
performance. That is why it is also called educative assessment or assessment for learning,
and this is a very powerful method of what we call facilitating the learning by student.
But there are issues always with the formative assessment, because they do not carry any
marks that add up to the final grade. What happens is students can become a bit indifferent to
respond to anything that is asked under formative assessment. Say it is okay, I do not have to
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exert myself to think about it, maybe in a class always there are a few students who are going
to respond. So let me leave it to them.
That is the kind of approach students may take in such case, some of the formative
assessment does not serve its purpose, but there are several such kind of issues with regard to
teaching and learning. But it can be a powerful tool if one can persuade the students to
participate in formative assessment.
Summative assessment is something everybody is clear. It is assessment of learning, how

much have you learnt? And the students have to demonstrate that by answering a set of
questions which are presented to them as assessment instrument.
The types of test items if you do, they are broadly classified into two categories, Written Test
Items, and Performance Test Items. In performance, you are doing something by yourself; in
a laboratory or in the field or making presentations and so on. Whereas, written test items
again are two types - one is selection type, response consists of making choices from given
alternatives; Supply type consists of response in the form of giving a short or long answer.
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Selection type of items, where you have true or false, multiple choice, multiple selection,
matching blocks, rearrangement, checklists, rating scales. So, all these are selection type and
they serve a good purpose, but they alone will not be sufficient to test the student.
Supply type, one is completion half written sentence can be completed, it can be fill in the
blanks or draw a sketch, label something, you have short answers, structured response, viva
voce, numerical questions and detailed answers. It can be, you can expect the student to write
a 500 word or 600 word type of answers to test items that you give.
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Now performance type test items could be experiments that you conduct, simulations that you
can do, projects, prototypes to be built, things/objects/equipment to be tested, discussions,
seminars and presentations, field studies, viva voice. In the other type of programs where you
have let us say humanities and social sciences or art forms - there are several other types of
performance test items.
Quality of assessment is officially characterized by two parameters - validity and reliability.

This is for what is called AERA standards, which is the agency that talks about the standards.
Anything related to assessment that is the world authority that is an organization that talks
about assessment and also every 10 years it kind of upgrades its characterization.
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Validity refers to the degree to which assessment measures what it purports to measure. For
example, let us say my outcome - the student has to demonstrate that he can solve problems
of certain type. But whereas the actual assessment item consists of asking him to explain
something. In that case, we say that particular assessment item is not valid, or its validity is
limited. So, validity means the degree to which assessment measures what it purports to
measure.
Whereas reliability degree to which assessment scores are consistent. What do we mean by
that? In our context, you can say, can you consider 60 percent of last year in a subject or
GPA, grade point average of, let us say out of 10, I got 6.5 and some other students I got 6.5
in the present year, are they the same? Can I consider these two assessment scores are
equivalent? That is what is called reliability.
You can consider it is equivalent provided the question papers or the assessment instruments
are not only valid, they satisfy the requirements of the reliability.
Now, let us look at because we are talking of summative assessment. Summative assessment
is characterized by validity and reliability. Validity we have defined ‘the degree to which
evidence and theory support the interpretation of evaluation scores for proposed user of
assessment instruments’. Whereas reliability, ‘consistency of scores across administration of
similar assessment instruments’.
For example, if I have a makeup exam I conduct is the makeup exam paper satisfies the
reliability that means the marks obtained in the makeup examination and the original
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examination are they comparable. That is what we call reliability and we have found these
two can be achieved practically by the same set of conditions. These include well-defined
course outcomes and competencies, a defined assessment pattern; an item bank as per
assessment pattern, a defined assessment instruments for a chosen difficulty level, syllabus of
the course communicated to students.
When all these conditions are satisfied, then we can consider summative assessment is first
valid; for reliability not only this condition, we should also satisfy is ensured by avoiding
systematic/random errors in evaluation. What do they consist of? Systematic and random
evaluation, if two evaluators give totally different marks for something or there are random
factors that come in when the students are responding to a given question paper, the
conditions are not equivalent; in all such cases, you have the systematic and random errors
can come into picture; and if these are avoided, then the situation or both validity and
reliability can be achieved by satisfying these factors.
Now, one can ask, is reliability a relevant issue? First of all, if there is a issue of what we call
makeup examination in an autonomous institution, somebody has not been able to attend a
particular test and the teacher is required to give another test on the same topics. In such a
case reliability makes sense.
And also, if a teacher has given course over several years, then also it makes a difference. But
what happens in a given institution - a teacher may not teach the same course second time in
the same college and because there is a attrition of faculty from an institute, people keep
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leaving and new teachers join, in that case same course may be given by different people in
different years.
Also you have in an affiliated system, external paper setter may not follow all the criteria of
validity; because you can inform them, but they may or may not follow and it may be
difficult to insist on that. And in an affiliated university system if all the concerned persons -
new teachers, external pepper setters, follow all the steps to achieve validity, it is possible to
meet the requirements of reliability. As you can see, it is a tall order.
But if university can set up all the processes in place, which are they? You train the paper
setters, create good question bank and possibly you can even have a tool/a software tool
available to produce assessment instruments as well as manage the item banks; yes, it is
possible to achieve the reliability. But if the course content changes from year to year,
obviously, the issue of reliability does not make sense.
Now, we come to evaluation. Evaluation, there are two, one is scoring. As you can see in
most of the class tests or end semester exam papers, you have marks given for questions say
1, 2, 5 or 10;sSometimes 1, 2, I have seen 8, or 16 or so on. You have several types of scores
that are given and then you have what are called rubrics.
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The first one everybody is familiar with rubric means, a rubric is a scoring tool for subjective
assessment. Means - let us say when somebody makes a presentation or like gives a seminar,
how do you mark? We say we feel kind of thing, which means it is a subjective assessment.
So, again, it need not be very arbitrary. You can have a set of rubrics to scoring tool for
subjective assessments.
Rubric is a set of criteria and standards linked to competencies used to assess student’s
response on performance test items. Rubrics also will allow for standardized evaluation
according to specified criteria, making grading simpler and more transparent. Let us say four
teachers are asked to evaluate the performance in a seminar, so the marking by the four
should not be very arbitrary. And where you can actually have a set of rubrics, where each
one will mark according to the same set of rubrics, then we get some kind of a transparent
mechanism of grading.
Going back how do you design your rubrics? There is a website given here
rubistar.4teachers.org, wherein for different types of performance and performance test items
people have designed rubrics and make them available on this particular site. So you can take
a look at it and see whether any of them is relevant to your particular activity.
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Now take presentation: most of the colleges do have seminars where the students present.
And one issue about rubrics is you cannot have too many levels or make it too complicated.
Now, for example, for presentation skill, you have three items that are chosen: non-verbal
skills, vocal skills and content. But non-verbal skills include eye contact, facial expression
and posture.
For example, you can make your life very difficult and complicated by marking separately
about eye contact, separately for facial expressions and posture or you can have these three
characteristics in mind and give some mark with respect to non-verbal skills.
Similarly, voice skills, enthusiasm and vocalized pauses, how are they? And content - topics
announced, time frame, visual aids, content compliance and professionalism of content and
presentation; all these can be looked at.
How do you give weightage to these three? Do I give equal weightage to all of them or do I
give different weightage? For example, I can give content 10, vocal skills 5, nonverbal skills
5 or I can change that. I can give equal weightage to all of them. And then ask whoever is
evaluating the performance or to follow that particular pattern.
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Now, we come to another issue - we intuitively understand when I say what is difficulty? A
question is difficult or an assessment item is difficult if it involves too many processes, too
many concepts to be brought together and it requires a lot of time to complete all the steps
related to that and so on. Then it becomes a difficult/its level of difficulty is higher. So,
difficulty level refers to what we call increased cognitive load, time to solve, large number of
facts to be recalled, number of concepts involved, more elaborate procedures to be used.
For example, I can ask apparently simple question like, write all the capitals of all the 29
states in India in alphabetical order, which is actually factual information, no problems to be
solved, but what happens - the number of facts to recalled is very large. Once you recall all of
them, it is easier to do that. So, even when number of facts to recall is very large, the level of
difficulty can be higher.
Formerly, difficulty level is dependent on endless number of factors. For example, a given
question may appear to difficult to one person, not so difficult to another person. That means
it is learner dependent. For example, if the learner does not have the prerequisite knowledge
or not adequate prerequisite knowledge you will find a question very difficult. Whereas, a
person who is familiar with the prerequisite knowledge will not find it.
Also in some subjects by very nature of the concepts are more difficult to appreciate. So,
what happens? Subject dependencies also there. So, here we are trying to characterize
difficulty level in a context of learner independent and subject independent contexts. Even
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then difficulty level is characterized by three parameters you can say content, task and
stimulus. Let us see what they are.
Content difficulty is related to elements of knowledge - facts, concepts, procedures, and

metacognition. So, if there are many concepts and you have procedures that involve very long
steps with all kinds of conditions and so on; you can actually count the number of facts,
number of concepts, number of procedures that are really involved, then you call it content
difficulty.
Task difficulty refers to the difficulty that the students face when they generate their
responses. There can be a lot of arthritic operations, multiplying and adding numbers and
then when you do that, for example, in electrical engineering, if there are a number of loops
in a given circuit are very large, one can actually make mistakes at various points in that. So
you can have difficulty of the task as well.
Then you have stimulus, stimulus difficulty is related to the manner the item is presented to
the students, which includes words, phrases and information, which is packed along with the
item. So, I may ask my question in a kind of implicit way rather than direct way. In such a
case, the student will have to really identify exactly what is it that he has to do and that is a
major step. Sometimes, the way the problem is presented can be quite involved and you will
have plenty of stimulus difficulty.
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Let us look at some example - stimulus part is not very much, but the number of concepts
involved will keep increasing and number of procedures will increase. One set of examples,
determine the time period of a simple pendulum of length 1 meter on the surface of Earth. We
call it difficulty level 1. And incidentally, we are not going to identify too many difficulty
levels, once again we will come to 1, 2, 3 only.
The second level difficulty question is determine the time period of a simple pendulum of
length 1 meter, (which is common with the above item) when it is placed in a lift which is
moving upwards with an acceleration of 2 meters per second square - Difficulty level 2.
Determine the time period of a simple pendulum of length 1 meter with its bob dipped in
non-viscous medium of density one-tenth of the bob and is placed in a lift which is moving
upwards with an acceleration of 2 meters per second square. As you can see from one
question to the other, we are adding more and more conditions on that. So, this third one is a
difficulty level 3. So you can also write for your own subject or your own course that you are
teaching, whether you can write test items at multiple difficulty levels.
If you can write a variety of questions like that, they can be part of item bank, and then you
can decide with respect to the students that you have how many questions of difficulty level 2
or difficulty level 3 you want to include in the final exam paper.
These should not be what you call last minute activities. The teacher will have to do all this
activity long before the tests are conducted. So that when you actually present to them all the
ambiguities in the questions, the language is corrected, numbers are correct and so on.
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These two words one will have to be familiar with - complexity and difficulty. Complexity
refers to higher cognitive levels. One should not mistake difficulty with higher cognitive
levels. For example, you can have a very simple question at apply level and a very
complicated question at remember level. Difficulty is not necessarily associated with higher
cognitive levels. One can have lower level difficulty test items at higher cognitive levels.
why are we particular about this issue? It is often felt by many faculties in many institutions,
that questions at higher cognitive levels cannot be given to their students because there, their
students are not adequate for it. They do not have the required ability for that. If you take the
decision, you are actually doing a great disservice to your students, because they are never
trained at higher cognitive levels. If they are not trained at higher cognitive levels, obviously,
the placement becomes very difficult for them.
You confine them to lower cognitive levels simply because you consider, rather looking at
complexity is very difficult. So, they should not be misunderstood and should not be
interchangeably used. So, we strongly plead with the faculty that the relevant cognitive levels
should not be excluded in the name of difficulty.
You can have less difficult questions at higher cognitive levels. For example, you can ask
him to design some circuit let us say, but he must go through the process of designing
something rather than completely excluding. That is where the issue of complexity and
difficulty become very important.
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The sub-processes of design phase - again as we said, in all these cases sub-processes are
only samples, they are not any absolute unique or the only way to do, but these activities
should be kind of performed. Selecting the technology for assessment and evaluation. Setting
targets for CO attainment which you have already done in the module 1, designing the
assessment pattern and assessment instruments and creating an item bank. These are the four
activities that one needs to undertake as a part of the Design phase.
So we will request you to list aspects of assessment not addressed in this unit but still
considered relevant to your course. That means we are asking have we omitted anything that
needs to be included at this stage and also describe any different sub-process you consider
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necessary to be included in the design phase of ADDIE with respect to designing your course.
We request you to share the results of your exercise at this email id.
In the next unit, we try to understand the sub-process of selecting technology for assessment
and setting the targets for CO attainment. These two sub processes we will address in unit six.
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Professor N. J. Rao
Lecture 27 - M2 U6: Technology for Assessment; Setting Targets
Greetings and welcome to NATE, module 2 unit 6 on Technology for Assessment and
Setting Targets, which is part of design phase.
In the previous unit, we understood the nature of assessment. As we have been repeatedly
saying, assessment really drives learning, so designing correct assessment is the key to
improve the quality of learning. And we also identified the sub-processes of design phase.
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We will now continue with the first two sub-processes of design phase, which are to
‘understand the nature and role of technology for assessment and evaluation’. The choice of
technology will determine the kind of assessments that you can design or want to design
because technologies do not exist for every type of assessment.
So, depending on the technologies available to the teacher or available at the institution, you
need to work on the design of assessments and similarly, evaluation also, which is associated
with assessment will also require its own technologies. And the next stage is design of
assessment is also based on how you have set the targets for the attainment of course
outcomes which we have considered in great detail in module one.
You can use Information and Communication Technologies at several stages of assessment
and evaluation not only in engineering programs for that matter any other program. This is
one classification of the activities for which ICT tools can be identified. First thing is
managing item banks. We are only looking at activities that come under Design phase, not as
a part of instruction. The ICT tools for instruction are very different, which we will explore in
the module 3.
The area where ICT tools can be considered are management of item banks or sometimes
known as question banks, creating assessment instruments - can I design from the item bank a
set of assessment instruments or question papers as you can call or technologies that are used
in conducting examinations.
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Also aggregating the responses of students which is a very peculiar requirement in Indian
context. For especially affiliated colleges where students write the same examination at
multiple places and the responses of the students have to be collected and sent to a centralized
place.
Also evaluation of student responses; computing attainment of outcomes and grades; and
these days what are called learning analytics. So, these are all the areas related to assessment
that the information and communication technologies can be used. Let us consider each one
of them one by one.
Item or question banks: everybody is familiar with this concept, but different people have
different opinions. Some people consider, you are only providing a method to students to
mock the answers for a large number of questions and reproduce them. Or sometimes also
what happens for variety of reasons, either the teacher or the institution or sometimes
university start shrinking the size of the question bank. That means you have 50 questions out
of which 20 will be asked in the exam, which completely destroys the purpose of assessment.
Some people feel if you have item banks created apriori then it is possible to design good
quality questions, properly designed distributed over several cognitive levels, as well as
course outcomes and so on. And one can design a very balanced examination paper or an
assessment instrument. He can also create multiple versions of assessment instrument which
are all of the same quality.
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So we take the position that item bank properly designed can have a great impact on the
quality of learning in any institution. So, we say a right sized and well managed item bank
can greatly contribute to the quality of learning. The key words are ‘right sized’ and ‘well
managed’.
Let us look at a well managed item bank at the university level can have impact on very large
number of students. If you are adopting the item bank approach at the university level,
because there are large number of colleges involved and it will impact on the quality of
learning of large number of students. That is easily stated but the key is well managed item
banks.
When you have to create item banks for about 400 and odd and maybe sometimes 600
courses in a centralized place, the processes, the people involved, or the way you review;
these can become extremely complicated and in that process, there it may be difficult to
assure the quality of item banks.
So, what do we mean by a well managed item bank? For example, you can seek contributions
from different teachers and sometimes even from students to contribute items to the bank. It
need not be designed by one person and in fact should not be designed only by one person.
When they come from multiple sources, the quality of the item may sometimes will become
questionable.
First of all, the language itself may not be appropriate, there may not be adequate clarity
about the question or there can be significant variation in the difficulty levels and sometimes
even technical incorrectness also can creep in. So, what happens before an item is accepted
into the bank, there has to be a review committee that will check out all these things before it
is actually incorporated into the bank.
To review all these items for a few hundred courses is not going to be very easy. That is why
in a centralized way, while it is desirable, it may be very difficult to actually implement and
still produce a good quality item bank.
Right sized would mean what? How many questions should you have in the item bank for it
to be meaningful? Yes, we say a starting number will be about thousand, at least thousand
you can start then only it can be meaningful. Also the question should have adequate
numerics in them.
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So, when you have questions that demand numerics, then every time you ask the same
question, I can change the numerics. I can change some numbers, so, the students cannot mug
the answers for those questions. So, these are the features that have to be incorporated in
designing a good question bank.
On top of that, you should also keep the question bank or item bank dynamic. What does it
mean? Every year, you kind of archive 10 percent of the questions, (I am saying arbitrarily 10
percent could be 15 percent) and bring in new questions, the same new questions can be
brought into the bank. So to that extent, the yearly change in the item bank can be as much as
20 to 30 percent, which is a good one.
The items that are archived can be brought back into the item bank maybe after a few years.
As I said, these are all nice things to say, but very difficult to manage on a large scale. But an
individual teacher, it is possible for him to maintain the quality and right kind of item bank
but even then it involves lot of work.
So, an individual instructor in an autonomous institute, he will find it hard to create a good
sized item bank. But it can be built over a time with collaboration and with the help of
Internet. He can also collaborate with others. Like you can ask your students to suggest some
questions, you can borrow from your colleagues, from other institutes, and so on.
So, but an individual instructor can build a good sized item bank as per his requirements/as
per the requirements of the course that he is dealing with. It is much more viable to deal with
an individual instructor level, than at the university level which you will involve hundreds of
courses and hundreds of people and the processes will have to be monitored and so on.
Instructor’s item bank should also be constantly upgraded to meet the needs of changing
instructional situation and the curriculum. So, it has to be dynamic and it can be made
dynamic at the individual faculty member level, but it will be a lot more difficult to create at
the university level.
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Processes do exist for designing and managing good item banks. This issue has been
addressed by organizations like IMS Global and they have defined what is called QTI
standard (QTI is question test item standard) for item banks. If one wants to design an item
bank, it is good to borrow the standard from IMS global which is available on their site and it
is free and any software that you want to develop for managing all the processes related to the
item bank, they can be designed based on the standards made available by IMS global.
Technologies are available and different companies have developed technologies as per the
standard. Either you can go to them or if you have people in your institute, who are
interested and capable of developing such technology, they can also be used. For example,
LMSs that is Learning Management Systems such as MOODLE, can facilitate creation and
management of item banks.
While they provide you the tools, the process of creating that means how do you tag the
questions and how do you review the questions, how do you archive some questions every
year, how do you bring in the new questions, all these processes will have to be set up by the
individual instructor. Item bank idea is worthwhile to be pursued, and we strongly
recommend those instructors who are who really believe in that to do it.
But once you create an item bank, life becomes easier for the instructor - to set up whether a
class test, another paper, second paper, third paper or the final semester end exams and all
that can be created very easily and all of them are the right kind of quality, that is the
advantage of having item banks and the technology for that.
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Next is - I have the item bank, alright. But I have to create an assessment instrument, I have
to produce a test paper or an exam paper and exam paper has certain structure. If it is a class
test, it is only dealing with a subset of the course outcomes, and then you want to create an
assessment plan, depending on the COs under consideration.
For example, some CO maybe at Remember level or it could be at Understand level and I
need to have some two questions of two marks under Understand from CO1. Let us say I
have a requirement like that. So, I should create such assessment plan with proper weightage
for selected cognitive levels, marks allotted and also paying attention to the difficulty level of
the question. All these can be, I will not say automated, can be structured in a proper way. So
you create a plan first, and according to the plan, you create the assessment instruments.
Tools are available to create multiple structures of assessment instruments as per the chosen
assessment plan. For example, I want to give weightage, let us say, out of 20 marks - 5 marks
for Understand questions belonging to CO2. Now, I can create multiple structures - that is the
weightage for different questions can be modified and yet it is broadly as per the assessment
plan. So, tools are available for creating such options. Any structure that you can take once I
select my structure, then this structure I use as a basis for actually creating the assessment
instrument.
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Conducting the examinations has certain legal aspects to that, because there are several legal
records that need to be created when you are conducting the exam with regard to who is
present, who is not present, why is he not present - that will have to be properly kept track of.
Sometimes you do have legal cases related to conducting the examinations.
Systems exist for conducting examinations in multiple places as required for affiliated and
non-autonomous colleges. Because the whole country has been dealing with mostly non-
autonomous colleges affiliated to universities, over a long period of time, people have tried
different things and slowly kind of settled down in that.
So we do have systems that take care of conducting the examination, some aspects of that are
done by ICT tools, some are done manually. So systems do exist for conducting examinations
in multiple places
When you are conducting the exam from a centralized place, you have to transfer the
assessment instrument or your question paper in a secure way to the examination center.
Sometimes you have to give enough time after sending it for adequate copies to be made
from that. So for this also, both technologies exist, and where systems also exist to create
adequate copies of assessment instruments at multiple places.
Many autonomous institutions because they have to deal with only their college, they have
created their own systems for conducting examinations. Some of them are partly ICT based;
some of them are manual systems.
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You have another issue, because of the affiliated college you have to aggregate the responses
of students, student has written on pieces of paper his responses, they have to be collected
and properly what do you call tagged and coded and transferred to a centralized place. Such a
system does not exist anywhere in the world. But we do have solutions for that to aggregate
the responses of students from multiple examination centers, through scanning and encoding
and distributing them to centralized evaluation centers.
There will be several centralized evaluation centers. Whereas you require elaborate systems
for a university. For an autonomous institutions, simple procedures that are adequate for
collecting the responses of students and making them available to the evaluators in
autonomous institution. For example, in an autonomous institution, I can conduct the
objective type of questions using an LMS.
So, the student will respond on his Internet device and whereas written papers/written
responses the teacher himself can collect or you can have for multiple choice questions, you
have several optical readers and calculators and so on, they do exist and these technologies
continuously change and it depends on the access and availability of these tools to the
instructor.
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The next stage - after collecting the responses at one place, evaluation of student responses.
Technologies exist for evaluating the responses of students to multiple choice; multiple
selection and filling the blanks in a variety of contexts, NPTEL is a major example of that
Also NPTEL type of systems do have tools to flag the test items. If large percentage of
students did not correctly answer them, they flag them. So to bring it to the attention of the
evaluator, to say whether there is any issue with that, whether one has to accept a smaller
percentage of students responding to them, or correctly responding to them, or anything has
to be done, they will only flag and bring it to the attention of evaluators.
Similarly, they have tools that have features to flag the answers that differ from the correct
spelling to items that require filling in the blanks. For example, if you give a question to fill
in the blanks, somebody will have to use some word, but the spelling used is slightly different
from the correct one. In that case, they will flag and ask the instructor whether you would like
to give marks or not give marks. So flagging such things is very convenient.
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LMS like MOODLE, and commercially available academic management systems provide
tools for evaluating the responses to MCQ and MSQ items - that we have already stated.
When the college does not have really these tools if a teacher is interested, MOODLE being
an open source, it can be set up on his own computer and he can still use that tool to evaluate
responses to MCQ and MSQ items.
If the semester and exam paper contains section on objective items and the colleges have
computer based examination facility, where examination and evaluation of student
performances can be done using technology (which is being used). So, it can be used also in
the context of semester and exam papers.
Even if the college does not use such tools as we said, the individual teacher can incorporate
such features in their courses. It is good for a teacher to try this to make, make it not only
convenient for himself or herself, but also to improve the quality of assessment and quality of
learning in the process.
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Computing attainment of outcomes and grades because that is also part of assessment and
evaluation. Commercial academic management systems exist for computing the final grades
and marks and computing even attainment of outcomes. But if the college does not have such
Commercial AMS then simple tools based on spreadsheet can be easily created at the level of
individual courses for computing grades, attainment of outcomes, distribution of students
under teacher defined category.
So, we would strongly suggest every teacher should master using the spreadsheet for a
variety of activities related to teaching and learning. It makes his or her life very easy if you
feel comfortable using a spreadsheet.
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These days, learning analytics you are trying to get some information out from the way the
students have performed in different courses in different semesters, different years, across
disciplines or across degree or across let us say engineering programs. The kind of
information you seek may differ from one situation to the other. But learning analytics can
provide information required first by the management.
For management to understand what is happening instead of waiting until some crisis that
comes, one can process the information that is already available based on the performance of
the students and can be presented in a format that management can deal with or understand.
It can also facilitate better placements, if you have good analytics. There are some colleges
which have tried to use these analytics to improve the placements. You can also identify
trends and generate data as required by the accreditation and regulatory agencies. So, learning
analytics is slowly becoming quite popular with some of the institutions.
Now we come to a kind of a specific thing. Quiz if you talk about, quizzes are normally used
for as a part of formative assessment. Sometimes they are also getting used as a part of
summative assessment. That means you give some marks and give some weightage to that
and add it for computing the final grade. This is where you can use open source tools like
Google Forms to conduct a quiz, that means given a series of questions, maybe five or six;
give either multiple choice or even sometimes fill in the blanks.
If you use the Google Form, the responses can be processed or evaluated and you can already
get even graphic form - the results how the classes perform. So it can be used both for
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summative and formative assessments and you can save on the time the teacher has to spend,
if he has to do it manually. Then if he has to look at each response manually and tick it and
integrate them, and then give feedback - it is very time consuming. Because it is time
consuming, people may not use the quizzes as an effective tool for teaching and learning. So
you can use tools like Google Forms to take care of that.
Designing, conducting, evaluating and giving feedback to students on quizzes can be done
very effectively using any LMS and of course, the other prerequisite is students having
Internet devices. Of course, the most common one a student is likely to have these days is a
smartphone. So LMS and smartphones can be linked and if you have that, quizzes can be
easily conducted. But the issue comes if all students do not have Internet devices, at the point
where you are conducting a quiz, then you will have issues.
Similarly, assignments - several colleges are using WhatsApp and LMS for interaction
between teacher and the students in relation to assignments. So you can put the assignment on
LMS or you can write on a piece of paper or type something, and then take a image of that
and send it through WhatsApp to the student groups. You can do that.
Date and time of submission are communicated through WhatsApp. So you do not have to
announce in the class, you can do it offline. The assignment is communicated through group
mails or through WhatsApp, group mail would mean as a part of LMS. Students submit their
responses to assignments using camera images from smartphones but of course, the
evaluation is manual. If it is an assignment, obviously, the evaluation is manual.
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We do not have technologies as yet for evaluating the performance of students to questions
that require either short or long answers or very elaborate steps are involved, we do not have
technologies as yet for that. And you can say the final barrier now, with regard to teaching
and learning is to develop automated evaluation mechanisms for different subjects.
But if you have solved it for one subject, it does not mean those tools are applicable to some
other subject. Each subject has its own requirement and that is why the problem will have to
be solved at subject level and let us say, in a given subject, you have changed the content,
you add an extra and drop some and once again you have to take a look at with respect to the
new material how to design automatic evaluation system. That is going to take considerable
time and these tools are not going to be that easily available in near future.
Tools offered by LMS can effectively be used to communicate with the students and give
personalized feedback. We strongly urge that all teachers get themselves familiar with the
open source tool, like MOODLE, there are a few others but we are more familiar with
MOODLE that is why we keep saying that try to use the MOODLE.
The choice of technologies depends on the nature of the subject, access, comfort levels of
faculty and students with technology, instructional methods used and system under which the
courses are offered. As you can see a whole lot of factors determine that, that is the reason
why it is may not be that very easy to legislate which tools to be used.
Initially, individual teachers who feel comfortable in using such tools should start with and
kind of slowly spread across to other courses in a department. Some institutions (very small
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in number) started using assessment and evaluation tools offered by open source LMS like
MOODLE. Teacher can personalize the technology for courses using LMS with some
technical support. Because everyone may not be very comfortable in trying to write several
PHP programs or design special, what do you call small modules that can be integrated into
the, into the LMS tool itself.
Now that is about technology and assessment and evaluation. A teacher will have to make a
decision where exactly he is going to use the technology whether he can afford to use it,
whether he is familiar with it, whether he believes in using that; all those decisions have to be
made. Based on that, you can proceed with the rest of the Design phase processes.
Now, one small step which you have already considered in detail in Module 1 is setting the
targets for attainment of COs. What you do? You set a target, what it is we have already dealt
in detail in module 1, so the performance of students need to be compared with the set
targets. This comparison enables the teachers to plan for continuous improvement in learning.
The targets influence the design of assessment instruments also. If I have set a target
depending on my understanding of my own students, I have to now decide what kind of items
do I incorporate in my assessment instruments. The difficulty level, cognitive levels, what
percentage of questions do I put under a specified cognitive level, all that will be influenced
by your perception of the students’ abilities with regard to the set targets. As we indicated in
Module 1, there are several ways of setting targets presented in module 1.
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Here is one sample which we have been recommending. Targets are set for each CO of a
course separately, the way we have shown in the table. It does not directly indicate the
distribution of performance among students. Because you are only computing the class
averages. However, it has the advantage of finding out the difficulty of a specific PO. If you
feel comfortable with tools available to you, you can make this setting the targets a little more
complicated to meet your requirements.
Now, we request you to kind of list the specific technologies you used in connection with the
assessment in courses that you taught, what ever technologies that you have used. Please
make a list of that and share it with us at this particular email id.
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In the next unit, we try to understand the process of designing assessment plan for a course.
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Lecture 28 - Assessment Plan and Assessment Instruments
Greetings. Welcome to Module 2, Unit 7 on assessment plan and assessment instruments.
In the earlier unit, we understood the nature and role of technology for assessment and the
process of setting targets for attainment of COs.
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The outcome for this unit is ‘Understand the process of designing an assessment plan and
assessment instruments for a course’.
Method of assessment varies from institution to institution from university to university. But
very broadly, we can classify the assessment into two categories, Continuous Internal
Evaluation, or CIE and Semester End Examination or SEE. CIE is also called as CIA, in
some institutes meaning Continuous Internal Assessment. The relative weightages given to
CIE and SEE also vary considerably from institution to institution and from university to
university; from tier two to tier one institutes. There is considerable variation; they may range
from 20:80 to 60:40 even. Much of the assessment requires written responses still.
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Continues Internal Assessment or Continuous Internal Evaluation, the number of assessment
instruments that can be used and the variety of assessment instruments in CIE allowed
depend on the guidelines provided by the Institute or the affiliating University. If it is a tier
one Institute, it will have its own academic regulations. If it is a tier two Institute, it will be
following the regulations specified by the university.
These regulations will indicate what is the number of assessment instruments that need to be
used during CIE and what should be the variety of assessment instruments that can be used in
CIE. By a variety of assessment instruments which mean quizzes, tests, assignments and so
on. In all cases, the internal assessment taken as a whole must address all the COs adequately.
Ensuring these requires planning upfront. Ensuring that taken as a whole, the continuous
internal evaluation addresses all the COs adequately requires planning upfront.
Let us look at one possible way of having a CIE plan. The first step would be to plan ‘when
the assessment instruments need to be scheduled’. Based on the available guidelines, the
instructor must finalize the details of the assessment instruments to be used and the schedule
for administering these instruments for CIE.
In this example, the total CIE marks are 50; and there are two tests, two quizzes and two
assignments. In other words, a total of six assessment instruments are planned for CIE. The
total marks allocated to each instrument are also shown in the table. Each test is for 15 marks;
each quiz is for 5 marks, and each assignment is also for 5 marks. Thus we have a total of 15
marks.
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The schedule for these instruments is shown in the last column. Test 1 is scheduled for week
7; Test 2 is scheduled for week 13; similarly, Quiz 1 for week 5, Quiz 2 for week 14,
Assignment 1 is to be submitted in week 9. It is assumed that the assignment is
communicated to the students much earlier. Assignment 2 is to be submitted in week 15.
In the plan, the assignments are shown as for 5 marks. However, the actual assignment given
to the students need not be for 5 marks. It can be for example for 20 marks, but finally they
scaled down to 5 marks. The same thing is true for any other assessment instrument. The
actual marks for which the instrument is administered can be different, but ultimately they are
scaled down to the values shown in this plan.
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That means I can conduct the Test 1 for 30 marks but then I will scale it down to 15. I may
conduct the Quiz 1 for 10 marks but then I will scale it down to 5, this is optional. So what is
shown in the plan is the final marks that allocated to the assessment instrument.
For each CO, now, we must decide three things - marks to be allocated to this CO out of the
total marks for CIE. In this case, the total marks for CIE is equal to 50. Out of these 50 what
should be the marks that have to be allocated to each CO? That is the first step.
Then we need to decide on the distribution of these marks over the relevant assessment
instruments. If we allocate certain number of marks to CO1 then what are the assessment
instruments in which the CO1 is to be addressed? ‘The distribution of these marks over the
relevant assessment instruments’.
Then finally, the cognitive levels of the assessment items related to this CO also need to be
finalized.
The first step is the marks allocation to the COs. Marks allocated to a specific CO out of total
CIE marks is the choice of the instructor with only constraint being that every CO must have
nonzero marks allocated to it. Certain marks we will have to allocate to every CO. Barring
that, there is no other restriction; instructor can decide what should be the marks that should
be allocated to a particular CO.
However, instructor may wish to consider the following two parameters in deciding on the
marks to be allocated. The proportion of the classroom hours devoted to this particular CO
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that is one important parameter. Higher the number of classroom hours devoted to a
particular CO, higher should be the weightage given to that CO in CIE. It is a very broad
general principle.
Next is the relative importance of this CO in later courses. This is a subject to perception of
the instructor. If the instructor feels that the particular CO is extremely important, she may
wish to allocate more marks to that CO. Based on these two criteria, the number of marks
allocated to a specific CO needs to be decided.
Example, consider CO5 - assume that the total number of classroom sessions devoted to CO5
is equal to eight out of the total sessions of 56, that means the proportion of classroom
sessions devoted to CO5 is 14 percent. Total CIE marks is equal to 50 so, 14 percent of 50 is
equal to 7. From the criterion of percentage of classroom sessions devoted to a CO, we get 7
marks for CO5.
But CO5 is perceived by instructor to be quite important. So, CIE marks allocated by
instructor to CO5 is 10. In this way, once the allocation of marks to all COs is done by the
instructor, we get a final allocation. The example shows the completed allocation for all the
COs. Out of the total of 50 marks 8 marks are allocated to CO1, CO2, CO3, CO4, as well as
CO6. 10 marks are allocated to CO5 - making up a total of 50 marks.
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Now the CIE marks for each CO have been determined. Instructor must decide on the
distribution of these marks over the relevant assessment instruments. Again, this is the choice
of the instructor. The only constraint is that if a CO is to be addressed by an assessment
instrument, the instructional material related to that CO must already have been completed
before the scheduled time of that assessment instrument.
For example, we saw that Test 1 is scheduled for week 7. If we assume that the lesson plan
indicates that CO6 is planned for weeks 12 and 13 then evidently, CO6 cannot be addressed
by T1. T1 is scheduled for week 7 but CO6 is addressed only in weeks 12 and 13 when it
comes to instruction. So, the only constraint is that if a CO is to be addressed by an
assessment instrument, the instructional material related to that CO must already have been
completed before the scheduled time of that particular assessment instrument.
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This is an example of a valid plan. CO1 - total marks allocated 8. Quiz marks are for 3 and
Test 1, 5 marks. Similarly, all the other COs; finally, CO6 total marks allocated 8, increase to
3 marks and in assignment 2, 5 marks. This is how we must make a plan.
The next important question is the distribution of the marks to relevant cognitive levels.
Cognitive level of an assessment item is generally expected to be at the same cognitive level
as that of the CO. If the CO is at Apply level, it is expected that the relevant assessment item
is also at Apply level. However, we may also have assessment items from lower cognitive
levels for a variety of reasons. The weightage given to assessment items belonging to the
lower cognitive levels is decided by the instructor.
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A general rule of thumb can be - the weightage given to assessment items belonging to the
lower cognitive levels be kept as lower than 40 percent. If there are too many items at lower
cognitive levels, the assessment instrument is generally considered to be of inferior quality, it
is better to have assessment items at the same cognitive level as the COs concerned.
However, if lower cognitive level items are to be used, the weightage given to them should be
kept low, maybe less than 40 percent or even less than 30 percent, it is the choice of the
instructor.
Continuing the same example, a total of 10 marks are planned for CO5, assume that CO5 is at
Apply cognitive level. One possible allocation of marks for the cognitive levels could be
Apply level. Notice that this is the level at which the CO is stated. CO5 is at Apply level. So,
at Apply level we have 6 marks that is 60 percent of the total of 10 marks allocated. Then
lower levels 40 percent of the 10 marks allocated that is 4 marks.
These 4 marks in turn could be distributed as 2 marks at Understand level and 2 marks at
Remember level. So instructor has to decide what should be the allocation of marks for
assessment items, which are at the same cognitive level as the CO; and what should be the
marks allocated to assessment items, which are at lower cognitive levels. In this case, the
choice of the instructor is to have 6 marks at Apply level and 4 marks at lower levels.
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The final step would be to decide how these marks are allocated to the assessment
instruments already planned for a given CO. Example, for CO5, we decided to have 6 marks
at Apply level, 2 marks at Understand level and 2 marks at Remember level. Now, ‘which
assessment instrument should contain these assessment items’, this is the decision that
instructor has to make.
So, in this case, the Apply level assessment item and Understand level assessment items are
planned to be included in Test 2. So, test 2 will have two items, one at Apply level for 6
marks and another one at Understand level for 2 marks and these two items will be related to
CO5.
Then in Quiz 2 there will be one assessment item. Probably two separate questions or one
question worth 2 marks and this item would be concerning CO5. So, the marks which are
allocated to CO5 are now distributed over two assessment instruments - T2 and Q2.
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Thus if you look at the summary of the CIE plan process, determine the CIE instruments,
marks for each instrument and the schedule for these instruments - that would be the first step
and this will be governed by the regulations in force at that time. In our example, we have
decided on two tests, two quizzes and two assignments and the marks allocated was fixed and
the schedule was also planned - that would be the first step.
Then for each CO we will have to allocate marks for that CO in the CIE. Then distribute
these marks over selected CIE instruments. Determine the marks for relevant cognitive levels.
These three steps have to be repeated for every CO.
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This is a completed CIE plan example. There are six COs, CO1 to CO6. CO1 and 2 are at
Understand level. CO3, CO4, CO5, and CO6 are at Apply level. The marks allocated to CO1
are 8, to CO2 also 8, to CO3 also 8, then CO4 again 8 marks, CO6 8 marks, for CO5 it is 10
marks and the distribution of these COs over the assessment instruments is shown in the plan.
CO1 is addressed in test 1 and quiz 1. CO 2 is addressed in test 1 again; quiz 1 as well as in
assignment 1. That way if we see, we will notice how each CO is addressed in separate
assessment instruments. It is interesting to note that CO6 is not addressed in any of the tests
or even quiz 1. If you see CO1 is not addressed in test 1, nor in test 2, only quiz 2 and
assignment 2 address the CO6 - this could be because of the reason that by the time the
material related to CO6 is completed, the schedule for test 2 is over.
So, one has to plan these items upfront to ensure that all the COs are adequately addressed.
And the breakup is also shown. For example, for CO4 which is at Apply level, in test 2 we
have one item for 2 marks at Understand level; another item at Apply level for 5 marks
making up a total of 7 marks in test 2. Then in assignment 1, there is a 1 mark question at
Remember level and this makes up the total of 8 marks. So, 5 marks are at Apply level and 3
marks are at lower levels.
So that is how we have to make CIE plan. And these can be scrutinized for validity, for
appropriate coverage of the COs, for appropriate cognitive level distributions and other
quality factors.
Once this plan is made up front, and it is verified to be a good plan, then we are ensuring that
the COs are addressed adequately at appropriate cognitive levels during the CIE. Though it
looks somewhat involved, it is worth having this plan upfront to ensure quality CIE activities.
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Now, let us look at the SEE plan process. There is only one semester end examination and
thus there is only one assessment instrument that needs to be planned. The structure of the
SEE instrument varies considerably from institute to institute from university to university. In
any case, it is absolutely essential, but this instrument addresses all the COs. So one single
SEE instrument must address all the COs.
Thus the plan includes the following two steps: for each CO allocate marks for the SEE. For
example, how many marks should be allocated to CO1 in SEE. Similarly for CO2, CO3 and
so on. So, for each CO allocate marks for SEE. Determine the marks for relevant cognitive
levels. The rationale for these two steps is same as the one used in CIE.
Look at the proportion of classroom hours devoted to that CO; the relative importance of that
CO in the perception of the instructor and based on that the instructor makes a decision as to
how these two decisions have to be made for the SEE. Of course, if it is tier 2 institute, the
SEE instrument is the responsibility of the affiliating university. But if the university follows
a similar process, then it can ensure that SEE is of good quality.
Then combine assessment items suitably based on the structure of the SEE instrument. The
structure depends upon the guidelines in use, how many sub questions are allowed for a given
question and so on.
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As an example, let us assume that we are looking at the structure of an SEE in which the total
marks is for 100 and the allocation of the marks for COs is as shown here. For CO1 it is 10
marks, for CO2 again 10 marks, CO3, CO4, CO5 and CO6 carry 20 marks each - that is the
allocation of the marks for the COs.
For CO5 the marks allocated we have seen is 20. CO5 is at Apply cognitive level so,
assessment items at the same cognitive level will be for 12 marks. So, questions at Apply
cognitive level will be for 12 marks, then for the lower levels, we have 8 marks and for the
Understand cognitive level instructor has decided 6 marks and for the Remember cognitive
level instructor has decided 2 marks.
It could as well be that instructor decides to have 8 marks for understand level and no marks
for remember level; it is perfectly alright for the instructor to make decisions as to the marks
to be allocated to lower cognitive levels. So, in this case, the allocation is 12 marks at Apply
level, 6 marks at Understand level and 2 marks at the Remember level.
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There is one issue of choice in an assessment instrument whether the assessment instrument
is belonging to CIE or SEE. The choice has to be implemented carefully. It is important that
the choice does not lead to any gaps in addressing the COs.
For example, let us look at test 1 in CIE - it is designed to address three COs, CO1, CO2, and
CO3. The question paper has three questions, one for each CO. That means one question
allocated to the CO1, one question allocated to CO2 and one question allocated to CO3. Now,
the choice is that students are required to answer any two questions. Now, this is evidently a
poor way of providing choice to the students.
It is quite possible that a substantial number of students answer only the questions related to
CO1 and CO2 and the question related to CO3 is left out as choice. Then this instrument will
fail to provide adequate data for computing the attainment of CO3. In the worst case, it is
possible that we do not get any performance data regarding CO3. So, this will be a poor way
of providing choice to the students.
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What is a better way of providing the choice for same test 1 which addresses the three COs,
CO1, CO2 and CO3? The question paper has three questions, one for each CO. Students are
required to answer all the three questions.
It does not mean that there is no choice, there is a choice. However, the choice is what is
called as internal choice - each question has two parts, and the student can answer either part.
Question 1 has two parts A and B. Students can answer either part A or part B. Both these
choice items belong to the same CO or generally at the same cognitive level and generally,
are at the same difficulty level also. Thus the parts in a question address the same CO at the
same cognitive levels and are at the same level of difficulty.
This is a much better way of providing choice in the question paper. Actually, here the
student is answering 3 questions out of 6 questions. It looks like a wider choice, but it is
internal choice. And this way, we can get reasonable performance data regarding every CO.
So a choice provided to the students must always be internal choice.
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Now design, T1 from CIE of your course as per the structure given and design SEE
instrument also as per the structure given.
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And we will look at the SEE structure again and this shows that there are 12 marks at Apply
level and 6 marks at Understand level and 2 marks at Remember level. Now, how do we
make up these 12 marks? Maybe using two 6 marks questions and accordingly, we should
decide on providing the SEE questions. So, based on this structure, we will have to decide
how the questions have to be allocated.
The plan should be as per that instrument. So design SEE instrument as per the structure
given. Thank you for sharing the results of the exercise at the email address given
nate.iiscta@gmail.com.
In the next unit we will understand the nature and use of item banks; and the process of
designing item banks. Thank you and we will meet with the next unit. Thank you.
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NBA Accreditation and Teaching - Learning In Engineering (NATE)
Professor K. Rajnikanth
Retired Principal
MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology
Indian Institute Of Science, Bengaluru
Item Banks
Greetings, welcome to module 2, unit 8 on Item Banks.
In the earlier unit, we understood the process of designing assessment plan and assessment
instruments for an engineering course.
In this unit we will understand the process of designing item banks for a course.
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What is an item bank? Item bank is also known as question bank in popular usage. What is it?
It is a collection of assessment items organized according to the course outcomes and
cognitive levels. What is the purpose of an item bank? The purpose of an item bank is to meet
the needs of designing assessment instruments for quizzes, assignments, tests of CIE and
SEE.
Accordingly, we can have item banks separately for quizzes, assignments, and CIE tests as
well as for SEE. It would be more convenient to have item banks separately because the
requirements do vary slightly from quizzes to assignments to tests.
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Items included in an item bank need to go through a formal - preferably or informal - at least,
review process. This is extremely important. The whole purpose of an item bank is to
facilitate composing quality assessment instruments. That will be possible only if the
assessment items included in the item bank are of good quality.
Thus all items included in the item bank must be reviewed and after going through such a
review process only the item banks must be created. If the item bank is to serve the purpose
of creating quality assessment instruments, we must ensure that the assessment items in the
item bank are of good quality. Thus, items included in the item bank must go through a
review process.
Items are tagged with several parameters. We will presently see the parameters. Item bank
needs to be organized as a database if assessment instruments are to be generated using
software tools. If we organize the item bank as a database, it is possible to have the
assessment instruments generated automatically through appropriate tools. Even if we are not
planning to use any tools to automate the process of generating assessment instruments, an
item bank should be structured well for manual use also.
Why do we need the item banks? A survey of many assessment instruments from several
universities and colleges across the country shows the following issues with many assessment
instruments. Many of these assessment instruments are available in the relevant websites and
a survey would show that many of the assessment instruments do have some serious
problems.
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There are language ambiguities, and technical inaccuracies. There are incompatibilities
between the assumed time required to respond and the scope of the question. This generally
leads to the compliant from the students that the question paper is too long, or the questions
take abnormally long time to respond. They claim that they knew the answer, but could not
complete it in the given time.
Uneven distribution of questions across course outcomes or you could also say units and
topics and cognitive levels. Certain COs which consume several classroom sessions are
addressed very very weakly in the assessment instrument. Certain COs which did not require
that many classroom sessions are given undue importance in the question paper.
So, this kind of unevenness in the distribution of the questions across the COs can also be
noticed in several assessment instruments. Uneven difficulty levels also exist among the
questions. So, these are some of the issues which one can notice when one surveys the
available assessment instruments from several universities as well as colleges across the
country.
The cognitive levels of assessment items are sometimes reduced to avoid some of these
issues. This would be a poor way of composing the assessment instrument. Reducing the
cognitive levels of assessment items, with the hope that this would reduce or avoid some of
the issues stated already is a poor way of composing an assessment instrument.
This results in reducing the quality of learning of all students. Item banks help us overcome
these limitations. It is not that the item bank is a panacea and automatically it will ensure
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good quality question paper. But item banks do help the instructors compose assessment
instruments of much better quality
Advantages in having an item bank: While it takes considerable effort to create good item
banks, particularly for the first time, there are several advantages in having a good item bank.
Faculty can save considerable time while designing good quality quizzes and class tests.
Paper setters at the university level can greatly benefit from an item bank when setting
assessment instruments of goods and uniform quality at the level of semester end
examination.
Some or all of the processes associated with creating and administering assessment and
evaluation can be computerized. If the item bank is available as an electronic database with
appropriate tools or with facilities provided by certain learning management systems, it is
possible to automate the process of composing the assessment instruments. It is also possible
to automate the evaluation in some cases. These would reduce the effort and the time that
presently gets devoted to the process of assessment and evaluation.
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If you look at the nature of the engineering institutions in India, we already have noted earlier
also that we have tier 1 and tier 2 colleges, with tier 2 colleges being dominant.
Item banks for tier 2 colleges, we can have item banks for quizzes, assignments and class
tests. These item banks are created and managed by a teacher or a group of teachers. Item
banks for SEE are created and managed at the university level because in a tier 2 college, the
semester and examination is the responsibility of the university. So, the item banks for CIE
assessment instruments are managed at the college level and the item bank for SEE are
created and managed at the university level.
For tier 1 colleges, all summative instruments are the responsibility of the department itself.
Thus, item banks for all summative instruments are created and managed by a teacher or
group of teachers at the department level. So, the item banks for tier 1 college will help
summative assessment instruments, all of them.
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What kind of assessment items get into the item bank? A wide variety of assessment items is
possible as noted in an earlier unit. We can have objective questions, essay type questions,
short answer questions, we can have true or false type questions, fill in the blanks, completion
type of questions - a wide variety of assessment items is possible.
Quizzes mostly use objective to questions, select or supply type. Sometimes, internal tests
also may have some objective type questions. Some universities require SEE question paper
also to have a part that is composed of objective type of questions. For example, there are
some universities where the SEE has 20 marks consisting of objective type questions, and 80
marks consisting of essay type questions.
Such objective questions are typically 1 mark questions. Occasionally, there may be 2 mark
questions. These questions are mostly at, Remember an Understand level. The cognitive
levels associated with these kind of objective questions are generally Remember and
Understand. Occasionally we may have objective questions at Apply level also.
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Marks allocated to assessment items used in assignments, internal tests and SEE depend upon
specific assessment plan as discussed in the previous unit. They may range from 1 mark to 20
marks, with or without scaling of responses at the end. Assessment items do vary
considerably in terms of the marks allocated when we come to the instruments of
assignments, class tests or semester end examination.
Assessment items in assignments tend to be mostly at Apply or higher cognitive levels

including Analyse, Evaluate and Create. This is because the assignments are take-home
assignments and students are expected to devote considerable time at home to compose
responses for these assessment items.
Thus assessment items tend to be at higher cognitive levels when assignments are concerned.
Depending upon the context, some assignments may have items belonging to Understand or
even Remember cognitive levels, but that is extremely rare. Assessment items used in
internal tests and SEE tend to be at the levels of Remember, Understand or Apply only.
This is because these instruments are of limited time and it is very difficult to have
assessment items of higher cognitive levels in these limited fixed time assessments. Thus the
questions which are found in tests or SEE tend to be always at Remember, Understand or
Apply level only.
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(Refer Slide Time 13:08)
When we come to creation of the item banks, there is no unique way of creating the item
bank. That is the first point to be noticed. What we are discussing are the general principles
and useful guidelines. The examples presented are for the purpose of illustration only. Each
institution must develop its own process for creating the item banks.
There is a huge variety of assessment items which can get into the item bank, the number of
marks allocated to the assessment items, the cognitive levels associated with the items, the
total number of items created in the item bank, all these are all variables. So, an institution
must have a policy for creating an item bank.
The size of the item bank and the variety of assessment items in the item bank grow with
time. However, initially an item bank must have some minimum number of items before it
can be used effectively for composing quality assessment instruments. In the subsequent
years, the item banks will grow in size and also in the variety of assessment items that are
available in the item bank. But initially, it must be a certain minimum size before it can be
really used for composing assessment instruments of good quality.
478
Items addressing the same CO at the same cognitive level and having the same number of
marks can be considered to be in one category. All the questions for 6 marks, at Understand
level, addressing a particular CO, let us say CO5, can be considered to be in one category.
Now, we are suggesting that the minimum number of items in each such category be at least
5 times the required number in that category.
The required number of items depends on the assessment plan as discussed in the previous
unit. So, based on the assessment plan, we work out what is the required number of
assessment items of one category, then at least 5 times that number should be in the item
bank to start with.
It is suggested that the item bank be made more general than required strictly by the
assessment plan. This would make the item bank more useful in the long run. As an example,
in the assessment plan, test 1 may address only CO1, CO2 and CO3 and all of the questions
related to them maybe only at Understand level. However if CO3 is at Apply level, it would
be worthwhile to create certain assessment items at Apply level also and have them in the
item bank.
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Now, let us look at item banks for quizzes. Quizzes are used both for formative and
summative assessment. In this sense, they are slightly different from the tests. Quizzes
normally consist of 5 to 10 one mark questions. All quiz questions belonging to Remember or
Understand cognitive level. In principle, one could have an objective type question at Apply
level, but a quiz generally will have questions belonging only to Remember or Understand
cognitive levels.
If all quizzes items belong to the categories that can be readily evaluated automatically by a
tool like a learning management system, the quizzes can be very conveniently administered
and evaluated. Multiple choice questions, multiple select questions, fill in the blank from a
list of given words - these are the type of assessment items, which can be very conveniently
evaluated by a tool.
If such is the case, the results can be discussed in the classroom without any delay after the
quiz is administered. Feedback can be provided to the students practically immediately after
administering the quiz. And we will see later that providing such timely feedback to the
students contributes to better learning by the students. Thus if we can have quiz items which
can be evaluated by a tool, it is worthwhile to have such quizzes as frequently as possible.
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There are 5 quizzes and 5 questions per quiz - then total questions required would be 25. If at
least 5 times the required number of questions are to be included in the item bank, then we
need to have about 125 items. This is a rough calculation, an approximate figure and this
figure holds good for the initial configuration of the item bank. Subsequently the item bank
will grow in size.
The items in the quiz bank are to be distributed over all the COs approximately in proportion
to the number of class sessions associated with each CO. If a particular CO consumes fairly
large number of classroom sessions, then it is worthwhile having fairly larger proportion of
the items belonging to that CO.
So, that is how we create the item bank initially. Subsequent years, we will keep on adding
items to the item bank and the item bank will continue to grow in size. The items in the item
bank for quizzes can be distributed suitably over the relevant cognitive levels of Remember
as well as Understand.
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Let us look at the item banks for assignments. Assignments dominantly will have items
belonging to the cognitive level, Apply. In some cases, ill-defined problems and items
belonging to Analyse, Evaluate and Create categories can be given as assignments. It is very
difficult to include assessment items of this nature in limited time assessment instruments like
tests. Thus, the instructor may decide to have such items included in assignments.
Marks allocated to the items for assignments vary considerably. We must decide on the
number of items, their cognitive levels, and the marks to be allocated to them based on the
assessment plans. That would indicate the size required for the item bank.
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Again, if we assume that on the average there are 3 items in an assignment, 2 assignments in
a semester, and the number of items in the item bank needs to be at least 5 times the required
number initially, then the number of items in the assignment item bank should be 30 - 3 items
in assignment into 2 assignments, that is 6 items, and we need 5 times that, so 30 items.
The items should be designed to address all the COs of the course at the concerned cognitive
levels. Of course this is a choice of the instructor. If she feels very strongly that some COs are
unlikely to be included in assignments, then she need not create items for those COs. For
example, in many courses, the earlier COs tend to be at slightly lower cognitive levels.
So, there may not be any requirement to include those COs in assignments, say CO1, CO2, or
even CO3. So, a particular faculty member might decide to have assessment items related
only to the later COs for the assignments, it is the choice of the instructor. Items must be
designed taking into account the cognitive levels as well as the marks to be allocated to them.
Let us now look at items banks for tests. All tests are designed, conducted and evaluated by
the teacher of a course, both in tier 1 and tier 2 institutions. The assessment plan, as discussed
earlier, includes the COs addressed in a test and the marks allocated to the COs at different
cognitive levels. Teacher has to further decide on the composition of items for the given
marks. Any choice to be provided in the test also needs to be taken into account.
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Let us look at one example. Consider the assessment plan presented in the previous unit. As
per that plan, CO5 is addressed in test two. Marks allocated to CO5 are 8 and their breakup is
6 marks at Apply level and 2 marks at Understand level. Now, how does one compose a
question for 6 marks at the Apply level? Teacher again has great freedom.
Teacher can decide to have one single question for 6 marks at Apply level or teacher can
decide to have 2 questions at Apply level, each for 3 marks. So, thus teacher has to decide
how many sub questions at how many marks level should be used to compose the question
required as per the assessment plan.
In this case, let us assume that teacher decides to have 2 questions at Apply level, each for 3
marks to get a total of 6 marks for that level, and one question for 2 marks at Understand
level. Again, it is to be noted that this is the decision of the instructor. She has the total
freedom on the decision regarding the composing of the questions.
The total marks at Apply level must be 6. Beyond that, the actual composition of the question
is left to the specific teacher’s choices made in a particular rendering of the course. There is
to be internal choice. Both the questions involved in the choice or to be similar. These are the
decisions made.
484
So now, what should be the number of items in the item bank? Items required for CO5 for
test 2, taking choice into account. 4 questions, each for 3 marks at Apply level. Notice we
needed 2 questions, each for 3 marks, but there is an internal choice. So, we need 2+2=4
questions. Then 2 questions - each of 2 marks at understand level. So, item bank requires
5x4=20 questions, each for 3 marks at Apply level and 5x2=10 questions, each for 2 marks at
Understand level.
The total requirements for item banks for tests can be determined by considering all the COs
and all the tests as per the assessment plan. This is an illustrative process for one particular
CO and for one particular test. This has to be done for all the COs and all the planned tests.
That would indicate how the item bank should be created in the first instance.
485
Features of item banks for tests: Teacher makes the choice at every stage. The choices are
based on her perceptions of the course, the subject content, her instruction, cognitive abilities
of students, and other contextual factors. One structure is not applicable to all courses, nor
does the item bank impose any kind of restrictions on the teacher. It is not a straitjacket.
The creativity of the teacher is in no way compromised. There are several decisions which are
made by the teacher based on the contextual factors. The item bank for test still helps the
teacher in creating quality assessment instrument, but it does not curb her freedom.
Now, let us look at item banks for semester end examination. SEEs are more structured than
tests. Normally, one structure is used for all courses of all programs in a given institute or a
486
given university. Paper setter at the university level or teacher in the case of a tier 1
institution, has the choice of distributing the marks allocated a question over 3 or 4 sub-
questions.
Most of the universities and institutions in India in an implicit way; restrict the number of
questions, sub questions to 4. A given question does not have more than 4 sub questions.
Initial item bank can be designed with 5 times the required number of items after taking
choice into account.
This is one sample structure of an SEE instrument. This is internal choice, the assessment
items under the column - Item A and the assessment items under the column - Item B are the
choice groups. For CO1, there is a 6 mark question at Understand level. There is a 4 mark
question again at Understand level. That is how the 1A is shown as 6U - 4U. That means 6
marks at Understand level, another question for 4 marks at Understand level.
Then the same question addresses CO2 also. And regarding CO2 also, there is one question
for 6 marks at Understand level, there is one question for 4 marks at Understand level. Thus
overall, if you look at the first question, there are 4 subsections to that question, or 4 sub
questions to that question.
One question is at 6 marks, another one is at 4 marks, these two are related to CO1. Then
there is one sub question at 6 marks and another sub question at 4 marks, all at Understand
level related to CO2. So, this constitutes one question and the internal choice for this question
487
is the one which is shown under the Item B column. That is, 1B with 6, 4, 6, 4 marks, all at
Understand level, 2 sub questions belonging to CO1 and 2 sub-questions belonging to CO2.
In this case, the items belonging to the choice are all identical but they need not be like that.
For example, if you look at the questions which are thus CO4, you can see that 3A has 6
marks at Understand level, 7 marks at Apply level and 7 marks at Apply level, making a total
of 6 plus 7 plus 7, 20 marks.
But it is choice item has 5 marks at Understand level, 8 marks at Apply level and 7 marks at
Apply level. So, 5 + 8 + 7, again 20 marks. There can be minor variations in the choice items
but broadly, they are at the same cognitive levels and similar difficulty levels. Once such a
structure is determined by the Institute or by the university, we can work out the required
number of questions and based on that, we can figure out what should be the minimum size
of the item bank.
Consider CO5 and take choice into account. So, if you see CO5 here we can see that in the
4A, question 4A, there is a 4 mark question, again 8 mark question, again 8 mark question. In
the choice again, 4 mark question, 8 mark question and 8 mark question. Thus for CO5, we
need (taking choice into account), 4 questions at Apply level each for 8 marks and 2
questions at Understand level each for 4 marks.
That is what is shown here. 4 questions, each for 8 marks at Apply level, 2 questions, each for
4 marks at Understand level. Thus item bank must have, 5 x 4, 20 questions, each for 8 marks
488
at Apply level, 5 x 2, 10 questions, each for 4 marks at Understand level. All these are related
to CO5 only.
Similar considerations apply to other COs also. Again, the process looks somewhat tedious,
but the problems occur only during the creation of the item bank for the very first time.
Subsequently, managing the item bank is much simpler.
Once we create an item bank, then subsequently, the maintenance of the item bank would be
a much simpler activity. The initial effort is worth its while because this allows us to create
assessment instruments of uniform quality for CIE as well as for SEE. All items need to get
reviewed for the language, technical correctness and time required by an average student.
This is essential because we are using the item bank to compose assessment instruments of
good quality. All items should be tagged with COs, cognitive levels, marks, preferably
difficulty level, and sample answers also must be provided. The tags are essential in order to
pick up the required items to compose a specific assessment instrument. A tool can make use
all of the stacks to automatically compose an assessment instrument.
The item bank should be suitable for manual usage also. The item bank should be kept
dynamic by archiving about 10% of the items and adding about 10% new items every year.
Otherwise, the item bank becomes stale and probably it loses the ability to help the faculty in
composing quality instruments. So, about 10% of the items can be archived and 10% new
items can be added every year. The items which are being archived can be brought back into
the item bank after 3 4 years. So, the item bank is kept dynamic.
489
When the item bank grows to a size that is reasonably large, representative segment of the
item bank can be made visible to the students also. We can expose about 10 to 15 percent of
the items in the item bank to the students also. They get to know the type of assessment items
which are possible. Because the item bank is fairly large in size, such an exposing of the part
of the item bank to the students does not dilute the quality of the assessment.
Now, the views regarding the item banks have been changing over time. Teachers and
educational administrators have started seeing the usefulness of well managed item banks
though, the item banks were not acceptable a few years ago. Item bank creation should
always be a group effort. Creating a good and large item bank at the university level requires
considerable coordination.
So, the university has to make special efforts if it has to create an item bank, which is large
enough to be used for the composing of SEE instruments. But the resulting benefits can be
substantial, particularly for tier 2 institutes as the question paper is composed by the
university people and it affects the results to a great extent because a large number of tier 2
institutes are affiliated to university. So, the benefits of a good data bank can be substantial.
Use of software tools for management of item banks, and also for generating good quality
assessment instruments will reduce the load on the faculty.
490
Design the structures for the item banks, for quizzes, assignments, tests and SEE for your
course, making your own assumptions, and thank you for sharing the results of the exercise at
In the next unit, we will understand the processes of Development phase. With this unit, we
have completed the Design phase and in the next unit we will start with the Development
phase. Thank you and we will meet with the next unit. Thank you.
491
NBA Accreditation and Teaching - Learning In Engineering (NATE)
Professor N.J. Rao
Indian Institute Of Science, Bengaluru
M2 U9: Development Phase
Greetings and welcome to NATE module 2, unit 9 concerned with Development phase of
ADDIE.
In the last unit, we understood the process of designing and managing item banks for quizzes,
assignment, tests and semester end examinations of an engineering course. Item banks
involve lot of work, but when it is well done and well managed, it can have a significant
influence on the quality of testing first. Because of quality of testing is good, quality of
learning will also be good.
492
In this unit, we try to understand the sub-process of Development phase for an engineering
course. So, if you recall the phases of ADDIE is Analysis, Design and Development.
Now, we will look at Development phase. Development phase consists of these activities
which include - identifying the delivery technologies, choosing instruction type, development
of instructional material and identification and selection of learning material. These are the
four activities.
493
Now, let us look at delivery technologies. Before you do, before you start planning for your
course in detail, you have to make a choice about the delivery technology. What kind of
classroom do I have? What kind of technology do I have access to? For example, if the
students have to bring their own devices, what kind of devices they should bring and so on.
So, let us look at some of them. There can be many more type of delivery technologies.
First thing is classroom with black board, white board or the smart board. Smart board is a bit
rare but it will come under the same category that is you have a black board or a white board
on which the teacher writes. Classroom with LCD projector, electronic classroom with LCD
projector, students with laptops and smartphones and/or smartphones you can say and
electronic classrooms with a learning management system.
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Let us look at the first one. Yes, before we go to the first one, the choice and access to
delivery technology will have a great influence on the instruction. Because you have to plan
everything based on your choice of the both devices, environment, everything.
These days you have several informational communication technologies tools are available to
us. Some of them in open source, some of them can be acquired by the college or university.
The university level ICT tools will be quite expensive. That is why many universities hesitate
to use that. But as an individual teacher, you can use some of these tools. We will look at the
possibilities.
What happens when you use these tools, one of the requirements is teacher has to either
create his own material or develop the whole material that he wants to use in teaching in the
classroom or he can curate the material from the internet and so on and he can make this
readily available to the students. Because once it is available in electronic form, it has several
possibilities.
The time the students take in drawing a diagram in the classroom, or writing a lot of notes
that is essentially making copies of what the teacher is writing on the board, a lot of time can
be saved. All these technologies have their advantages. Obviously, otherwise technology
would not even be considered provided the instruction is adjusted to the technology. They
have to be really compatible with each other. That is the teacher has to make use of the
possibilities that are created by the technology.
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Now, let us start with Black board and white board. This technology is the oldest and most
prevalent; I think last maybe 150 years, some variant of Black board is being used. Still
people prefer, vouch by this. Yes, there are some advantages, but there are also many
limitations. It is also sometimes I feel a bit meaningless to keep on hanging on to that saying
the other technologies do not meet or give the advantages of the black board.
The major advantage of black board or white board is the pace and sequence followed
generally syncs with the delivery of new information, giving enough time to the students to
understand. That is the major advantage. That is, while the teacher is writing on the board,
there is a certain sequence and he can also write only at particular speed.
So, to that extent, whether the student writes that down in his notes or just keeps on watching,
there is certain time available for the student to kind of absorb and consider the knowledge
that is presented and also evaluate and there is time to really internalize whatever that has
been presented.
But of course, there is one single pace at which the teacher kind of presents the information.
If there are students with very poor cognitive abilities, obviously that time is not adequate.
And people with higher cognitive abilities they will find it is too slow. So, it has its
limitations as well. This one suits the courses that are dominantly mathematical or all kinds of
equations have to be written, then in that case, the black board is still the ideal one. To adapt
it to an LCD projector (can be done but) it takes more effort and it requires some special
abilities to do that.
496
What happens in the black board if you have a very complex diagram to be drawn on the
board first of all, it takes lot of time, not every teacher will have the drawing ability to present
a neat picture on the board and when it is very complex, there are likely to be errors creeping
in. Once errors are again noted down by the student, obviously that means you have
transferred some wrong information and students sometimes the students may stay with that,
may not be able to correct that.
When you have descriptive courses where a lot of information is being presented then what
happens, what you can write on the board is only key phrases and even the student may not
be able to keep on writing down what the teacher is speaking. So, even for descriptive
courses, black board may not be the best.
Some variant of smart board: it enables the teacher to capture the material presented on the
board as an image. That is whatever teacher writes on the board using a pen related to the
smart board; in the end that image can be captured. It has the facility to capture and maybe
you can make photocopies of that.
When smartboard came on the scene, maybe about 20 years ago, it was considered a great
boon, but somehow that kind of thing did not catch. It also allows the teacher to interact with
the material projected as slides. If you are projecting through using an LCD projector onto the
smart board, what can be done? smart board - let us say after the image is presented, the
teacher can interact with that, highlighting things, circling key elements in that and so on, all
that also can be captured. But it is adopted in some places, but its use has not become that
very popular.
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Now, come the classroom with LCD projector, which many of you may already be using that.
It permits the user to organize information to be presented in a better manner and allows her
or him to show complex pictures readily. Whether it is equations, pictures, sometimes and
animations also can be projected and so on. So, the material can readily be presented in a
much better fashion.
But of course, that requires a lot of pre planning. What can happen if it is connected to the
working computer of the teacher? He can even simulate something and something can be
dynamically presented on the screen. So, there is one advantage and the slides presenter can
be converted into doc or PDF format and you can share it with the students.
To convert that is pretty easy and you can share it with the student these days and the pace at
which information is delivered can make some students mentally dropout. If you are narrating
or presenting the information at a fast pace because that is available to you right in front of
your eyes, so you are likely to go a little faster. When you go faster, you may lose your
students.
They may go out of step. Once you student goes out of step, at some point, he or she will
mentally drop out. That is one disadvantage. And also it requires some discipline, you should
not make the crowd slides too crowded. And sometimes the teacher can end up merely
reading the slide, just face in the opposite direction, towards the screen and start reading the
slides and you cannot have a worse situation than that.
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Right in the first slide itself you will lose all your students mentally. So, one has to be careful.
In my experience, some people acquire some habits. If they happen to bad habits somehow,
they keep on hanging on to that. For example, making the slides crowded which is in my
opinion is a bad thing.
Now, let us look at electronic classroom. It is a next level and first of all electronic classroom
can make this engagement of the student much significantly enhanced. First of all, slide
material can be shared in advance with the students. Students can write their own notes and
tag them with the slides.
So, what happens? If the information is already shared, and the students do have the internet
devices with them in the classroom, that is what an electronic classroom is, they not only
have their laptops or smartphones or tablets with them, in such a case what happens the
material is already made available to them. Whatever you want to note while the teacher is
presenting the slide material, they can just type short points on that and can be tagged on to
the slide which the information is being dealt with.
Teacher can also ask questions and make all students respond and immediately discuss their
responses. Of course, this particular thing, if you have an LMS (learning management
system) also part of it, it becomes much easier, even otherwise, through emails, the students
can directly communicate with the teacher right in the classroom. So, you require
corresponding WiFi facility for students to communicate with the teacher.
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Another thing is, these days simulation is becoming a very powerful tool in many subjects to
learn anything. That is essentially you are trying to explore, what happens if something is
changed in a given system? So, one way of my learning the behaviour of the system,
especially, when a system has several nonlinear elements in that or it has several feedback
loops in that, it is not very easy at all.
First of all, modelling itself can become difficult. The models may contain very highly
nonlinear equations and nonlinear equations may or may not have closed form solutions. In
that case, the only tool that you have best with you is to simulate. Sometimes even simple
equations can be simulated to find out what happens when a parameter is changed, which will
not be very obvious by looking at the equation itself.
For this, you have powerful simulation tools, there are a whole bunch of them. Depending on
what you have access to the instruction can be planned accordingly. But, one thing about
electronic classroom is, it requires considerable planning and work on the part of the teacher
to make the classroom time effectively utilized. I can go on simulating, I can go on showings
all kinds of things on the screen, but one has to rather spend a lot of time in trying to ensure
that it is leading to true learning by all the students.
Now, you can also have, even if the Institute does not have an LMS at the college or
institutional level, a teacher can have his own LMS because LMS like MOODLE, which is an
open source tool. Teacher himself, on his own laptop, can create many activities that engage
students.
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For example, one of the easiest thing is to conduct a quiz. Quiz is generally, you ask 5 to
maximum 10 questions, which are Multiple choice questions or give a, not even short answer,
fill in the blank kind of thing. Even if you conduct a quiz, to find out to what they have done
to analyse that, it takes a lot of time for the teacher because if he has looked through 50-60
responses, it takes a lot of time.
The very purpose of using quizzes as as a formative assessment tool, is not served. You can
always use a quiz as a summative assessment instrument, but that is a different one. But the
main purpose of quiz is to find out at what level the students are with respect to certain
concepts, let us say. You want to get the result immediately and also you want to give
feedback immediately.
LMS like MOODLE provides a wonderful possibility of creating such a quizzes and looking
at the responses of the students and if the students are responding using their internet devices,
then what can happen is you can exactly see how what set of students are going completely
off the track; you can directly address them. It is one is a wonderful thing to be used in the
class.
Also LMS will enable the teacher to keep track of students’ performance without excessive
effort. It enables the teacher to create documentation as needed by NBA or NAAC. That is
another issue. If your college already has some kind of an LMS, has come to agreement with
or what you call academic management system, it will provide all kinds of tools that we are
talking about.
Even if you do not have such a thing, at an individual teacher level, you can learn how to
make use of something like a MOODLE. Because you can readily download and it requires a
small amount of training. I am sure you can find somebody who can help you in that and
setup your MOODLE site for your course.
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What do you call instruction types? For want of any other word, we use the word instruction
type. Because finally, what is it that we are trying to do in development phase? We are trying
to develop instruction material and learning material. First thing is we said the choice of the
technology will directly influence the kind of instruction material that you have to prepare.
Then the next issue is what instruction type are you following? There are four types we are
talking about, one can think of more, but these are the dominant ones. Face-to-face are direct
instruction in the classroom sessions. This is still the most dominant method of instruction. I
should not call it method of instruction, type of instruction. You have blended, learning
flipped classroom, online courses and still later version is the MOOC.
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Face-to-face direct instruction: obviously this is the most popular type and it can use any of
the delivery technologies that we have used, that we have mentioned. The direct instruction is
categorized further based on the delivery technology that is chosen. Here teacher-student
interaction plays a very important role in all learning activities in the classroom.
There is a level of comfort felt by both the students and the teacher because the students right
from their childhood, they are used to that mode of doing and the teacher because of that is
also used to using face-to-face instruction; when you deviate from that, both the students and
teacher may feel a bit uncomfortable. This becomes an important issue whenever you want to
deviate from this face-to-face type of instruction.
Because students are always they are all sitting in one classroom, they are also interacting
with each other, they know each other; even then they go out of the class, they are interacting
with each other. Automatically what happens? That very type of interaction facilitates
creating learning communities. That means 3 or 4 will get together and say, they start sharing
the information, start explaining to each other, start solving problems together and so on.
Learning communities can get formed more easily. Any deviation from this as I said, is not
going to be easily acceptable. Even practically any institute that I have seen, we talk about all
kinds of other technologies but in the end, the face-to-face or direct instruction seems to be
the main choice of the faculty.
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Blended learning is an approach that combines traditional place based classroom that is
students do come to a specific place, there is an identified classroom, and then the teacher is
also in front of them. So, it is a kind of face-to-face interaction is possible. But it also has all
the educational materials available online.
That means you also facilitates students to interact with each other online. That means
learning communities are facilitated to form online. That means they do not have to sit across
the table and talk to each other. But the present day technology allows you, to communities to
form online and a lot of work can be done online.
How the classroom time is utilized is left to the teacher. It requires certain amount of practice
and also students have to get used to it. But once you properly organize, it was observed that
the student achievement was much higher in blended learning than with face-to-face or fully
online or fully face-to-face learning experiences.
The possibilities will become many, but it is fairly well understood. But if you want to use it,
you have to dare, the teacher has to dare to get into this. One advantage of blended learning is
if you are taking 4 lectures per week, you can cut it down. You do not require that much of
face-to-face interaction.
You can cut down as low as 1 hour per classroom for face-to-face, provided that the teacher
is available for interaction online or is able to answer questions as when the students raise
them. But you do not have to be in the classroom. So, you can blend the online learning with
the classroom learning.
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Another modification of this. Essentially flipped classroom is normally what do we do? We

present the new material or demonstrate the new knowledge in the classroom and generally
ask the students to study back at their hostels or in their rooms and also solve some problems
that means, they are solving problems outside the classroom and in the classroom,
information is transferred to them. Flipped classroom is essentially you are switching this.
The problems are solved in the classroom in the presence of the teacher, whereas the material
that you are trying to present in the classroom is made available online, and the students do
read on that. There is no need to prepare copies of what the teacher writes on the board
because the entire material can be made available to the students online. The activity is
normally considered as homework are moved into the classroom.
In a flipped classroom, students watch online lectures, collaborate in online discussions or

carry out research at home while engaging in concepts and problem solving in the classroom
with the guidance of the teacher. This is what flipped classroom is.
When you plan it properly, when it is done, yes there are enough number of examples to
show that it can be very effective. But as we said, unless the teacher really takes it, believes
in that and prepares accordingly it will not be easy to make a success.
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Then come the next level. Online courses would mean that the teacher does not even come to
a class and there is no face-to-face interaction at all. The way we are now doing in NPTEL
courses, the video sessions are recorded and they are made available to the students. Lecture
wise lecture can be broken into smaller units, they are all available for the student and they
can listen to it as many times as possible at their own pace, at their own places, and so on.
Even the assignments, everything is given online. There is a method of even conducting what
we call both formative and summative assessment online. The software tool itself will
evaluate the performance of the student. That is complete online. But normally when we call
it online, it is meant, it refers to the way we conduct our courses in any regular program, let
us say 60 students are in a batch, I am conducting a course, except that everything is online, I
am only dealing with the same set of 60 students here.
When I am limiting myself with a smaller number of students then I can also ask them to
write reports, I can ask them to submit written responses to certain questions, which they are
made available online to me, either image form or text form, and I can evaluate and do, but
there is no direct face-to-face interaction with that. So, if it is limited to the students who are
registered with my course at any given time, online course can have lot of advantages.
Except of course, because student is not directly face-to-face interacting with the teacher that
rapport cannot be easily created. There are methods to do that. But that again requires a lot of
effort. The next level type of instruction is MOOC. That is now it is not limited to the
students who are registered for my course in a particular Institute, but it is open to anyone and
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everyone throughout the world. When you do that, you have a lot of issues related to
conducting the assessment.
Those will have to be solved. Then sometimes like we are doing in NPTEL, most of the time
the numbers are large, you have to confine yourself to what do you call computer evaluatable
questions. That is multiple choice or fill in the blank kind of questions that becomes a
limitation in some of the courses.
Having talked about delivery technologies, and instruction types, now we talk about
instruction material. Creating instruction material is the main purpose of development phase.
Instruction material is what the instructor users for facilitating the student to achieve the
stated course outcomes or competencies. Essentially instruction material is what the
instructor prepares for himself. It is not necessary for him to share this with everybody. He
can write specific instructions to himself.
Generally what happens? This instruction material is also organized as per the COs or
competencies. That is one way of classifying. That is for each competency or CO, or
instructional unit as we call it; for each instructional unit, I will prepare my instruction
material. Because what happens? Depending on the type of material I am dealing with, I may
use different instructional methods. Instructional methods are different from instruction types.
The instructional methods we will deal within the letter units.
Instructional material will also depend on the time allocated to each element because the
instruction will consists of several instructional elements, depending on the elements you
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choose, depending on the nature of the element, the material will also depend on the time
allocated for each element.
What does it consists of, instruction material in the end? Presentations or oral or ppt of the
instructor wants to make that is the first one; and the problem the teacher wants to solve in
the classroom; quizzes the instructor wishes to conduct, discussions proposed to be conducted
in the classroom; the group activities proposed to be conducted and any anecdotes you want
to present and you can make a long list of that. All the material will be first collected and then
you organize depending on the kind of instruction method you are going to use.
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As we already said the choice of delivery technology and the instruction type chosen will
influence the instruction design. Instruction design formally, we will deal with it in a later
unit and it will determine the structure and contents of the instructional material.
Now, we come to instructor and instruction design. Depending on the subject and preferences
of the instructor (even now intuitively different instructors are likely to handle their courses
differently) we are now talking about doing it in a structured manner.
Every instructor prepares instruction material according to which she conducts the classroom
activities. Instructional material has a plan of the sequence of activities first (as a plan first,
and we will call it as a script; I am not coining the word script, but in today's international
context, the word used is learning design for which you have a script and then you write the
dialogues). Instructional material has a plan of the sequence of activities, which we are
calling it a script and then how these activities are going to be executed or detailed out, you
can call them as dialogues.
Instructor has the freedom to write the script. While we use the word script, but the instructor
has complete freedom to write the script of each instructional unit; and the script for each
instruction unit need not be similar. It depends on the nature of the topic that is being
addressed in that particular course outcome.
The framework within which script is written is called instruction design. We talk about that
in later units. There are any number of instructional design frameworks. We are not going to
elaborate on all of them, but some of them we will explore in the later units.
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Learning material, to understand it is easy. Learning material is what the learners use. While
listening to the teacher, the learner has to have material which he can make use of it at home
to kind of ensure that he understood everything that has been presented to him. Normally it
consist of material selected from identified textbooks or internet sources and if necessary,
supplemented by material prepared by instructor. That is all the learning material. It is also
selected or prepared for each instructional unit.
These days if you have any of the academic management system, they also permit curated
material from textbooks and related video material from online resources, specifically, pieced
together by the teacher from the internet sources. That is a great advantage, provided you
have the corresponding academic management system.
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That is about the development phase, where the final output of development phase is
instructional material and the learning material. It takes considerable time obviously, but
these are the two outputs of development phase.
In the next unit, we try to understand the nature and sub process of implement phase which is
the fourth phase of ADDIE. Thank you very much for your attention.
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NBA Accreditation and Teaching- Learning in Engineering (NATE)
Professor N.J Rao
M2 U10: Implement Phase 1
Greetings and welcome to NATE module 2 - unit 10 on implement face.
In the last unit we understood the process of development phase which constitute the third phase
of ADDIE. Now, the fourth phase of ADDIE is the Implementation phase.
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We try to understand the implement phase; its sub-processes which include syllabus; planning
for resources and instructors perception of students’ abilities and motivation. There are three
elements in this one is syllabus, the other is planning for resources; the third one is instructor’s
perception of students’ abilities and motivation. There are many more activities in the
implementation phase, which will which we will explore in the following unit.
After Analysis, Design and Development, we got the entire assessment; we wrote the course
outcomes and then we designed the assessment and we created instruction material and identified
learning material.
After all that, we have to actually conduct the conduct the course. But what happens each time
you conduct a course it becomes a specific instance of offering the course. I may have to offer
the course either to multiple batches or for several years one after the other. So, what happens is,
anytime I conduct a course, it becomes one specific instance of offering the course. Implement
phase present to specifics of an instance of the course offering.
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Again these are these suggested processes for the elements of implement phase. Just let me read
through this - one is writing syllabus, planning for resources, instructors perception of students
abilities and motivation. The three of these we will be considering in this module or in this unit.
Instruction schedule, observations on instruction, additional sessions conducted by the instructor

beyond the scheduled hours, assessment instruments, feedback to students after every
assessment, observations on assessment instruments and student performance, student feedback
during the session and tracking students.
While the list looks very long, it is not that very complicated in the end. Once you try to do all
these things electronically, it is not that complicated. For many of them you have standard
templates that you can make use of.
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Syllabus: the word syllabus is understood somewhat in a different way in India compared to the
other countries. In India syllabus constitutes the list of topics and the textbooks and reference
books - that completes the syllabus as far as the Indian context is concerned. But it is not so,
especially in western universities.
It kind of a well written syllabus guides, faculty and students alike. That means you are trying to
write either like a contract all the details about the course, are written in advance and you say this
is how the course is going to be conducted.
To that extent, students are very clear. What is it that they are getting into? And similarly, the
teacher is very clear in what sequence or what are the things that he is expected to do. So, it
provides the students with information about the broad aim of the course; the specific course
outcomes the student is expected to demonstrate at the end of the course, the instructional plan;
work expected of the students, how performance will be evaluated and several other issues.
The distribution of written syllabus at the beginning of the course, by doing so, the instructor can
minimize student misunderstanding about the expectations from the class. First, any
misunderstandings are cleared when you write a good syllabus. Even a book is written on how to
write syllabus by Joyce and Marilyn. Syllabus can also keep the faculty on track throughout the
semester and help to ensure the course does not stall or deviate at any one point. It does not go
off tangentially or it does not get stuck at one place.
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Which has the competence of syllabus? One is to write aim of the course - one sentence explains
the purpose or goal of the course. Let me give one example - one course our proposed course are
analog circuits and systems - the aim is to design analog circuits and systems that perform signal
processing functions and signal generation using devices including op amps, amplifiers,
multipliers and comparators.
Not too much of detail is given, but there are certain things are made clear - first of all this
course is not concerned with designing circuits using discrete electronic components like
transistors. It uses the basic competence with which it works is op amps; any other type of
amplifiers multipliers and comparators.
Then what do you do with them you perform certain signal processing functions. Of course there
are infinite number; we will only handle certain representative ones at the first level and also
how to generate signals.
So, in one sentence you are trying to communicate to the outside world as well as to your
students, what is the aim of the course? Then you write course overview and context which we
have explained, it deals with relationship of the course to the rest of the program, the nature of
the course, its importance to the profession, and the approach proposed to be taken by the
instructor. We have already created this in the Analysis phase, you just have to bring that and put
it here.
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Then you may have certain attendance policy. This may be specific to your course, or it may be
department or Institute's policy. You just have to follow that. But you are making it clear, but
very specifically, that means 75 percent attendance is compulsory, all such things you are trying
to write there and then you write the course outcomes.
Course outcomes are as we have already decided in the Analysis phase, it is something like 6
plus or minus 2 for a course. And then if necessary, we elaborate course outcomes into course
competencies, which can be anywhere from 10 to 20. Then, we write the content of the course,
with which everybody is familiar it is essentially a list of topics. You can group them as you
please like separate paragraphs or you can write continuously the list of topics.
Then, you give the learning resources, identify the textbooks, when you identify the textbooks
you can you can also annotate it specifically, chapter one to two are meant for CO1 and so on
like that you can further qualify the textbooks that you are going to use.
You can give references and also internet links these days can be given but do not give too many.
Do gives specific ones and also annotate them right one or two sentences next to the link say, for
what purpose are you going to that internet link. Then you give your assessment plan as decided
in the design phase. As you can see most of it is already done at different places, you are
bringing it together, and maybe filling up a few more details.
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Then you will instruction schedule this also is required by the department generally, the
classroom and laboratory schedules, and giving specific dates. Here what we do? We may
slightly differ; we give it in terms of instructional unit. An instructional unit may take anywhere
up to 5 lecturer hours. In that case, all the days on which you are dealing with that instructional
unit with those dates will be given. If you have 15 instructional unit, you will give the
corresponding dates when you are going to handle that in the instruction schedule.
Then you talk about assignments, the actual assignments that the instructor proposes during the
semester including the dates they would be made available, time at which the student need to
submit and the nature of the assignment. Again it is instructor’s choice. One is if you are using
any kind of LMS you can create the assessment or assignments and then hide it from the student
until a particular point.
Then it will be made visible to the students and the students are required to submit by a particular
time. Whatever rule that you want to follow, sometimes people say in some courses, they already
write on the first day, the assignments they have to do are already given to them, the students are
at freedom to kind of work on them as depending on their time availability.
Then the next issue is evaluation procedures for tests and assignments. Whatever procedure you
want to follow the weightages that you want to give the rubrics (if he is using rubric he must
make it very clear to the student). So, for both tests and assignments, what are the rubrics that
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you are using that means, what aspect of the assignment you consider important? What
weightage you are likely to give to that will also serve as a guide to the students how to do it
properly.
Then you may have some late assignment submission policy, if you say you have to submit by 5
O’clock on Monday, and if it is electronically, the system would not permit you to submit
anything. In such case what do you want to do? Again different people have their different
approaches, somebody says late submission, you will lose 1 mark; if it is by 2 days you will lose
4 marks and so on. Whatever late assignment submission policy you have, that has to be made
very clear, and you have to stick with that.
Then makeup examination work policy. Here, if it is makeup examination, college may have its
own policy; if it does not have the instructor may have his own policy. If somebody is not able to
come to a laboratory, he is not able to come for a class test, what should be done? Again, as I
said these policies are normally decided at the college level.
If in any report you have to cite some papers, the citation style of the papers model should be
given. That means, an instructor says whenever you want to cite a certain paper, you have to
write in this particular format.
Then also you can talk about you can actually write behavior expectations. Instructors
expectations of students behavior to timing of coming into the class usage of cell phones, mobile
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internet devices and laptops, whatever behavior expectations you have they can be very clearly
mentioned. Academic dishonesty/cheating plagiarism - generally these are also laid out by the
college or university.
In some cases, you may have teaching assistants, but most of the colleges do not have the
concept of teaching assistant. But if you have one, you have to give contact information about
the teaching assistant and at what times he is expected to be available to students.
Then, if you have differently abled students now we have call them divyangs; if you have some
divyangs in your class, what kind of support systems are available? Especially in engineering
programs you may not have, but we do have experience in some cases. We have people with
walking disabilities, hearing disabilities, and so on in such a case what kind of specific
arrangements are you making?
As you can see, you have a long list of these things. Some of them are relevant to you your
context. Some of them are not the ones that are not relevant to your context just knock them out
and the remaining items you need to prepare and then that becomes that what we call the
syllabus and preferably this syllabus should be made available on the department site for your
course. You do not have to necessarily print and give it these days. You can just put it on your
course website.
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Next we are going to look at planning for resources. Why do we have to do this? First of all, the
number of students you have, obviously you have to pick corresponding classroom which can
accommodate that many students; then mainly the delivery technologies. In many colleges you
have only some rooms that provide you LCD projector facilities, some rooms only provide you
blackboard. Obviously you cannot project slides in a classroom that has only blackboard.
So, you have to plan in advance make sure that the choice of delivery technology and the
resources needed to conduct the course have to be planned. Maybe the department will have
some kind of a mechanism of getting together and trying to ensure that these needs are met.
For example, if you have group discussions or small group assignment you want to give as a part
of your course; the classroom furniture should permit that. That means three four people must be
able to draw some chairs together and then discuss with each other, work with each other. But if
you have a rigid benches, which are nailed down, obviously that kind of thing will not be
possible.
If students are expected to work with their laptops and tablets in the classroom, or smartphones,
then you need to have furniture, power supply connections and mostly Wi Fi modems should be
available and make sure they do work. If any of them do not work then you cannot have
electronic classroom.
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Issues will come in such a case. If a few students are have not brought their devices or
somebody's device is not working. You have all kinds of such issues and you have to have a plan
for it.
For example, if you have LCD projector, it proposed to be use. You have to specify how the
input to the projector is proposed to be handed; will there be one permanently fixed laptop in the
classroom or the teacher will have to take his or her laptop to that. In which case, whether do you
go to the class with a pen drive or with your laptop? When you go with the laptop, which can
happen, the interface cable for the projector will have to be compatible with your laptop you
have to make sure of that in advance.
If one wants to use a learning management system, obviously, even if the teacher alone wants to
use the LMS; then necessary WiFi connectivity needs to be made available. If some instruction
want to use flip charts, show large maps, show artifacts demonstrated device or conduct an
experiment obviously, that will require corresponding facilities to be made ready in advance. So,
many of these things do require long term planning.
Without pre planning you cannot make these things happen, of course in a small setups where
things are already known and everything is generally you expected to be working, you can just
go with your laptop to the class and do it; but many times it may or may not happen, you require
considerable planning for this.
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Today equity and access - these are two important criteria for admission to higher education in
India. About 20-25 years ago, there were very small number of engineering colleges and then
people were selected through elaborate process to enter those, and there were also only that many
students who are keen on doing engineering. But what happens because of the social pressure,
you want equity people with in all kinds of social backgrounds, they want to enter into the
engineering education.
Access: It should be conveniently accessible to their extent that is why the colleges are set up in
all kinds of places. So, they become practically local colleges. What is the consequence of that?
Because of this unprecedented growth since early 1990s you have students in your classroom
with widely varying capabilities entering into your engineering programs. Along with this widely
varying abilities, you also have widely varying motivation.
So, you have two important issues one is the ability and the other is motivation profile, and these
two will have great influence on your teaching and learning. Unless you match your teaching and
learning with the ability and motivation profile, then the learning does not take place. You have
to adopt to the kind of students that you have with you. On top of that, this will keep changing
from year to year.
Of course, these are all easily said than addressed in a particular college. Normally what we
suggest is some kind of a profile be created right when the students join the program. There are
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tests available. With the help of consulting in psychologist, you can have a profile of every
student with regard to his cognitive ability and motivation created. If you do not have such
profile, the only proxy that we can use is the CET entrance rank. CET rank, I have to go by that
otherwise, (of course you cannot assume that CET than truly profiles the student) but if I do not
have any other mechanism, I use that.
But it is not difficult. Every time when the new students join in the first week, you can have
these profiles created. There are lots of of ways of doing it and all you require is inputs from one
consulting psychologist and you will have profile and by and large that profile is valid for all
courses. So, that profile is accessible to the teacher.
Then based on that I can classify an approximate profile of students can be created like this with
respect to ability and motivation. Here I showed indicatively five levels, you can create more
levels or create less number of levels; then you can say how many students are there at each
level; then I know where to peg my instruction.
So, choose way of profiling students and then classify the students; this is for your own purpose.
This need not be made available to the students or made public at all. Then based on this, you,
you kind of start planning your instruction.
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First thing is, we request to write the syllabus of your course, within the framework you are
operating for a course you taught are very familiar with. You write the syllabus taking taking
into account all the elements that we have proposed and if you share with us it will be great input
to us. So, please do share with us.
In the next unit we will try to understand the remaining sub process which is a long list
observations on instruction, additional sessions conducted, assessment instruments, feedback to
students after every assessment, observations on assessment instruments and student
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performance, student feedback during the session and tracking the student. We will be looking at
the sub process of implementation phase in unit eleven. Thank you very much.
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Professor NJ. Rao
Department of Electronics Science Engineering
M2 U 11: Implement Phase 2
Greetings and welcome to NATE Module 2 unit 11 on the implement phase. We have seen in the
earlier unit which was also related to implement phase, we understood the sub-processes of
writing syllabus, planning for resources and instructor’s perception of students’ abilities and
motivation. These activities of implement phase we have understood in the previous unit.
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There are many small sub-processes involved in the implement phase. In this unit, we attempt to
understand the sub-processes including observations on instructions, additional sessions
conducted by the instructor beyond the scheduled hours, assessment instruments, feedback to
students after every assessment, observations on assessment instruments and student
performance, student feedback during the session and tracking students of the implement phase
we will try to understand.
Let us look at the first one instruction schedule and observations and instruction. One
instructional unit is associated either with one course outcome or one competency (a competency
is an element or elaboration of course outcome). So, what happens is, if a course outcome is not
elaborated into competencies, then one instructional unit is associated with course outcome, if
they are elaborated into competencies, then for each competency we will have one instructional
unit.
The scheduling of instructional units already identified in the analysis phase and in the common
parlance, it is often referred to as lecture schedule. As we already said, one instructional unit is
associated with one competency or one CO, but one instructional unit may require more than one
classroom sessions. So, it is likely one instructional unit will be conducted on more than one day.
Also having planned that as lecture schedule or instruction schedule, then what we do is after
every instructional unit, it is good to make some observations, when you are memory is fresh
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after conducting the session in the classroom, you will notice the based on the students in
reactions based on your own observations of what you have done in the class, you may come to
conclusion maybe you should have spent more time at one particular point or less time at some
other point or the students are finding difficult in understanding a concept.
Whatever observations you have immediately after your session, it is good to write one or two
sentences for yourself for your own consumption. We give you a template, if you use this
template and write your observations as well as instructions schedule, it will be convenient.
For example, instruction schedule is as we said, IU1 IU2 like that. Then, in the next column the
write the competency or the CO, and then you write scheduled dates. It may be one day or more
than one day, you actually put the specific date there.
Sometimes you want to instruct the students in advance, that it is better for them to read such and
such material or go and look at some internet source or whatever you want to give instructions to
students (all students may or may not do that, but from your side, you can give some instructions
to students) and they can be written in the last column.
In the last column, you can write the instructions to students here they can be one or two
sentences here. So, what happens is over a period of time, these are the things that facilitate the
teacher to plan for the classroom sessions much better.
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Then you look at observations and instruction. What do we do? This is another template, you just
exactly copy the IU1 let us say here you write this and then below, you have one row to write
your observations. In this row, as I said, you can write two sentences, three sentences or anything
that (when your memory is fresh) you would like to write a few sentences there. Then you can
keep adding rows as required because it is unlikely that your number of instructional unit will
only be four. This template can be extended.
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Now, come the additional sessions that are conducted. Many times faculty members are likely to
conduct more number of class sessions than actually scheduled in the timetable for a variety of
reasons. Often in many of the degree colleges mostly it is due to the mismatch between the
course outcomes and the available sessions.
You have too many course outcomes or the scope of each course outcome is way beyond and in
the end, you are required to conduct additional sessions. Sometimes, when the students do not
have the prerequisite knowledge for a particular topic, you may have to take an additional
session to kind of fill in that (review some earlier material) which will help the students to kind
of get into the instructional unit that you want to address. So, it is because of the inadequacy of
knowledge and skills in prerequisites.
Sometimes you have the performance in class tests and assignment is not satisfactory, then in
that case, you may want to review the either the test or the assignment. So, it may require an
additional session. Often in India you have also some kind of disruptions in the form of strikes or
the natural disasters that occur and so on; so you may lose some sessions, then you have to take
additional sessions and record same. These additional sessions and reasons, can serve as a basis
for review and improvement.
What kind of improvement? If the number of sessions that you have to do to address all the
course outcomes is way beyond the scheduled hours; let us say you have a four credit course,
then you are conducting four sessions per week. If you require lot more, let us say you want to
do six sessions per week, then it is disproportionate to the credits that are associated with that; to
the extent it is a feedback to the curriculum designers or to the board of studies, that the scope of
the course will have to be correspondingly reduced, but you need to have a record of that.
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That is what you do in a template like this record of additional sessions. How many sessions
have you taken? Sometimes this table can be very long as we find in some of the colleges for a
four credit course I understand they may even go up 120 lectures, which is generally almost
double the number of sessions that you can conduct?
Essentially what has happened is some two courses earlier which were treated as four courses
were integrated together into a single four credit course; which is totally unsatisfactory both from
the faculty member’s perspective as well as students’ perspective. So, you please record the
nature of the session and the reasons for conducting the additional session. So, if you have this
record, this always can serve as a basis for feedback to the board or studies in terms of designing
the courses.
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Next comes the assessment instruments. In any course the teacher has to design whole bunch of
assessment instruments, they could be quizzes, they could be class tests, they could be
assignments and so on. Some are formative (like sometimes the quizzes are formative) and many
of them are summative instruments. How to design this have been exclusively dealt with in the
Design phase of other course design.
But if you have already designed the summative instruments like the structure of the summative
instrument is designed in design phase. Actually assessment instrument that you are going to use
it in the classroom will be a specific instance of that and even if you design it in advance; some
last minute changes can always happen in the instruments. That is before conducting, I may want
to change some numerical values in a particular question or I may slightly re-word it to make it
clearer and things like that can happen. As of now, it may not be taking place in many
institutions.
But if you have some kind of a tool, either LMS or AMS kind of a system available in the
college different instruments may use different technologies. For example, a formative
assessment instrument may use one type and a summative assessment instrument may use some
other type of technology. If an item bank is created as per the guidelines presented in the earlier
design phase, it becomes easier to create all the assessment instruments of uniform quality. What
we require is not only the assessment instrument should be good, they should be of uniform
quality, it should not throw any surprises to students when they enter the examination hall.
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Then we also want to give feedback to students after every CIE assessment. For example, if I
have given an assignment to the students and the students are performed after evaluating that, I
may want to give some feedback to the students; where the errors are, how they could have done
it better and why is it that not many people have been able to complete satisfactorily and so on.
The feedback could be in the form of a few statements specific to subject matter involved. It
could be on the errors some are many students committed in understanding the concepts or in
applying the procedural knowledge. These will also not only act as a feedback to the students, it
will also act to the feedback to the instructor. That means if too many people have not been able
to understand a particular concept it is also feedback to the instructor that he or she needs to
spend a little more time in explaining next time you are required to do so.
These feedbacks serve excellent things not only to students for faculty to kind of continuously
improve the instruction of that particular material. In fact, as we will see, these feedback
statements will also serve the purpose of closing the attainment gaps in terms of COs. Based on
this feedback only, we will be able to write in the CO attainment computations, we will be able
to write plan for corrections.
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This is how we capture the feedback to students in a template like this. This is only a sample one
we said 3 assignments, 3 quizzes, and 2 tests, one laboratory test, mini project. Whatever you do
not have, you just eliminate, if you have to add more, please add more rows and you need to
write one or two sentences against each one of the assessment instrument.
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You also need to talk about observations on assessment instruments and student performance.
Having designed an assessment instrument having run in the classroom, (because the students
differ from year to year, their performances are likely to be different also from year to year) if
you are able to record the student performance in each assessment instrument, that means, in one
year, a larger group of students are able to perform well with respect to one assessment
instrument; whereas next year, that percentage may be very small.
So, as the students differ from year to year, it is necessary to keep recording and this can happen
because if instructor may have set up an easy test paper or a difficult test paper. So, one should
not set very easy test paper or very difficult test paper to kind of match the difficulty level at the
right level we need to have these observations.
For example, if there is a mini project or a report to be written is one of the assessment
instruments. For example, it may have been ambitious not enough effort was put in by the
students are access to the required information was not adequate all kinds of things can happen.
So, with respect to each assessment instrument, the instructor is required to record the
performances of the student once again in a form like this.
What is it that we are doing? Assessment instrument is here and the student performance like
what percentage of students have done better than 80 percent. If I have a kind of record like this,
I have a kind of a profile for each one how is it varying and after the performance is evaluated, I
can write the instructors observations here.
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For example, I can say the paper had been very easy that is why you get a larger number of
students performing at greater than 80 percent something like that. Once again you can add or
delete rows as required.
Now, we look at student feedback during the session. Normally student feedback is taken at the
end of the semester, but if I take it at the end of the semester, I do not have any opportunity to
correct anything. The teaching is done; assessment has been done, possibly evaluation has been
done, but there is precious lit I can do.
So, it is good to take at least once or twice, maybe after the first test and after the second test, a
simple feedback, which is only for instructor’s consumption. Then what can happen is after
looking at it, the instructor can make small adjustments to the way he is conducting the course.
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This can be done using a form like this. Here we have put something like eight questions, you
can reduce or you can add more but do not add too many more, then the students do not take it
very seriously. For example, the first one, the course outcomes of the course, are made clear in
the first few classes by the teacher. That means course outcomes are made very clear. Normally
it should be done right in the first class, or at least by first few classes, the students are very clear
about that.
The students will respond? If not clear at all is 0, very clear is 5, you can give a number
anywhere between these two; you can say that number can be put 0 to 5 one number that the
student feels can be put here. Second one is classroom instruction is in alignment with the stated
course outcomes. That is, the actual instruction is in alignment with the course outcomes; it is not
going off tangentially somewhere else, too much detail or too superficial. So, we say here again,
no alignment at all, and complete alignment.
Another one if you look at pace of instruction is comfortable to follow. How does the student
feel? Is it going too slow or going too fast; again, not comfortable at all, and very comfortable
like this. So, you can design such items, you do not have to exactly use the same set of items that
are given here, you can design your own form in a similar way; it does not take more than 5
minutes to run this. As I said, if you have something like LMS, or AMS already operative, this
can be done electronically.
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Even you can combine the responses of all students. One simple way to do is what is called
Google form. Even if you do not have LMS you can use what is called a Google form and make
students fill in this particular thing and it immediately gives you the feedback. It computes
everything and all kinds of graphical forms also it can give you output.
From this particular template after collecting the feedback, you can write a summary of the
student feedback for yourself; a set of statements, which says it can be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 you can write,
as required.
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Then, as a part of implement phase we also need to track of student’s performance and one can
use simple spreadsheet. These days all faculty are familiar with using, let us say, Microsoft tools,
and you can have a simple spreadsheet for keeping records as well as generating a variety of
reports for each course separately.
Those who can slightly master using of spreadsheets you can create a variety of data from that
with hardly any effort. If you have a learning management system like MOODLE is used, there
are many methods are available for tracking the student performance.
As you can see, you are looking at during the implement phase, several types of small sub-
processes which will greatly help you in terms of finally, fulfilling the requirements of
accreditation as required by NBA as well.
As an exercise, we request you to design your own mid semester student feedback form for your
course. We have given you one template is just alter what you think is more important; rearrange
them and qualifications 0 to 5 what we are qualifying; you can alter that and we would
appreciate if you share the results of your exercise with us at this email id.
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In the next unit, we will try to understand the design and use of exit surveys. Thank you very
much.
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Lecture 33
Exit Surveys 1
Greetings, welcome to module 2, unit 12 on Exit Surveys.
In the last unit, we understood the sub processes of Implement phase. In this unit, we look at
the design and use of Exit Surveys. So, the outcome for this unit is ‘understand the design
and use of Exit Surveys’.
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Exit surveys are administered at the end of an academic activity to get the subjective
perceptions of students regarding the implementation of that academic activity. The academic
activity can be a core course, or a laboratory course, or the laboratory component of an
integrated course, or an elective course, it could be a mini project, or the major project. At the
end of that academic activity to get the subjective perceptions of the students, we administer
an exit survey.
Exit surveys provide valuable feedback to the instructor. Such a feedback is quite helpful in
improving the quality of the learning, closing the quality loop. Based on the feedback,
instructor can plan the necessary improvements next time the same activity is offered to
enhance the quality of learning.
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Academic Management Systems (AMS) or Learning Management System (LMS), may
permit creation of summary student feedback report for an academic activity. It could be a
built in feature, of such learning management systems. If such a feature is available,
designing and administering an exit survey becomes much simpler.
A key problem with surveys is, getting valid survey data. This is a major challenge with any
survey. There are several reasons why getting valid data is a tricky issue. Students may fear
that they would be victimized if they give negative feedback. Often, students assume that
their feedback is really not important and that the process is a mere formality.
Students do not have faith in the reasons for which the survey is administered. Often, they
believe that it is only to comply with some process that the survey is being administered.
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Their perception is that, no instructor really makes use of this feedback data. Thus, they really
do not consider this as any important activity; they tend to give the data which is not really
what they are thinking. Sometimes even they may put random ticks in the survey forms. The
consequence of such indifference from the students is that, the data that we get does not truly
reflect the perception of the students.
The length of the survey form may also influence the quality of the response from the
students. Initially students may respond enthusiastically, but as they move towards the later
part of the survey form, they may become apathetic. If the survey form is too long, it may not
be able to hold the attention of the students all the way. On the other hand, if the survey form
is too brief, we may not be able to get enough data to make really good use of the survey.
Then what is the best size for the survey form? If it is too long, students may lose interest. If
it is too short, we may not get reliable data and valuable data. So, what is the best size? There
is no unique answer. Institutions have to experiment with survey forms of different lengths
and arrive at a number which works best in their specific context.
There are institutes which are using the exit survey forms with just about 10 questions; there
are also institutes which are using exit survey forms with as many as 40 questions. An
institute has to see what works best for specific context.
Another issue with the surveys is that many instructors feel that the data provided by
‘irregular’, within quotes ‘irregular’ students has limited or no validity. So, they would like to
restrict the participation in the survey to only students who have certain minimum attendance
or certain minimum performance in the assessments. Now whether, one should allow all the
students to provide feedback or whether one should have some kind of filtering, is a decision
that the institute has to take.
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Unfortunately, there is no guaranteed way of getting valid survey data. But certain techniques
have proved to be useful in getting more reliable data. We may have to use, a combination of
these approaches to get more reliable data. Some of the aspects which do affect the quality of
the data that we get are discussed now. There is no guarantee that each method by itself
would be sufficient. Again, the institute has to experiment and see what works best for its
specific context.
One important aspect about providing the data would be that, the feedback provided
electronically and anonymously is generally necessary to get valid survey data. Students tend
to be more honest in giving the feedback, if they know that the data is being collected
electronically and their identity is never revealed. Thus, one of the important pre-requisites
for getting good quality survey data is to have this system where by the feedback is provided
electronically and anonymously.
It may also be necessary to spend some quality time with students, discussing the importance
attached by the instructor to the survey data, before collecting the survey data. Instructor can
spend some time with students, explain to the students that the survey data is extremely
important for him or her, and assure the students that he or she will make use of this data to
enhance to the quality of the learning, next time the courses offered.
It may be helpful, if some typical instances of good use of survey data are presented to the
students, perhaps at the department level. 3 or 4 anecdotal incidents, where the survey data
was used to enhance the quality of learning can be presented to the students. This may
increase the confidence that the students can have in the usefulness of the data that they
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provide. Several approaches may be necessary, to get valid data as poor quality survey data,
negates the whole purpose of this process.
Most institutions do have some kind of a feedback system. They use a student feedback form
for all courses, of all branches of engineering and have a standard mechanism of
administering it and collecting the feedback data. Such a feedback form is typically used for
evaluating the instructor. It is part of the faculty performance appraisal system.
So, the main purpose of such a feedback system is to get data regarding the faculty
performance and thus this may not be very useful for getting data regarding the academic
activities. It is better, to design a separate exit survey form for specific academic activity. So,
it is good to design a specific survey form for core courses, a survey form for laboratory
courses, a separate survey form for electives, and so on.
If it is absolutely necessary from the institute’s perspective, such a separate survey form can
be integrated with the institute-wide common form. It is the choice of the institute, whether it
wants to adopt this policy of integrating the institute-wide form with the specific survey
forms. If it is feasible, faculty can administer a separate survey form.
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Now, let us look at the exit surveys for core courses. As noted in the earlier unit, mid-course
surveys help the instructor to dynamically adapt instruction, during the course delivery.
Typically, 1 or 2 mid-course surveys are administered by the teacher, and the data collected is
used to modify the instructions, as necessary.
Course exit survey on the other hand, is summative in nature, is administered at the very end
of the course and is useful for improving the implementation, when the course is offered
again. Survey data may be used in computing indirect attainment of COs, though NBA does
not explicitly require this approach. The data collected from the exit course surveys, can be
used to compute the CO attainment, indirectly.
Several forms and approaches for course exit survey are available in the literature. What is
presented here is just a sample frame work; individual departments can adapt their own
specific feedback form based on their specific needs.
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The general topics that are covered in a course exit survey form would be about four. Course
Management, Learning Environment, Course Outcomes, Instructor Characteristics. If the
instructor characteristics are being collected in a separate survey, if the instructor wishes she
can delete this aspect from the course exit survey form. But it is typical, to include this aspect
also in a course exit survey form.
Typical questions are answered by the students on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being the most negative
and 5 being the most positive, but other scales are possible.
The ‘form’ can start with an appeal to the student. ‘Your considered feedback on the course
will be of great value to the concerned instructor and to the department in enhancing the
quality of learning. Thank you for your quality time.’ It looks like a very simple appeal, but
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there is considerable empirical evidence to show that, such an appeal at the beginning of the
exit survey form does have psychological impact on the students.
Often, it leads to the students considering the survey more seriously. So, it is worthwhile to
include such an appeal at the start of the survey form. Initial questions can elicit the overall
view, rate the course in general (on a scale of 1 to 5 for example); rate the course content; rate
the instructor with reference to this particular course.
Then, there can be several questions related to the course management. How was the course
organization; how were the internal tests conducted; did the internal test address the relevant
COs appropriately; were all the COs covered in the internal tests; what was the time allocated
for the internal test; vis-a-vis the questions that were you asked in the internal test; was the
time provided for answering the questions adequate; what was the quality of the quizzes
administered; and what was the usefulness of assignments in promoting learning.
Here again, many students seem to feel that the assignments are not really contributing
towards any learning. They feel that, most of the time the assignment activity is proving to be
a cut-paste kind of activity and the instructors are not really evaluating the assignments. So,
there can be questions about the usefulness of the assignments in promoting learning. What
was the overall workload during the semester, from this course we vis-a-vis rest of the
courses in that semester. There can be other questions depending upon the specific
requirements and context.
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Learning Environment: we can have several questions regarding this important aspect. There
existed, positive interaction between students and instructor. Students were always allowed to
interrupt the instructor, to seek clarification. Classroom discussions were encouraged and
they were well moderated. Sometimes, the classroom discussions can become real disruptors
and the discussion can move in tangential directions, disrupting the normal learning activity.
It requires careful moderation from the instructor, to ensure that the discussions remain
focused. So was that happening that can be a question that can be asked in the survey.
Required learning resources were easily available. So, there can be several such questions
regarding the learning environment.
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Then course outcomes, we can have several questions regarding this as this is an extremely
important aspect. Course outcomes were discuss upfront, was that happening, or the course
outcomes were not at all provided, or they were provided but just in a written form and they
were not discussed in the classroom. So, one can have questions, regarding the extent to
which the instructor made efforts to make the course outcomes known to the learners.
Course outcomes were clear - this is the regarding the way the COs are formulated. How
confident are you regarding the competencies expected from you. So, what is the level of
attainment of COs from the perspective of the student’s perceptions.
Instructional activities helped in the attainment of the Cos. As we noted in an earlier unit,
there must be good alignment between the instruction and the course outcomes, in order to
promote good quality learning - so was that happening, was there good alignment between
instructions and the COs. So, we can ask a question, did the instructional activities helped in
the attainment of the COs.
Time devoted to each COs was quite adequate, this is also related to the next question which
is regarding the pace of coverage. Pace of coverage was comfortable throughout - it may
happen that instructor spends on duly long time on the initial COs, the initial part of the
course and thus, find herself faced with the problem of covering enormous amount of
material in a short-time towards the end of the semester.
Thus, the pace can be quite uneven, relatively slow in the beginning and super fast towards
the end. This may result, in the earlier COs getting covered exhaustively, while not much
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attention is paid to the later COs. So, there can be questions regarding the coverage of the
COs, as well as the pace of coverage.
Assessments were relative to the stated COs. Again, as we noted earlier, alignment between
assessment and COs is also essential for quality learning. In fact, alignment among
instruction, assessment and COs is essential for quality learning. We have asked a question
regarding the alignment between instruction and outcomes, we can ask the question regarding
the alignment between assessment and the COs.
Examples relevant to the COs were worked out well and also, they were useful for
examinations - this can be another question. Then we can ask questions with reference to
specific COs - rate each CO with respect to the comfort level you had in mastering it. So, 1 is
the least comfort and 5 is the maximum comfort (highly comfortable). So, we can ask the
rating for each of the COs.
If, there is a consistently low rating for a particular CO, that would imply that most of the
students had difficulty with respect to that particular CO. This would be an indication to the
instructor, that additional instructional activities may be required regarding that CO when the
course is offered the next semester or next year.
Then we can have questions on instructor characteristics also - as I mention this is optional. If
this is covered in a different form of survey, the course exit survey need not include this
aspect. Instructor had mastery or the content; all the students were treated in partially; this is
regarding the attitude of the instructor, the instructor has excellent communication skills; the
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instructor encouraged the students to raise questions in the class room; technical doubt for
clarified well; the general attitude of the instructor was quite supportive.
We can have more questions - the classes started on time; the discipline in the class room was
well. All these kind of questions regarding the instructor characteristics can be included in the
exit survey form.
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Then we can have some questions related to specifics COs. These would be helpful in 2
ways, one is this data would help us in computing the indirect attainment of the COs. And the
second usefulness is that, it helps as in identifying sticky COs, the COs which need greater
attention next time the course is offered. So, we can have some questions regarding
individual COs.
As an example, assume that CO3 of a course on algorithms is related to divide and conquer
approach. Some question specific to CO3, that the instructor can ask in the course exit survey
would be as follows.
How confident do you feel that you can determine if divide and conquer technique is
applicable to a given specific problem - not at all confident 0 to highly confident 5.
Do you feel comfortable in deriving the time complexity of a given algorithm that is based on
the divide and conquer approach - again on a scale 0 to 5 not at all comfortable to highly
comfortable.
How confident you are that you can explain merge sort algorithm - not confident 0 to highly
confident 5. How confident do you feel in developing a divide and conquer algorithm for a
new problem - not at all confidence 0 to very confidence 5.
Notice that these are all perceptions of students; the actual abilities of these students are being
assist through summative instruments including quizzes, test and assignments. The objective
of this survey is to get the perception of the students; response to such question will provide
valuable feedback to the instructor.
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Now, this data can be used for computing the CO attainment indirectly. That is a fairly
straight forward approach which is possible. There are several methods possible, we will
discuss one simple approach here. We asked 4 questions related to CO3, and assume that 65
students responded.
Let us assume, that for question 1 six students rated it at level of 1, 54 students gave it a value
of 4, and 5 students gave it a value of 5. So, the average is 6 x 1 + 54 x 4 + 5 x 5 the whole
sum divided by 65. The average becomes 3.8. So, on the average for question 1, the response
of the students was 3.8 out of the best possible value of 5.
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Similarly, assume that the average rating for questions 2, 3 and 4 are 4.2, 3.9, 2.6
respectively, these are just hypothetical numbers. So, the grand average now becomes, about
3.6. The maximum possible value, the best possible value is 5.
Thus, we take the attainment of CO3 as 3.6 divided by 5 which is about 72 percent. So, we
assume that, the attainment of CO3 from indirect means is 72 percent. We can do similar
computation for the other COs. This is one fairly simple method for computing the indirect
attainment of CO. But this requires that there be questions related to specific COs. So, the
course exit form, has to be design based on the course itself.
It cannot be one common form suitable for all the courses. For each course, a specific course
exits survey form needs to be designed. And there should be provision for administering,
such an exit survey form. Then we can get data, which will help us in computing the
attainment of the CO indirectly. As we mentioned earlier, this data is also useful in
identifying particularly difficult COs.
Design a course exit survey form for a core course, a core course of your choice. Thank you,
for sharing the results of the exercise at nate.iiscta@gmail.com.
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In the next unit, we will look at the design and use of exit surveys for elective courses,
laboratory courses, mini projects and major project. The common features of all exit surveys
have already been discussed in this unit, and many of the questions that we asked in the exit
survey for the core courses, do hold for the exit surveys with respect to other academic
activities.
However, there can be certain questions which are unique to each kind of an academic
activity. So, in the next unit we will discuss the exit surveys for 4 kinds of activities - elective
courses, laboratory courses, mini projects, and major project. Thank you, we will meet in the
next unit. Thank you.
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Lecture 34
Exit Surveys 2
Greetings, welcome to module 2, unit 13 on the second part of Exit Surveys.
In the earlier unit, we understood the issues in the design of Exit Surveys and the design and
use of Exit Surveys for core courses.
In this unit, we will look at the design and use of exit surveys for other academic activities.
So, the outcome for this unit is – ‘understand the design and use of exit surveys for elective
courses, laboratory courses, mini projects, and major project’.
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Elective courses are extremely important in any engineering curriculum. Outcomes of

elective courses do contribute to the attainment of POs and PSOs. However, attainment of
outcomes of elective courses are not to be used in the computation of the attainment of POs
and PSOs according to NBA. Yet, we know that electives permit a program to be more
responsive to the developments in the technical domain concerned.
Elective can be offered more dynamically, and they can be offered at any point of time during
the 4 year program. So thus, they permit a program to be more responsive to the demands of
the industry. Closing the quality loop is essential even for elective courses. Even though, the
outcome attainments are not used in the computation of the attainment of POs and PSOs; an
elective course also is extremely important and thus closing the quality loop is essential, even
for elective courses.
Getting quality feedback regarding elective courses is more challenging than getting such
feedback for core courses, for a variety of reasons; including the fact that the number of
restrains can vary for specific elective course, it may not be offered every time. So, there are
issues like this which make it more challenging to get valid survey data for elective courses,
compared to core courses.
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As discussed in the previous unit, getting valid survey data is a major challenge with any
survey, particularly so with electives. The process of collecting survey data must remain
rigorous, even though it is an elective course. If the number of registrants for the elective
course is small, it may be necessary to have a more detailed survey form. As the number of
registrants is small, we may need to get more elaborate feedback from the students, and thus
we may have to make the survey form also more elaborate.
In fact, if students are willing it is useful to have an exit face-to-face interaction session to get
more data regarding the elective course. A more detailed analysis of the survey data needs to
be recorded, for it to be useful next time.
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Questions discussed in the previous unit on course exit survey, are applicable to elective
courses also. We can have questions regarding the COs, we can have questions regarding the
instructor characteristics, and we can have questions regarding the learning environment. But
additionally, there are certain issues for an elective course.
Some of them can be as follows: the semester in which it is offered is appropriate. Was the
elective offered in a semester which is appropriate? This would depend upon, the prerequisite
requirements for that elective course and the semester in which it is offered would make it
convenient for the students to attain the Course Outcomes. So, there can be question on the
suitability of the semester in which the elective is offered.
Course is relevant to the program of the study. The value of the elective course would have
been better, if it had a laboratory component also. Most of the institutes offer elective courses
as theory only courses, 3:0:0 or 4:0:0, or sometimes 2:0:0. But this is a theory only course.
The student may feel that the value of the elective course would have been better if it had a
laboratory component also. So, we can have a question regarding that aspect.
The elective course has substantially new learning material compared to what was available
in the core courses. The same information can be obtained through an alternative question,
we can ask ‘the course contents overlap substantially with the contents of the core courses’.
So obviously, if the students feel that there is a substantial overlap in the content between this
elective and some other core course, then the usefulness of that elective naturally gets
diminished.
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The elective course deals with the current technology, on a scale of strongly disagree to
strongly agree - we can get the responses of the students. The learning material provided was
relevant; relevant tools were available in the laboratories to explore the material discussed in
the course even though the course was a theory course.
Even if an elective is offered as a theory only course, if there is a support available in the
laboratory, students can explore the material in the laboratory to reinforce their learning from
the theory. So, was there such a facility? Students can be asked about the availability of such
a facility, to enhance their learning.
Sometimes electives are offered as streams - that means over 3 or 4 semester electives
belonging to specific stream are offered, and students are generally advised to choose
electives from a single stream. The objective is that, at the end of the sequence courses the
students would have mastered one specific stream.
For example, the stream can be on security. So, there can be electives offered as part of a
stream. If such is the case, was the stream logically coherent and well structured? The
sequence of elective offered did the form a good logical sequence? Open electives the course
helped in getting a broader perspective.
Now let us look at laboratory courses, there is some variation in the way the laboratory
courses are offered. In tier 1 institutes, laboratories may be integrated into the corresponding
theory courses, example 3:0:1 course - 3 hours of theory and 1 credit of laboratory work. Or
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may be offered as independent courses, example 0:0:2. Tier 2 institutes - the most common
scenario is that laboratories are offered as independent courses.
The course exit survey, for an integrated course may not allow many questions regarding the
laboratory component, as we cannot have a survey form that is too long. Already there are
several questions regarding the theory part, and we cannot have too many questions regarding
the laboratory part in the same survey form.
However, even for an integrated course we can have a separate survey for the laboratory
component. If we are conducting such a separate survey for the laboratory component, then
the survey form can be design to be reasonably comprehensive. Course exit survey for a
laboratory only course, obviously can be more elaborate and more comprehensive.
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Questions discussed in the previous unit on the course exit survey, are applicable to
laboratory courses also. The same kind of questions that we asked for core courses or elective
courses can be asked for laboratory courses also. However, some typical additional questions
related to the laboratories can be as follows.
Laboratory work helped in attaining the stated competencies; laboratory work added value to
the knowledge gained from the corresponding theory courses; The time provided for carrying
out the experiments was totally inadequate to needlessly more time; How much time was
allocated to the laboratory work - Was it too small or was it too much, in which case it could
have been waste of time.
Assessments at the end of the laboratory sessions were useful. Typically, most of the
institutes have a short assessment, maybe in the form of a viva at the end of every laboratory
session. So, we can ask questions whether such assessments were useful.
Laboratory manuals provided were helpful in attaining and demonstrating the stated
outcomes. Laboratory manuals reduced the laboratory work to merely filling up tables.
Sometimes, the laboratory manuals are so elaborate that the students really gain no new
knowledge while conducting the experiment; they follow the manual in a routine fashion get
the measurements and complete the tables.
Then, the quality of the learning is bound to be quite inferior. So, we can ask a question,
whether the laboratory manuals reduced of the laboratory work to merely filling up the tables
in a mechanical fashion. We can ask, on a scale of strongly agree to strongly disagree.
Relevant learning material was available and easily accessible. Technical support staff in the
laboratory were helpful.
Adequate training was provided on the use of tools required/helpful in the laboratory work.
Certain tools are required from the curriculum point of view and students needs to be given
training that is adequate for them to become comfortable with use of such tools. Certain tools
are not required, strictly speaking from the curriculum point of view but learning those tools
would enhance the quality of learning by the students.
Such tools may be helpful in the laboratory work, though not required from a curriculum
point of view. Was training provided on such tools helpful in the laboratory work. So, we can
ask the quality of training provided to the students, on the use of tools required from the
perspective of the curriculum, not required from the perspective of the curriculum but helpful
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in the laboratory work. Was the training adequate? So, we can ask a question and again the
response can be on a scale of totally inadequate to highly adequate.
The required equipment was well maintained and calibrated properly; required components
were always available; the physical environment in the lab was well maintained; The course
had some open ended experiments, allowing some exploratory learning.
Again, this would be an important aspect even from the accreditation perspective. Is the total
lab completely structured and the students are required to do only predefined experiments or
is there an opportunity provided to the students to engage in some exploratory learning, by
working on certain open ended experiments.
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Now let us look at projects: projects are key components of a typical UG engineering
curriculum. They form the basis, for experiential learning approach. Projects can be mini
projects, or a major project. Mini project can be offered as a part of regular course or as a
separate course by itself.
Mini projects are more common in tier 1 institutions, though these are becoming increasingly
popular in tier 2 institutes also. The scope of a mini project is generally quite narrow and
limited because it is done in a short span of time and there are other academic activities
during the semester. So, the scope of a mini project generally is, rather narrow.
The major project is done either in the final semester or in the final 2 semesters, and this is a
core activity generally and substantial resources are devoted to the implementation of the
major project. Students spend considerable amount of time in the work related to the major
project. So, the scope of the major project is quite vast.
Projects have the potential to address many POs, which cannot be addressed all that easily by
typical courses of present day engineering curricula. For example, the POs related to
engineering society, environment and sustainability, ethics, project management and finance,
these are some of the POs which cannot be addressed that easily by the present day courses.
Project has the capability, the potential to address these POs.
Mini projects have evidently limited scope, but the major project can indeed address these
POs quite effectively. But for project to address specific POs, certain prerequisite are there.
Project guidelines must include the need to address these POs. Explicitly, the guideline must
state that the project has to address these POs.
Project monitoring must explicitly asses, the issue of addressing such POs. During periodic
monitoring, the guides must ensure that the project work is really addressing these stated
POs. Rubrics must include attributes related to such POs, and rubrics must be shared with
students upfront. Student must also clearly know that they are being evaluated on the quality
of their work related to these specific POs. If these conditions are met, then projects have the
potential to address many POs.
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Question discussed already in the course exit survey are applicable to mini projects also, but
some typical additional questions related to mini projects are as follows.
Helped me in understanding the issues involved in problem formulation. The required

literature survey helped me become better at self-learning. Faculty and technical support staff
were quite helpful.
Additional questions when the mini project is implemented as a group activity can be; the
mini project helped me in working easily in a group, assessment of individual contributions
was fair.
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When it comes to major project or the main project, which is carried out either in the final
semester or in the final 2 semesters, we notice that it is generally a core activity. Project is a
core activity in most of the engineering curricula. It is carried out in the final semester or final
2 semesters and in most of the institutes it is a group activity, 2 to 4 students per batch,
typically in most of the institutes. It may be carried out within the institute or in an outside
organization, under an external guide; with monitoring by an internal guide, a guide from the
institute.
The CIE is based on periodic monitoring, by the internal guide. The SEE is based on 3
components typically, a written report is submitted by the students, demonstration of the
work done is done by the team, and there is a final presentation by the students either
individually or in small teams and usually this is followed by viva voce. So, a project
evaluation during the SEE is based on all these 3 components.
There are several process in place, in any institute regarding the projects. Because there is a
major activity, institutes would have certain well defined processes to implement the projects.
We can have general questions about these processes in the exit survey for the main project.
Are you satisfied with the way project batches are formed; this is an important aspect from
accreditation perspective to also. How are the project batches formed, are they formed based
on alphabetical ordering of the names of the student, every 3 students in the sequence form a
batch, or some option is given to the students, or is there an option which is in-turn
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moderated by the department. What is the process by which project batches are formed, is it
satisfactory?
Did you have the option of identifying project of interest to you; that means how was the
project allocated to the project teams? Did the department do the allocation by itself, or did
the department take into account the interest of the students, or was there a consultative
process through which the allocation of the project was done. So, we can have questions on
the process by which the projects are allocated to the students.
Allocation of guides was objective; that means there was a well established written policy
document stating the process by which the guides are to be allocated to the teams. Allocation
of guide was satisfactory, helpful support from the guide, rubrics were shared up front,
rubrics were clear, evaluation of an individual’s contribution in the group work was impartial.
Because the project work is a group activity while assessing it becomes important to assess
not only the contribution of the group as a whole, but the contribution of each individual in
the group. So, was the evaluation of the individual’s contribution in the group impartial?
Then we can ask general questions about the resources. Main project would need
considerable resources, and we can have certain general questions about the resources in the
exit survey. Access to the project laboratory was easy and flexible. Typically, the regular
laboratories would follow a strict schedule for opening times and closing times. The access to
such regular laboratories may be rather restricted.
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So, is there separate facility, a separate project laboratory with more flexible access rules so
that students could work beyond the regular hours on their projects. So, access to the project
laboratory was easy and flexible - we can get the responses on a scale of highly agree to
highly disagree.
Adequate laboratory resources were available. Library facilities were adequate, most of the
times the project implementation would require reference and access to some latest
information and thus, library facility is play a key role in good implementation of projects.
So, were the library facilities adequate?
Did the students have good access to journals; did the students have good access to other
reference material. In case a required resource is not available in this library, is there an
arrangement of this library with other standard libraries to borrow the resources from the
other library. So, access to libraries from other institute of repute, did this library have an
understanding with other libraries of repute to exchange the material.
Financial assistance, perhaps limited was available from the institute. Some institutes do have
a policy of providing limited financial assistance to students, when the projects involve
certain financial resource commitments. For example, many of the projects in mechanical
engineering or civil engineering may require purchase of special materials, occasionally even
purchase of some additional equipment. What is the extent to which institute provides
financial assistance for such projects.
It is clear that the institute cannot provide total financial assistance if there are too many
projects, which require the financial resources. But is there some assistance, probably limited
assistance provided for such projects. So, we can ask questions about the available financial
assistance.
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Then as we noted earlier, projects have the potential to address many POs which cannot be
addressed all that easily by regular courses. With proper planning project and address all the
Pos. project guidelines and rubrics play the key role here. If proper guideline are issued to the
students, and proper rubrics are formulated and shared upfront with the students, we can ask
questions in the exit survey regarding the relationship of the project to the POs, and the extent
to which the POs are being attained.
So, questions that can be asked in the exit survey depend upon such planning. Some of the
questions that can be included in the exit survey, would be as follows. The responses to these
questions can also be used as a form of indirect attainment computation for the relevant POs,
or it can be used as a form a supplementary information for determining the extent to which,
the POs are being attained.
Project worked helped me in understanding formulation of an engineering problem,

obviously related to one PO. Project work helped me in my understanding of analysis and
interpretation of data. Project work helped me become a better team player. While writing the
project report I better understood the importance of avoiding plagiarism. Preparation for the
final project presentation helped me become better at nonverbal communication.
In fact, we can have questions regarding every PO that is being addressed by the project work
through proper planning. We implemented the project based on the given project
management guidelines. Project work helped me in pursuing independent learning. Project
work made me understand the importance of providing technical solutions that are safe and
environment friendly, this is obviously related to the PO on environment and sustainability.
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So, we can have questions like this, in the project exit survey related to several POs. Design a
course exit survey form, for the elective courses that you have taught. Similarly, a course exit
survey form, for a laboratory course that you taught. Design an exit survey form for mini
projects, design an exit survey form for the final year project.
In the last exercise, you can make suitable assumptions regarding the POs that are planned to
be addressed by the project activity. You can assume that, suitable rubric have been formed,
suitable information has been provided to the students regarding the need to address those
POs. Making such assumptions, you can design the exit survey form for the final year project.
Thank you, for sharing the results of the exercise at nate.iiscta@gmail.com.
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In the next unit, we will understand the sub processes of evaluate phase, the last phase of the
ADDIE model. Thank you, and we will meet in the next unit. Thank you.
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Professor. NJ. Rao
Lecture 35
ADDIE Evaluate Phase
Greetings and welcome to NATE module 2, unit 14 related to Evaluate Phase.
In the earlier unit, we have understood again the design and use of a variety of exit surveys.
Now, in this unit we try to understand the sub-processes of Evaluate Phase.
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With respect to evaluate phase, we need to understand one thing; if you look at in the ADDIE
model, which you have shown it earlier. The evaluate word comes twice, this is evaluate, this
is another evaluate. So, what we are trying to say, this evaluate phase corresponds to
formative evaluation or formative assessment of the activities of Analysis phase, Design
phase, Development phase, Implement as well as Evaluate phase, but this final Evaluate here,
is the summative evaluation of the course design. So, there is a difference between the two.
As we have stated here, evaluate phases both it is formative. We undertake formative

evaluation at the end of every phase to decide, whether any revisions are necessary to the
activities of that phase. It can be peer evaluation or discussions or whatever it, the stake
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holders and, so on. Whereas summative evaluate phase is, it is summative evaluation by
probing the learners and the instructional system to decide whether revisions of the content
and/or the instructions are necessary, in which case the process would be suitably altered for
the next version of instruction.
That is you wait until all the instruction is done, and as we have seen in the implement phase
there are several things that we have already done; in terms of keeping track of the students,
taking student feedback, and so on. Based on all that, we come to some kind of a conclusion,
what is to be done when the next version of the instruction is to be done for this course.
Evaluate phase: it refers to summative evaluation of course design. Mind you, this is
summative evaluation of the course design, not actually the course. How well you have
designed and conducted the course. Every instance of course design and its conduct should be
evaluated to plan for better attainment of course outcomes and thereby program outcomes
and program specific outcomes in the next instance of course offering.
This is precisely, what is expected or what is wanted by the NBA. So, evaluate phase
becomes very critical from the perspective of NBA accreditation. The evaluation can be self
evaluation by the instructor, as well as by peers and students, depends on the instructor whose
inputs, what kind of inputs you want to take from different sources.
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The sub process of evaluate phase are, course exit survey, computing direct and indirect
attainment of COs of the course; proposing actions to bridge the gaps on CO attainments or
enhancements of targets, attainments of POs and PSOs through the COs; summary
observations; peer feedback if any; suggestion for improvement, and have the outputs of
evaluate phase peer reviewed.
As you can see, many of these sub-processes are already addressed, at several places. For
example, we have talked about course exit survey in the previous units, computing attainment
of COs and POs and PSOs (has already been dealt in the earlier units). The new things that
we are really talking about are summary observations, peer feedback, and suggestions for
improvement.
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As discussed in the earlier unit course exit survey is summative in nature and is useful for
improving the implementation of the course when offered again. It can also be used in
computing the indirect attainment of COs. If you recall, you measured the attainment of COs
directly and indirectly, the course exit survey results will be used for computing indirect
attainment COs.
Computing attainment of COs: we have given several methods of computing and it is mainly
based on, students’ performance in all assessment instruments. Indirect method of computing
the attainment of COs, is done through the exit survey, and the gap in attainment should be
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computed. These are the things to be done, which we have presented in detail in the earlier
units.
Then bridging the gap in CO attainment: we suggested earlier that when the attainment is
lower than the set target, you have to plan for action next time you offer the course, to reduce
the gap. On what basis do you do that? Precisely for this purpose we have requested in the
earlier unit that you write observations at the end of every instructional unit, you take mid-
course student feedbacks, your comments on the assessment instruments and student
performance.
Based on all that, you write a plan for bridging the gap. If the gap is 0 or negative, the only
option that is available is target needs to be enhanced. But for some reason the instructor does
not want to enhance the target, depending on his perception, the way things have been done;
he may take a position saying that let me try with the same target for one more year.
If you decide like that, then you must state the reason why you do not want to, do not want to
enhance the target when the gap is 0 or negative. It cannot be just left like that.
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The attainment of POs and PSOs through COs, this also we have done in the earlier unit.
How to relate attainment of COs to attainment of POs and PSOs, and as we said there is no
unique process to compute the attainment of POs and PSOs. Whatever process that you have
chosen but that should not be very complicated because any process that you have design
cannot precisely relate this, and you say mine is more accurate than the earlier one and any
process that you choose will approximate.
But the only thing is, you must stay with one process and the same process should be used for
all the courses, for all the programs from an institution. The decision about the process to be
used for computing the PO and PSO attainment, should be done at the institution level.
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Then you have summary observations: all that you are collecting at one place. Instructor
writes summary observations based on, observations after every instructional unit, feedback
on student performance given after every assessment, student feedback during the semester,
and course exit survey. All of them your collecting at one place and such a summary will be
of great value to the instructor himself in improving the quality of instruction, next time the
course is offered.
Now there is another one, what we call peer feedback. Such practices are done in several
universities outside the country. But normally, you ask one senior faculty member of the
same department to sit through a few of your sessions and give you some feedback.
Actually, it does not have to be more senior faculty member; I feel that any faculty member,
however senior he is or she is can ask somebody else who is familiar with the same subject to
sit through in 1 or 2 sessions and make some, give some observations. These observations by
colleague, who knows the subject very well, can be of great value to every instructor. So, if
you can arrange a peer feedback like that it would be nice.
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Based on this you have now four components. One is summary observations, and then CO
attainments, and you have peer feedback, and the student feedback – that is exit survey. All
these documents are put together and then based on this you write suggestions for
improvement for yourself. The next time you want to offer the course, based on all these you
write a set of summary or suggestions for improvement.
They are suggestion were improvement to yourself if you are offering it next time or even if
some other teacher is going to do that, it will be valuable input to the new teacher who is
going to offer the course.
(Refer Slide time: 12:07)
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We request you to give, if you think there are any additional process that needs to be included
that contribute to the evaluation phase, you can give your suggestions and share it with us at
the indicated email ID.
From M2 U15, that is the next unit we start with the third aspect of course offering, namely
the instruction. So, we attempt to understand the nature and construct of instruction in U15.
Thank you very much.
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Professor N. J. Rao
Lecture 36 – Instruction: An Overview
Greetings and welcome to NATE, module 2 unit 15 related to Instruction. In the earlier unit
or in the earlier several units, we understood the designing of a course in the framework of
instructional system design model of ADDIE and also in alignment with NBA requirements.
Having completed or having addressed the design of a course in an engineering program, we
now move onto the next stage namely, how do I instruct? How is the instruction conducted?
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Now in this unit, we will try to understand the nature and constructs of instruction.
Instruction is a very specific technical word in the field of education. Here as a teacher you
are instructing. Sometimes we call teacher also as instructor. Though some of the teachers
may not like to be called as instructor, they consider that is related to a lower level activity
but instructor or instruction in the context of education is also practically synonymous with
teacher.
Before we go onto the instruction we once again have to take a relook at what learning is.
People can learn only by constructing or producing their own knowledge. Actually, if you
have learnt, you are constructing or producing your own knowledge and if you have not
produced your own knowledge then you have not learnt. Otherwise, you are superficially
remembering something and as long as you remember, you can reproduce that but beyond
that you will forget about that.
So learning requires active manipulation of the material to be learnt and cannot occur
passively. Passively means by just listening or just by memorizing learning cannot happen.
This active manipulation of the material is really the principal tenet of constructivism as we
call it that means you are constructing your own knowledge or producing your own
knowledge.
The word knowledge production is coming to be accepted as the keyword in the area of
education. Now the knowledge, skills and attitudes the learner needs to construct are stated as
learning outcomes. We have extensively dealt with the topic of learning outcomes and
learning outcomes can come at various levels and how do we write them, how are they
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important, all that has been addressed in the module 1, mainly related to outcome based
education.
Now, let us formally define what instruction is. The purpose of instruction is to help people
learn, simple. If production of knowledge is what the learner does, so the teacher’s role is to
foster that production. That means teacher’s role ought to be to foster the production of
knowledge by the learner rather than merely transferring information to him that is the
teacher’s role. This fostering the production of knowledge is termed as instruction that is the
process of instruction.
Instruction is international facilitation of learning towards an identified learning goal.

Learning goal will be either competency or an outcome. Outcome could be course outcome,
program outcome or program specific outcome and so on. Also, instruction is the deliberate
arrangement of learning activities and conditions to promote the attainment of some intended
goal.
In instruction what you are doing is, you are arranging learning activities and the conditions
under which the learning activities are conducted are also manipulated, is also part of
designing instruction. One thing, it should be remembered instruction is prescriptive, it is not
as if there is only one way of doing things, it is not like proving a theorem, it is prescriptive.
That means each teacher or each instructor is making a choice that if I do like this or if I
arrange my learning activities in a particular way and if I organize the conditions I consider,
that will promote the attainment of intended goal. So, each teacher does it in his own way that
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is why it is prescriptive. That means you are taking internally stated or unstated a position
that if I do like this, my students will learn better. So that is why it is prescriptive and any
prescriptive thing can only be probabilistically valid rather than absolutely, you cannot say,
this is the only way to do.
An instruction practiced at present if you look at, instruction methods practiced at present in
practically all the institutions are mostly lecture based, why is it so? We, teachers follow the
method our teachers followed. Right from our childhood we looked at teachers how they are
presenting in the classroom and we follow the same thing. We can almost say we hardly liked
that process as students. Yes, there are some occasional inspiring good teachers but we hardly
like this process, especially at higher education level.
We did not like these instruction methods as students; so our students are not likely to
appreciate what we do now as teachers if you follow the same method. That is the reason why
every teacher must explore a little bit about the theories and practices of instruction and there
is a lot of literature that has been accumulated in this area, there are any number of books
available even in instruction at higher education level.
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These are the statements we have been stating earlier also, again let me repeat, students learn
better when they are provided information about the course outcomes, competencies, their
responsibilities and the criteria used to evaluate their performance. All these we have
extensively addressed in course design. In the outcome based education in the module 1, we
also learnt how to write course outcomes and competencies.
For example, the responsibilities and the criteria used to evaluate the performance are all
stated as a part of the syllabus. Assessment is in alignment with the things they are supposed
to be able to do at the end of a course. This also we dealt with through using taxonomy table
to decide the alignment and how do you design assessment which is in alignment with the
course outcomes, all that has been dealt in both course design and in the module 1.
Instruction, the third one is instruction facilitates the students to attain the stated course
outcomes and competencies. That means having written course outcomes or competencies
instruction should be organized in such a way, you are taking the student towards that
particular goal of attaining the outcome or competency.
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Now you look at how actual course is conducted. You first write course outcomes and
competencies; conduct instruction to facilitate the student to attain the stated outcomes or
competencies and then measure the attainment of outcomes. That is a sequence in which you
will do. When you design the course, you do 1-3-2 instead 1-2-3.
What is an instructional unit? We consider that is the lowest level of learning unit, that means
course is a fairly large entity and course is described in terms of its course outcomes and
course outcomes are further elaborated if needed into competencies. One instructional unit is
associated with one CO or competency. If CO does not have to be elaborated into
competencies then CO itself will become one instructional unit.
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So an instructional unit will have 1 to 5 and sometimes more classroom sessions of 50
minutes to 1 hour duration or one or more 2 hour laboratory sessions, field trips etcetera. That
is what an instructional unit will consist of.
In such a case, we now need to talk about instruction. There are so many variants because
people have been acquiring tremendous amount of experience in teaching and learning
processes, you have a whole range of subjects to be dealt with; all subjects are not dealt in the
same way; there are so many classifications of instruction that exist in the literature.
Now how do I capture all these variants? Here we provide you one way of classifying
instruction. First of all, instruction it should satisfy or it should attain these goals irrespective
of the actual methods that you would use.
Instruction should be effective, efficient and engaging. That is why we call it E3 instruction,
we will presently come to that and elaborate on that and instruction has two constructs at the
highest level. One is instructional situation, the other one is instructional types sometimes
called instructional approaches. That is the top level of classification of instruction.
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As we said, irrespective of the instructional situation and the instructional approach that has
been taken, instruction should be effective. What do we mean by effective? Instruction
should facilitate the learners to attain the intended learning outcomes. Eventually, whatever
time that is allocated, within that time I should be able to attain the learning outcomes that I
have stated already. If I have not been able to attain the outcomes then your entire instruction
is not effective and that kind of thing can happen if you have an overloaded curriculum. If the
number of things that you have to address somehow you are forced to address everything
superficially to that extent the instruction will not be effective.
Then the next thing should be, it should be engaging or sometimes called appealing. That
means the student should get engaged with the new knowledge they are required to acquire
and it cannot be passive process. So instruction should enable learners to actively engage
with the knowledge they are expected to acquire. If they are just sitting down in a classroom
and listening for 50-55 minute lecture and then the teacher expects them to do their own
reading at home, that is not a very engaging or appealing way of instruction.
The third one is efficiency. Instruction should be efficient; it means it should be efficient in
its use of resources irrespective of the situations and instructional methods. So you have to
choose your instructional method and manipulate the situation in such a way that it is
efficient. That means within the given time, within the resources that are available to you,
you have to make it effective, that is you should achieve your goal.
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These are the 3 major goals of instruction: effective, engaging and efficient that is why we
also call it E3 instruction. What happens is when you want really achieve the goal of effective
and engaging, it may not necessarily be efficient the way you have chosen but the challenge
is always to achieve all the three goals, that is a challenge to the teacher.
As we said the first one is instructional situation. Instructional situations are characterized by
two again; values and conditions. Values are about learning goals, priorities, methods and
who has the power. The values are decided by the person who has the power over the
teaching-learning processes.
The other one is conditions, these include content, the kind of subjects that you are doing and
also, it is controlled by the learners, the quality of the learners that you have, their
motivations and so on, and the learning environment actually this becomes very crucial; if the
learning environment is not right for the kind of content and the kind of learners you have,
the instruction will be ineffective.
Also, you have what are called development constraints, we will presently, see all these
elements. These will be applicable irrespective of the type of program you are in, the type of
subjects that you have and so on.
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Now, let us take an example of the values. In the instructional situations, what are the values
about learning goals? Learning goals for us are nothing but competencies or course outcomes.
An example, the goal of a particular course is to write good programs in C encountered
commonly in business applications that is my learning goal. So depending on the subject, you
can alter that particular goal.
Then what are the priorities for us, for the teacher? Covering the syllabus when the scope of
the content is too large, that is the priority. When the syllabus is too large or the number of
topics to be addressed is too large then covering the syllabus when the scope of the content is
too large becomes the priority. How do I do it in the given time?
Then the method that I use for example, I want to use a method to to attain this learning goal,
use the program-share-critique method, of course, I can use other methods. I can just describe
a few programs that we write on the board or present it as a set of slides and ask them to do
but here the person has chosen the method of using the program-share-and-critique. That is
each person writes the program and shares let us say with the neighbor and gets critiqued by
the neighbor that is the method some people use.
Who has the power over all these things? Generally, in private institutions (even otherwise
right now 95 percent of the institutions in the country are privately conducted) the person
who has the power over the entire instruction is management through head of the department,
that is how it works right now.
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For example, management put some restrictions or goals, they are transferred to the head of
the department and head of the department has to make sure that the teacher follow, kind of
fulfills those constraints.
Let us look at the conditions. You talk about content, learner, learning environment,
instructional development constraints - this is what we have written. Again content is
problem solving through programming using C - that is a title of a course. You have to solve
problems through programming using C.
Then the learners, let us say in a particular institution or in a particular branch you have
students with low CET rankings habituated to rote learning, that is the kind of learners that
you have. No point in complaining about it because that is a type of students that come to you,
you have to deal with them.
Learning environment if it happens to be not so comfortable a classroom with a blackboard;

all the teacher has access, is classroom with a blackboard and you have to write on the
blackboard. Sometimes instructional development constraints can be, for example, a teacher
with very short notice is asked to teach a course which he has not taught earlier, it happens.
Here the development constraint is time available for designing the course. obviously, this
constraint will affect the quality of instruction. We looked at instructional situation has values
and conditions.
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Now we talk about instruction types or they are called approaches. Right now I am presenting
you about five of them, you can add more maybe. One is face-to-face, which is the most
dominant one. The teacher is working or doing instruction face-to-face in a classroom or
otherwise. You can have blended learning that is the part of the instruction takes place on the
Internet, not directly face-to-face but part of the instruction takes place face-to-face, that is
blended learning.
Then flipped classroom - that is what normally happens in the classroom of transferring
information now happens outside and what happens outside the classroom like solving
problems, doing assignments get shifted to the face-to-face classroom that is flipped
classroom.
You can have online course, in online you are not directly interacting except through some
limited amount of online interaction. Otherwise there is no face-to-face interaction. But
generally, online instruction is restricted to within a particular college and between a group of
students and a teacher.
Whereas MOOC, now the students can be any part of the world. A good course, a teacher
may have to deal with thousands of students. So how do you take care of good learning takes
place is a different challenge with regard to the MOOC. You require for both online and
MOOC courses, you require the appropriate technologies accessible.
Again, each type of instruction you follow your own choice of instructional methods, there is
no universality about it. The instructional methods should preferably incorporate some
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principles of learning - we will presently come to that. That is you accept certain principles of
learning and then use them as a basis for actually designing your own instruction.
We will mainly confine ourselves to face-to-face instruction type in this particular course. We
will not be talking about though this course is being conducted as a MOOC but what we are
going to present is mainly face-to-face instruction type. Even in this, there are a large number
of instructional methods now; direct instruction, problem based instruction, project based
instruction, simulation based instruction, discovery based instruction, discussion based
instruction, etcetera there are fairly large number.
Again, each instruction method has several variants in that. If you take problem based
instruction, I may be able to do in several different ways depending on the kind of subject
that I have or my own preferences. In some of them while they are effective and engaging,
they may not be very efficient. That has to be kept in mind when you say something is
wonderful and then you want to adapt that into your classroom.
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Now, principles of learning, we are only presenting two sets of principles. Two well-known
frameworks followed for instruction design are Merrill's principle and another one which has
been around for quite some time called Nine Events of Instruction of Gagne. We will talk
about them more in detail later.
Then you have what are called Instructional Components. Instructional components are
elements of instruction that are not directly related to the content but facilitate effective
instruction that can lead to good learning. These are subject-independent but like any
instructional method that you take, it uses some instructional components organized in a
certain sequence.
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We will again deal with this instructional components also in detail. Some samples of, or
examples of instructional elements are getting attention is one instructional element; how do I
get the attention of the students let us say at the beginning of the class, that is irrespective of
the subject.
For example, you talk about note making. We ask the students to write a few sentences of
what they have understood or what their comments are, summarizing which is similar or
reviewing whatever they have learnt over a period of time. You use graphical method say
draw a table or draw a graph, draw a picture, you use that. It is instructional component and it
can be used in any of the courses depending on of course the nature of the topic that you are
dealing with.
For example, cooperative learning is another instructional method. There are many more, we
will look at them, at least some of them in detail in a later unit. An instructional method that
you choose will pick for each instructional unit, which is nothing but a competency or a CO a
certain combination of this instructional elements and pieces it together and that becomes the
instructional method.
There is also another aspect of instruction. Instructors prefer to sequence the content in a
particular manner depending on the subject and the students. Let us look at like this - when
you have really bright students, they do not have to be given lot of detail, they can make
something at the very abstract level and then ask them to directly solve specific problems.
That method cannot be applied to a different class of students.
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You have different ways of content sequencing, easy-to-difficult. You start with simple
problems, make them solve, make them absorb that and then start going to the next level and
so on. You move from easy to difficult problems - that is called scaffolding.
Concrete-to-abstract, you solve some concrete problems and then abstract them and
generalize them, like convert them into some theorems or certain abstract structures. Or the
other way, just now as I mentioned abstract-to-concrete or general-to-specific, it could be
hierarchical, so there are several methods of content sequencing which the teacher can choose
depending on the kind of instructional situation that you have.
All these can be captured. Here the instruction should be E3 and has constructs, instructional
approaches; these are the five that we talked about and this face-to-face one can use several
instructional methods and those are the one. They primarily follow one of these learning
principles and then you have several methods here and then you have instructional
components and then you have content sequencing. This is how one can classify the
instructional method and instructional approach, so we are confirming ourselves only to this
part, we are not looking at these four.
And coming to instructional situation, we have already looked at values and conditions and
we have elaborated on that. Mind you, the instructional situation has really the most dominant
effect on the quality of learning as of now. Because whatever teacher or students complain,
first they are mainly are related to instructional situation.
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In the next unit, we try to understand the instructional situations and their requirements.
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Professor N. J. Rao
Lecture 37- M2 U16: Instructional Situations
Greetings and welcome to NATE, Module 2, Unit 16 on Instructional Situations. We have

looked at in the previous unit, the constructs of instruction and one of the construct is
instructional situation. In this unit, we will try to understand the elements of instructional
situations.
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We have already mentioned earlier what instructional situation is; now we will be elaborating
in this. An instructional context refers to the instructional setting and the environment in
which instruction is actually occurs. This context will include students’ demographics, social
milieu, fiscal conditions and organizational relationships; this is all the context,
All of them have very significant influence on the quality of learning and the teachers’
challenge is with widely varying the context, how do I manage my instruction. It also consists
of all the factors external to the learners that influence and define what, when, where, how,
why, and with whom, individual learners learn from instruction. The other one is that it
consists of a number of factors external to the learner; all of them collectively, we call it as
instructional situation.
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The constructs as we have already mentioned, consists of two. They are classified broadly
into two; values and conditions, values are elements of instruction deemed to be important by
stakeholders. An alignment of values about instruction across all stakeholders is helpful. This
is where the problem really occurs. In the sense, who are the stakeholders? Starting with the
management, faculty, the students and let us say the accreditation requirement and the
industry or organizations that are likely to employ.
As of now, there is a tremendous amount of misalignment of the values about instruction

across the stakeholders. Every position that is taken by a stakeholder is justifiable all right,
from a particular point of view. But together, the instructional situation becomes actually, in
some sense, unmanageable or the consequence of that is, very poor instruction leading to
poor learning. That is what it is.
The other construct is conditions; all factors related to the context other than values that have
influence on the choice and use of instructional methods.
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Values as we mentioned in the previous unit, refer to learning goals, priorities, methods and
who has the power. Let us look at each one of them.
Learning goals: in the context of outcome based education learning goals are expressed as
outcomes. Because now we have to be clear and these are given in today's context, especially
NBA accreditation process as outcomes are stated as POs, PSOs and COs. How do we write
that? We have gone through that extensively and we assume that both teachers and students
are familiar with these outcomes.
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These outcomes to be should be written following a well-defined process. It is not just
completely left to one individual. POs are given by National Board of Accreditation itself;
PSOs are written by the faculty of the department, and finally, it should be approved by the
Board of Studies of that particular college or university; and COs are written by the teacher,
but they also possibly written as a group and they have to be finally approved by the Boards
of Studies.
When it comes to instruction, one course outcome becomes the focus of instruction at any
given time. One course outcome or a competency becomes the focus. Let us say as we said,
one instructional unit which addresses one outcome or one competency may go for over one
to five, or sometimes even more number of classroom sessions.
When I am dealing with one of those outcomes, the instruction that I want to use is specific to
that particular outcome. When I go to another instructional unit, I may want to use entirely
different instruction method. So, what happens is, the instruction needs to be planned for one
CO or each time for one CO taking the POs and PSOs addressed by that CO into account,
because we also stated every CO addresses a subset of POs and PSOs.
Whenever I plan my instruction, I have to write together the CO and the identified POs and
PSOs next to that, and then, I need to plan my instruction. So learning goal becomes how do I
facilitate my students to attain a particular CO, which addresses a subset of POs and PSOs
that is the way you have to write your learning goal.
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Now, we come to priorities; again priorities can vary from one course to the other. Priority
can be covering the syllabus when the scope of the content is too large - for some reason, the
curriculum is overloaded for that particular course, then the priority becomes how do I cover
the entire syllabus or I may get an instruction from the management through HOD that pass
percentage should be high, that becomes the priority.
In fact, that seems to be happening in many of the private institutions and the whole
instruction since, or the entire system somehow seems to get itself adjusted to only attain this.
We reach a situation where you have a high pass percentages and the quality of learning
continues to remain poor. That is where the situation, we have addressed this issue through
when we talked about the assessment.
Sometimes the priority can be to enable the students to master some selected parts of the
course. It is because of the choice of the teacher, teacher considers a certain topics in that
priority and now, I want my students to master a selected parts of the course, then my
instruction will correspondingly be different. Or my priority needs to be that how do I address
the requirements of better students or weak students.
So priorities can be different from one course to the other, in a college depending on the
students and teachers that you have priorities can get altered.
Now, we come to the methods, this is where we will further elaborate later. Instruction
method should not be restricted to one way transfer of information. First thing is, that should
not be the only method of instruction namely, one way transfer of information. Teacher
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should acknowledge that there are many instruction methods are available and every teacher
should master not one, not all of them, but several instruction methods applicable to the
courses he or she teaches.
That is somebody can identify which are all the possible instruction methods that can have
relevance to the type of subjects that you deal with, and the teacher should get trained in
using those instruction methods. Any choice of instruction method should pay attention to the
physical environment, effectiveness, efficiency and engagement. That is what we stated.
Now who has the power? In an autonomous institution, the instructor, at least on paper has
the power to decide the content, instruction, assessment and evaluation. If you take NITs,
IITs or such institutions, they have that. In institutions affiliated to a university some
centralized bodies have the power to decide the content, assessment and evaluation - the
teacher doesn't have. The teacher has power only over the instruction and CIE that is
continuous internal evaluation.
In some private institutions, it is a management through HOD that has power over many
aspects of instruction. There are known cases when you deviate from any of these, the teacher
comes under fire.
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Now, we come to the conditions. Conditions refer to content, communication, learners,

learning environment and development constraints. Let us look at each one of them now.
Content: As we all know, all courses are not similar in nature. Courses can be descriptive,
mathematical, conceptual, engineering science or engineering or design oriented, all these
courses cannot be handled in the same way.
For example, take some very descriptive course. Like one example that I am familiar with is
material science. It is descriptive and people try to make it very abstract then also it is not
motivating. When it is descriptive, you are transferring lot of information. And it is a
challenge to maintain the motivation of the students in such a subject. So instruction in these
courses can be challenging.
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There are some courses, again of different nature. Like you have electromagnetic theory, or
material science, or sometimes even a subject like network theory that you teach. They are all
very difficult to maintain the motivation for that. Motivation does not come because
sometimes by the nature of the course, sometimes the students do not feel that there is any
value in learning that, they do not know why they are learning. So, in such case it is very
difficult to maintain the motivation. That becomes particularly challenge to the teacher, how
to go about doing it.
For example, even teaching a course that is highly mathematical and has several abstract
concepts can also be challenging. One way communication, I can almost kind of repeat the
material that I read in the textbook, but it is not necessarily motivating to the students.
Here content wise, all courses are to be described in terms of course outcomes that is one
thing we need to accept in the context of NBA accreditation. So that is why whenever we talk
about any course, or any aspect of education in higher education level, we keep talking about
course outcomes.
Now communication, as we have stated in the case of our course design, we mentioned,
communication becomes very-very crucial. Because teaching is primarily a communication
process. If the communication is flawed, obviously, learning does not take place. But the
rules for communication and the communicative competency of the both the teacher and the
students in the classroom will influence the attainment of outcomes.
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You have three things, rules for communication, the teacher and the students - they all decide
the quality of communication. Teacher determines the structure and direction of instructional
conversations, as we call them. That is, there are several instructional conversations. It could
be just one way presentation by the teacher or teacher can ask a question and students
respond to that or teacher asks students to do something, and the students do that and again
pass it back to the teacher.
So there are always instructional conversations like this taking place. The teacher determines
the structural direction of these instructional conversations.
As we stated, the quality of communication in the classroom has a crucial role to play and
quality of communication will also depend on the language of communication. In Indian
context, we have all learning resources are available in English, textbooks or Internet material
and especially, related to all the technical subjects, engineering subjects, it is available in
English.
Instruction, assessment and student responses are required to be in English. There may be few
exceptions, but it has to be in English. English not being a native language of most Indians,
students as well as teachers are not necessarily fluent communicating in English. If the
teacher is not fluent in English, then there can be errors in communication. What is a
communication? Either the way the teacher speaks in the class or writes on the board, there
can be errors in communication.
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Similarly, if the students are not adequately fluent in English, errors in understanding by
students can occur and also either and/or if the teacher is also not adequately fluent in
English, the errors accumulate. You can identify situations where teachers are not adequately
fluent in English and the students are also not adequately fluent in understanding in English.
You have errors creeping in and once these errors creep in, there is no process by which these
can be corrected.
They can be corrected provided you follow a systematic course design process and you also
plan your instruction well. Language errors in what is written on the board or presented in the
slides can have multiplier effects. If I make a mistake in a slide while presenting, maybe a
large number of students will carry with that say, almost accepting it as correct and then
further transmit to others. So, the language of communication plays a very important role,
especially in India.
Other issues in communication in English for example, students coming from rural areas and
graduating from 12th standard in Indian language medium are likely to have issues despite
special formal and informal activities planned by the institution. Coming suddenly from a
local language medium to completely English is going to be a major step change as far as the
students are concerned.
To that extent, sometimes teacher adopt to this particular situation by trying to speak in local
language and interspersed with English words, it works up to a point okay, but anything
beyond third semester will become disadvantages to the students as placement interviews and
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conduct of all professional activities are done in English. While you can use local language to
a limited extent up to the third semester, it is not desirable to do so beyond third semester.
Another one, a major professional communication is generally in the written form. For
example, when the student answers a question, he is writing in English or when he is making
a presentation or giving a seminar, it is going to be in English. To the extent student should
be given several exercises in writing in English and encourage to read generally widely.
When a student reads widely in English, automatically the language will improve over a
period of time.
Now coming to the learners, students in majority of the affiliated colleges come from a wide
range of social and economic backgrounds as well as cognitive abilities and motivations.
How do I conduct a kind of a survey or some kind of test to find out their cognitive abilities
and motivations? It is possible to do so. There are methods available, so when the students
join, you can conduct a kind of a survey during very brief period, make them fill a wide
variety of forms and from that you can get some kind of a data that can be used.
The other one is entrance test ranks, and their range is an approximate proxy to cognitive
abilities. If my students are confined to 30,000 to 35,000 entrance ranks, then I have one type
of quality of students with me. They are very different when you are talking about let us say
less than 1,000 CET rank.
There appears to be till now, maybe that situation is changing slowly, not so insignificant
number of students in all branches with no motivation for engineering and they are there
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because due to parental pressure, parents demand that they study engineering and they come
and they have no motivation. What happens? teachers will have to deal with such students.
So, the context is characterized by the distribution of students across all these categories.
For other reasons, you may get a few small number of very bright students coming into a
classroom where majority are in terms of cognitive abilities and motivations are way below
and it can be very difficult both to the teacher and these students to plan learning for such a
mixed group.
Now comes the learning environment - has physical, social and emotional dimensions.
Learning environment has all the three dimensions. Physical environment of the learning
spaces in India can become very taxing in some institutions, but off late, the quality of
classrooms has been increasing.
They are made comfortable in many places in spite of the weather being inhospitable and
when it is not comfortable physically, you cannot get the attention of the students. All the
time you are worried about you are sweating, high temperatures, you have background noise
or the fans and so on. It is very difficult to get the attention of all the students.
If you have a gallery type, the arrangement of the furniture do not permit certain, types of
instructional activities. If you want cooperative learning, two or three people sit together and
address a particular problem, that instructional activity cannot be planned if you have a
particular type of furniture.
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Also these days availability or non-availability of Wi-Fi and access to power for Internet
devices will have significant influence on the type of instruction methods used. For example,
a college may for other reasons, say cell phones are not allowed in the classroom. Then what
happens, you have an issue where (while they have reasons for it) you cannot bring in certain
type of instructional methods into the class. So, physical learning environment will have all
these issues.
Then you have a social dimension to the classroom as well. We all know that we can learn
better through social interactions, but that social interaction should be permitted in the
classroom. How do you do it? You normally use certain methods like think-pair-share, group
discussions, group projects; they can be used as instruction methods. Such social interaction
will be effective only through proper group formation. Even this group formation will have
many other dimensions depending on what social background the students are coming from,
is it possible to make the appropriate group.
Again, there are a lot of tools available from psychology or social sciences, how do we form
groups taken certain information about the student. If that kind of information can be
collected, it becomes easier to form groups.
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Another aspect of learning is emotional support that is provided in the classroom. The
learning environment is decided or created by the instructor should provide an emotionally
supportive environment. What do we mean by emotionally supportive environment? For
example, students from rural or disadvantaged backgrounds though reasonably competent,
may lack confidence and special attention must be paid to support them.
They do not want to open their mouth; they are diffident about that; but they have the subject
competency, but they lack confidence. Actually, there are several programs right now in
practice, where to prepare the students from such backgrounds to come into an engineering
program so that some of these issues are resolved even before they enter the program, but not
all students will have access to these initiatives.
For example, student should not be discouraged to raise questions. Many times it happens the
teacher does not encourage students to raise any question. Also sometimes when a student
makes a mistake, he is ridiculed. A teacher should never-never ridicule if a student made a
mistake, should not become angry, shout at him and ridicule him in any way. If you have
ridiculed once you possibly have lost the student, sometimes even permanently, ever wanting
to respond to anything.
Also, presence of many unmotivated students in the classroom is a challenge to the teacher.
So the main thing about instructional situation is while there are several people who have
control over it, given the limited control the teacher has, how do I plan my instructional
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situation or take care of the instructional situation, and accordingly choose my instruction
method? It is a challenge.
You may also have development constraints. As we already mentioned, it can refer to the
time available to a teacher to design and conduct a new course. While there will be no dearth
of learning resources on the Internet, monetary constraints can become an issue with respect
to some courses. If I want some physical materials, products to be bought and demonstrated
in the classroom, obviously, there can be, monetary constraints on that.
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So, as you can see, instructional situation as of today in India is very widely varied. You have
such a challenge to teachers that to manage the instruction with the kind of instructional
situation they have.
Here we request you to kind of identify the instructional situation of a course that you taught
in terms of its values and conditions. That is you capture your instructional situation as we
classified in terms of values and conditions, and share it with us, it can be even anonymously,
it will be of great value to us in terms of our own learning.
In the next unit, we will try to understand how brains learn. Thank you very much.
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Professor N. J. Rao
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
Lecture 38 - How Brains Learn
Greetings and welcome to NATE, Module 2, Unit 17 on How Brains Learn.
In the earlier unit, we understood what an instructional situation is and the values and
conditions of an instructional situation can greatly influence instruction and learning. The
entire situation or in which a teacher conducts instruction is what we are calling instructional
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situation. That plays actually very, very major role in the way the students learn or in the way
the teacher can conduct instruction.
Now, we move on to a completely different topic. In this unit, we try to understand a few
features of the brain and their role in teaching and learning. Brain is an entity about which we
hardly know. Something we know, but we do not know how far we are from understanding it
completely. But from the few things that we know, we understand that it has influence on
teaching and learning.
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Teachers and the brain: the job a teacher does is to change the brain, learning consists of
changing something in the brain. So the job of the teacher is to change the brain, you can say
teaching is art of changing the brain, simple. Because we are in the business of changing the
brain, every teacher should know a little bit/something about the structure and functioning of
the brain also get familiar with the current state of educational neuroscience, which deals
with the link between neuroscience and education.
To start with, one can take a look at this particular book by David Sousa, How the Brain
Learns, it is 2011 book, but it is still okay to get started to understand. In my view, every
teacher should read this book or something very similar to this.
Now, let us look at some findings from the brain research. The human brain kind of
continuously reorganizes itself based on the inputs that is even physically. As we are
continuously receiving inputs from the external world and our brain keeps on reorganizing
itself. This reorganization will consist of what you may say sometimes new neurons are
produced or the interconnections between existing neurons also keep changing. This is called
neuroplasticity and it continues throughout one's life.
One should never agree if somebody says you cannot teach an old dog new tricks, one can
always teach new tricks to an old dog. The brain continuously reorganizes itself, there is
nothing like I am presently old, there is no way I can learn new things, let me stop learning
now, it need not be true. So that is the first thing.
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Then brains cannot multitask. Here, the task is related to cognitive tasks. That means the
brain cannot do two cognitive tasks at the same time. Many people/students feel proud that
they can multitask - they cannot. The brain does not allow such multitasking. One is, if you
are not involved in a cognitive activity, like listening to music in the background, you can
still do a cognitive task. Because listening to music is in the background and it does not call
for cognitive processing of that information.
Or similarly, when you are driving a car, or driving any vehicle, most of the operations are a
bit automatic, and so your brain can do some other cognitive task. But if there is a small
crisis, somebody is just coming across, suddenly your brain switches back to cognitive
activity and you have to focus attention on what has happened in front of you.
So when you are trying to do two tasks at the same time, what you are actually doing is you
are switching between one task and the other task continuously back and forth. That is a very
inefficient way of doing two cognitive tasks. So, one thing you have to accept, brain cannot
do multitasking.
Another finding, emotions affect learning, memory and recall. Emotions play a major role in
terms of all the activities either learning, memory and recall. Another one is movement and
exercise improve mood, increase brain mass and enhance cognitive processing. If you keep
your body in condition by exercising, and we also say by hydrating that is drinking enough
water then what happens is it improves the mood of the person and to that extent it will
enhance cognitive processing.
Because the statement above, when your mood is good that is when you only have positive
emotions, your cognitive processing also improves. It was also observed, teaching and
learning can be more difficult at certain times of the day what we call circadian cycles.
Something like between 2 and 3 in a day is not the best period to learn something new.
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Sleep deprivation and stress can affect learning and memory, that I think everybody is aware
of it. But when sleep deprivation and there is stress, there is some change happens in the
chemistry of the brain, some hormones get released, which will affect the learning and
memory activities.
Intelligence and creativity are two separate abilities, they are not the same. Intelligent person
need not be that very creative and a creative person need not be that intelligent. Both can be
modified by the environment and schooling, one can be trained in both. Social and cultural
climate affect teaching and learning. This is also quite well known. In a classroom if there is
bullying, for example, the environment/social climate is not conducive to learning. Because
when a particular student feels threatened all the time, obviously, his learning seriously gets
affected.
It is also known arts can help develop the brain. If you are participating in any kind of
activity that is related to art or sports, it develops the brain. So that is why it is necessary that
one has an integrated experiences like this.
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Let us look at some basic facts about brain. Human brain is a wet fragile mass that weighs
about 1.5 kg. It represents about 2 percent of the body weight and it consumes nearly 20
percent of our calories. Mind you that unless you have sufficient energy and hydrate yourself,
especially during times of examinations and so on, when the brain works a little harder, that
means you consume more calories and you require more water. That is why students
generally keep drinking water during the examination, because of the brain activity, not
because of the stress.
Let us take a look at some pictures of the brain, we will not spend too much time on its
different parts, its structure and so on, but it is good for you to explore this by yourself. So,
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this is how the brain from the side looks like and it has what is called frontal lobes and
prefrontal cortex. These are different portions dedicated to different activities. And these are
temporal lobe, motor cortex, somatosensory cortex, then parietal lobes, occipital lobe is this
whole part of the brain, is dedicated to processing visual inputs.
Then you have what is called cerebellum - literal translation is small brain. We will not worry
about the detailed structures of this. Here this is a slice of this from one side and this part of
the brain is called limbic system. There are many important structures in this, which will have
great influences, especially about emotions. We will particularly look at this little fellow here
called amygdala, has a major impact on learning. We will only focus on a few parts of the
brain.
Now, let us look at frontal lobes as we have shown. The part of the brain that is right behind
the forehead is called prefrontal cortex. It is also known as the executive control center, deals
with planning and thinking. This part of the brain is obviously very important, crucial to
human beings, that actually makes human beings different from other animals. The prefrontal
cortex monitors higher order thinking, directs problem solving, and regulates excess of the
emotional system.
I am sure depending on the kind of experiences that we keep going through; sometimes we
have excess of emotions. The prefrontal cortex also plays a role in regulating this emotional
system. It is also known that if one practices yoga extensively, the prefrontal cortex can get
altered and can have a more ability in higher order thinking and in problem solving.
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It also contains what we call our self will area, what may be called our personality. So the
features of our personality are the ones that exist in the prefrontal cortex. Another very
important aspect, it is the area where focus occurs, because most of the working memory is
located there. We will be presently seeing what working memory is. The working memory
plays a key role; this working memory is located in the prefrontal lobe, namely the prefrontal
cortex.
Another issue is, there is a 10 to 12 year gap in the development of the frontal lobe. The
frontal lobe does not fully form when a child is born. It slowly evolves that means lots of
neurons kind of get produced and get readjusted and it takes time for it to evolve. The rest of
the brain, like the emotional part, kind of grows much faster than the prefrontal lobe. To the
extent the young adults or many adolescents, their prefrontal cortex is not fully developed; to
the extent like their behavior is likely to be affected more by, influenced more by the limbic
part of their brain and to the extent they are likely to get into risky situations.
There is almost 10 to 12 year gap. That is why by the time one is about 22-23, this kind of
getting involved in risky situations will start reducing at least, that is about frontal lobe,
which is of relevance to us immediately as far as the teaching and learning are concerned.
Another part that is very important to us, it is the limbic system, which I have shown you in
the earlier slide, which is nestled between brainstem and the cerebrum, it is a middle area.
The structures of this limbic system are duplicated in the each hemisphere. As brain from the
top if you look at as if there are two hemispheres and there is almost like a cleavage between
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the two parts and you can identify the two hemispheres. So, these structures of the limbic
brain get kind of duplicated in both the hemispheres.
This is the part we will not get into the details, there are so many structures in that, each one
plays a role, but together the limbic system generates emotions and processes, emotional
memories. We will presently come to that and it happens to start with mainly through
amygdala. It also manages the interplay between emotion and reason. That is the way they
pass through the limbic system. What happens, any kind of experience, any sensory data that
comes, it starts adding the emotional component also to that.
You should remember the two structures in the brain responsible for long-term remembering
are in the limbic system. A teacher should be aware that long-term remembering is greatly
influenced by the structures in the limbic system.
Let us come to the main part, namely the brain cells. Human brain has about 1 trillion cells,
the numbers are huge. They are two types, nerve cells and glial cells. Nerve cells are called
neurons and they are about 100 billion in number in everybody's brain, and these numbers
will keep changing with time. Some cells unused are likely to die and depending on your
experience, new cells will also grow.
Whereas the glial cells, they are the elements that provides a kind of background in which
neurons interact with each other. They also filter all the harmful substances out of the
neurons, and they provide the required energy to the neurons. So our focus will be nerve cells
rather than the glial cells. So you can say neurons are the functioning core of the brain. On
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top of this, neurons have tens of thousands of branches emerging from its core, they are
called dendrites, which can be more than 10,000 per neuron, which is a huge number.
Imagine each dendrite can have some kind of a linkage with some other neuron. If you are
looking at the brain as number of interconnections, you have 100 billion multiplied by a
possibly 10,000, you are talking of a 1,000 trillion possible connections between neurons.
Each connection has some meaning. If you look at, every neuron will have one axon and a
layer called myelin sheath surrounding each axon. Let us take a look at that.
You have dendrites, these are the ones, that means each one gets connected to some other
neuron. When it gets connected, it gives you some kind of signal, electrical signal comes into
this. What happens, finally, when it comes here, it is a result of the number of inputs that
come from different places. So the signal strength here will depend on what are all the inputs
that have come from various dendrites.
This axon is the one goes from here to the other end, it depends, sometimes the length of this
axon can be very small, sometimes it can be very long, that is right from the brain to the
different parts of the body as well.
This is where you talk about the axon terminal. Each axon will have several terminals and
then that terminal will get connected to a dendrite of some other neuron. Nucleus is the one
that obviously determines the structure of the whole thing and so on. Here if you look at this
axon is connected and it has certain kind of insulation you can call it, it is called myelin
sheath.
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What happens is the way the signal transmits if a voltage signal comes here, it kind of keeps
jumping from one node to the other like this. If the myelin sheath is strong, then the signal
travels faster from here to here. That means, your response times can be better. But if myelin
sheath is weak, (it is like it is leaking kind of wire) if the myelin sheath is thin, or it has not
grown sufficiently, then the signal strength will be poor or it will travel slow from here to the
other. The signal can be of the order of a few millivolts, actually, not in Pico volts and all
that.
What happens if you do not have sufficient exercise, and if you are not sufficiently hydrated
that you do not take enough water, this myelin sheath is likely to be weak or thin. That means
the speed of transmission of signal from here to here can become weak. So, first thing is all of
us should drink sufficient water and also keep ourselves physically fit for the brain to
function properly.
Again, with respect to the neuron and its connection to others, this is another way of actually
showing. These are all the dendrites, this is nucleus and this is the axon and the terminal here
gets connected to dendrites of other cells here. This connection here is shown here in
expanded version. This is called synaptic junction. Synaptic junction is not physical at all.
So, end of one of the axon terminal will end here and this is the other end of the dendrite. The
connection here that is space here of a few nanometers, whenever a signal is to be transmitted
to the other one, it releases some neurotransmitters and these neurotransmitters are picked up
by a cell here and then this is in turn will produce the signal.
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So what happens is the connections between two neurons is always chemical rather than
electrical, but within the neuron the processing happens electrically. That is the nature of
synapse and synaptic junction.
Here we just once again repeat. The dendrites of neurons receive electrical impulses from
other neurons and transmit them along the axon. Myelin sheath insulates the axon from other
cells and increases speed of impulse transmission. A neuron can transmit between 250 to
2,500 impulses per second. So, the times involved are in terms of a millisecond or a fraction
of a millisecond kind of thing.
Neurons have no direct contact with each other and electrical impulse is transferred from
synapses to dendrites through neurotransmitters. Learning occurs by changing the synapses,
so that influence of one neuron on the other also changes when a new synapse is formed or
the strength of connection between two dendrites or the dendrite and the synapse. If a deep
learning has taken place that connection will be stronger. And where the connection is
stronger, you will also be able to recall that whatever information that is implied by that.
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Let us come to another part, namely amygdala. It is in the limbic system and plays an
important role in emotions, especially fear. It regulates the individual's interaction with the
environment and can affect survival such as whether to attack, escape, mate or eat. Mind you,
these things have evolved over millions of years, so they do have a very dominant effect on
how the brain functions.
It is believed that amygdala encodes an emotional message, if one is present, whenever a

memory is tagged for a long-term memory. Whenever I experience something, there is
always an emotion that takes place. Initially, it will be positive or negative; amygdala records
it as positive or negative, immediately that action takes place. If something is strong, then
what happens is the rest of the brain cannot overrule that and the brain recognizes it as a
threat. When it is a threat, it will affect my reasoning ability, which means that my learning is
also affected.
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What is the implication of that for us? This is where teacher has to be aware of. The teacher's
capacity to humiliate, embarrass, reject and punish students constitute a major perceived
threat. It is only perceived threat, you may not be punishing anytime, or if the student feels
that in the kind the way the teacher speaks to you, either is humiliating you or embarrassing
you, or rejecting you, then the student is not likely to learn properly.
For a classroom to be conducive for learning, the teacher has to make sure he is never felt as
a threat to the any of the students, especially the weak students. Also what happens, even
grading is viewed by students as punitive rather than a rewarding process. Fundamental belief
is, the students see it like that. So teacher should be aware, this is how students react.
Presence of a threat in any significant degree impedes learning. Also, teachers can make their
classroom better learning environments by avoiding threats or even subtle intimidation. First
thing, because of the amygdala, the way it works, the teacher has to ensure that he has to
create an environment that is conducive to learning. To make it conducive to learning, the
first thing is to eliminate threats. That you have to present yourself through various activities
that you are treated more like a friend and a mentor rather than somebody who is trying to do
rewarding and punishment.
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Now, we look at another major aspect of ‘what the brain does’. This is the model given by
David Sousa himself and this is how it looks. Let us take a look at it. These are the
environment from which you have all the five senses, from which information comes and this
is called sensory register. That means when you are standing and you are receiving
information from all sides, there is no point in keeping a record of all that.
So, what happens is, the sensory register itself will keep rejecting the background noise,
unnecessary images and all that. But it depends on how does it filter, depends on the past
experience of the individual. Quite a bit of the information, possibly 90-95 percent of the
information that comes to the sensory register is thrown out after due processing based on
your past experience.
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Then it comes to what is called intermediate memory. Intermediate memory lasts for a few,
maybe 30 seconds, in which you have to make a decision whether you are going to process
that or not. This is where the attention becomes more important. What information do I want
to focus, that is also decided by your past experience. If you are not having attention because
of this, it will get thrown out or most of it thrown out and the remaining one moves to what is
called working memory.
The working memory, if you are not processing, it also gets thrown out. But it also receives
information. This is you, all the past experiences, people give what is called self concept or
cognitive belief system, all the long-term storage is all here in this particular area. When you
are processing, you are not only using the information that is coming from external source,
that is what teacher is presenting, you also retrieve some information from long-term memory
and process it.
Processing consists of sensing and meaning, these two activities. Depending on the result of
the sense making and meaning, the final information will go into the long-term memory that
is the basic information processing mode. A teacher should be aware of what are all the
issues that are involved so that we encourage the current processing of information in the
working memory and make sure that the conditions and the way a teacher behaves will
encourage the correct information to go from immediate memory to the working memory and
proper processing is done here. That is broadly the model of information processing by David
Sousa.
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This is what I have just now communicated. What is the result now of all these? Because of
the limited capacity of the working memory you cannot put in too much of information in one
shot. Also you must give enough time to the student to process something before we move
onto something.
By and large it is understood because of the structure of the working memory or short-term
memory, packaging lessons into 15-20 minute components is much better in maintaining
greater student interest than one 40-minute lesson.
So do not continuously lecture for more than 15-20 minutes. Though unfortunately, in a
course offered in MOOC, sometimes we have to go beyond 30 minutes as well, because of
the very nature of the structure.
In the long-term memory, information is most likely to get stored if it makes sense and has
meaning, which we have already mentioned. Making sense means the learner can understand
an item based on his or her experience. You can understand something, but understanding
does not guarantee that it will go into the long-term memory. It is only valuable up to some
point. Meaning refers to whether the items are relevant to the learner.
Sometimes what happens, even though I have learned some item, I may feel it is not relevant
to me at all. So, different students may find different relevances to the information that is
transferred. Unless it is learnt and has meaning, it cannot go into the long- term memory, that
is the issue.
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Memory gives us a past and a record of who we are and is essential to human individuality.
For all practical purposes, the capacity of the brain to store information is unlimited. Nobody
has yet found what is the final limit to the kind of things that are stored. That is why you keep
hearing about people with phenomenal kind of photographic memories and ability to
remember all kinds of past events and so on.
See, whenever there is a stimulus, it causes a group of neurons to fire together and the firing
may last only for a brief time. Once again, if the pattern is repeated during the standby
period; how does it happen? Repetition happens through rehearsal and practice. So during
that standby period, if you are rehearsing or practicing something, the associated group of
neurons, their tendency to fire together is increased, that means you have strengthened that
signal and every time a stimulus comes, all the associated neurons will fire together and that
is what is required for long-term memory.
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These neuronal patterns firing together, they are called engrams. These individual engrams
associate and form networks with other engrams. For example, our idea of relating one to our
previous knowledge. When they are connected to more of earlier such engrams then what
happens, the whole network together is strengthened. When you consolidated this in the
memory and it makes it easier to retrieve information. That means any kind of trigger related
to any engram, that brings the entire network together into the working memory, that means it
is retrievable.
Now, let us talk about learning and retention. One can learn all right, but need not retain that
information for a long period. So, these two are different. We can learn something for a short
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period like a few minutes or days or even till the end of the semester and then practically lose
it. I think all of us have experienced, you cannot retain all the details that you have learned or
mastered in earlier semesters or earlier part of your education, you cannot completely recall.
So, learning does not always involve long-term retention - that should be remembered.
Teachers cannot easily say that you have learnt everything in the two semesters earlier, why
are you forgetting that kind of thing? Because that is the nature of learning and retention. So,
retention refers to the process whereby long-term memory preserves learning in such a way
that it can locate, identify and retrieve it accurately in the future. That is what is called
retention.
What are the guidelines to teachers because of this learning and retention? Teach students
rehearsal activities and strategies. You must provide opportunity for rehearsal and practicing
and they must be taught as well. Remind students to continuously practice rehearsal strategies
until they become regular parts of their study and learning habits. You cannot cram
everything a few days before the test or examination. Some students naturally do it and
sometimes those students who naturally do this rehearsal and practice, they are also ridiculed
by their friends.
Keep rehearsals relevant, and teacher's experience may not be relevant to the students. Mind
you, my practice or the way I have done, those experiences may not be relevant to your
students. So you should not enforce this is what worked for me, and you have to do the same
kind of thing.
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Also, remember that time spent alone is not trustworthy. If I am doing something by
practicing something wrong all the time, then obviously, I am learning the wrong things. So,
practicing these things alone is not trustworthy indicator. Rehearsal, if it is possible, you
should do it with a group. Actually in many places, study groups form and they talk to each
other and keep exchanging and if there are any small errors in that, others are likely to correct
that.
Provide more visual and contextual clues to make the rehearsal meaningful and successful.
We have looked at the three aspects, the emotional aspect and how the memory works and
then the retention and learning. Only we looked at these three, there are many, many more
aspects of the brain that have influence on the quality of learning by the student.
We do suggest teachers spend some time in understanding the structure of the brain or some
parts from educational neuroscience, because that is our profession. The more you learn and
try to relate to what you are doing, you are likely to do your things better.
As an exercise, we request you to give two instances of rehearsal strategies that you used in
your courses and your view of their effectiveness, what is your experience? Write maximum
200 words and share with us at this particular email ID.
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In the next unit, we will try to understand some instructional components that facilitate the
brain in dealing with retention, learning and transfer. Instructional components are
independent of the discipline or subject matter, they are independent of content. These
components can be used anywhere judiciously in some combination, and we will identify or
we will present some components of that which have been proven in the field to contribute
greatly to the learning. Thank you very much.
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Professor N. J. Rao
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
Lecture 39 - Instructional Components
Greetings and welcome to NATE, Module 2, Unit 18 related to Instructional Components. In

the earlier unit, we understood a few aspects of how brains learn. We only looked at three or
four small activities that can facilitate learning, which are based on our understanding how
brains learn.
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Now in this unit, we try to understand the use of evidence based instructional components.
First, let us define what instructional components are.
Instructional components are elements of instruction that are not directly related to the
content, but facilitate effective instruction that can lead to good learning. Whatever
instructional components that we are going to look at, they are not specific to any particular
content, means that they are not specific to any discipline, nor a subject matter.
To take a simple example, we draw graphs to show relationship between two variables, we
draw graphs and drawing a graph facilitates for us to get a picture of what is a relationship
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between two variables irrespective of the subject matter. You can say drawing a graph is one
instructional component, which all of you are familiar with. We look at such instructional
components and some of the instructional components that we are going to look at, they are
evidence based, that means extensive fieldwork is done and it was established that using
these instructional components do make a lot of difference to the quality of learning.
Looking at where exactly these instructional components come in the broad area of
instruction. As we have seen earlier, instruction uses instructional components and we have
instructional approaches like direct instruction, project based instruction, problem based
instruction, experiential learning, simulation based instruction and some of these approaches
we will be exploring in the following units.
Instruction also follows a certain type of content sequencing; easy to difficult, concrete to
abstract, abstract to concrete, general to specific. The choice of content sequencing will
depend on the kind of students that you have or the preference of the teacher and sometimes
the nature of the subject. These things we will not be exploring in this course. But we will
look at the instructional approaches and now we look at instructional components.
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These are some of the instructional components, whatever that has been indicated, most of
them are field tested and were shown to make a difference to the quality of learning. They are
arranged in alphabetical order, we are not going to deal with all these elements, we will pick
some and explore how they can be used and why they are used and maybe many of you are
already familiar with them in various contexts.
You have advance organizer, analogies, authentic tasks, coaching, collaborative work,
cooperative work, demonstration, elaboration, examples or non-examples, feedback, goals
and feedback, independent practice, peer tutoring, personalization, preview, reciprocal
teaching, reflection, guided practice, teamwork, etc. You can add many more or you can
invent your own.
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Now we look at a few important ones. Let us start with ‘goals’. That is every student must
work towards a goal and the goal should be very clear to him. Many students suffer from
failure of intent. That is, they are trying to do the wrong thing because they have
misrepresented or misinterpreted the course outcome. That is, if I have understood my course
outcome wrongly, then I am working towards that means there is a failure of intent. My goal
itself is set wrongly then obviously, I will not reach the correct goal.
So what happens? Students need to be able to give themselves a feedback while they are
working. So they have to explore on their own whether they are trying to go towards the
correct goal and this kind of thing is called metacognitive knowledge. Good performing
students have good metacognitive knowledge and normally, they do not misrepresent the
course outcomes.
The teacher's role is to understand that the student is misrepresenting the course outcome and
to facilitate the students to understand the correct COs and be able to evaluate their work
progress against these. That is, one can talk about the goal itself and possibly set some
milestones kind of thing and you can plot to what extent the student has achieved the goal.
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Something connected with this goal itself is a feedback. Students do not construct meanings
fully or accurately the first time, that is true of anyone. And so need to know their errors and
omissions in order to improve their constructs. If I am not constructing the meaning properly
and somebody will have to give feedback, it could be a peer feedback, or it could be teacher
feedback. And the teacher also needs this kind of feedback on students' understanding to help
improve their own learning. Teachers can also use the feedback for improving their own
teaching as well.
So the feedback can be used for learning as well as teaching by the teacher. Generally,
formative assessment methods constitute the most effective feedback. That is, you give some
kind of a quiz and from the response to the quiz, you try to find out at what level there is a
misunderstanding or inaccurate representation of the meaning of the course outcome. High
quality feedback has more effect on weakest learners.
What one should be doing is, the feedback should be given to weakest learners rather than
only listen to the best students and if they give the correct answer, I kind of move on. So, if
you want to help weakest learners, you should be able to make arrangements to give high
quality feedback to the students.
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Some feedback strategies that you can use: Use interactive teaching methods, self and peer
assessment, give time for practice, get students to show where they have met the criteria,
because you cannot merely say that you are doing something wrong here, but you should also
give feedback how far they were correct and from what point they are actually deviating.
Get students to represent their progress graphically if you wish, and use group or pair work.
There are several such instructional approaches that you can use. For example, use group and
pair work, that itself is an instructional component. Where exactly do you use that? It
depends on the situation.
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Another instructional component is similes and analogies. Similes, analogies, models and
such things in our teaching - they link the new knowledge to things that the student already
know about. See, one of the things the way the brain learns is - it tries to link the new
information to already what the brain has inside. If it is not able to link to whatever
knowledge that was constructed by the brain or mental model that was constructed by the
brain, then the new information will stay in isolation and it possibly is available to you only
as information recall for a limited period, but not actually using it in practical situations.
So one of the methods that will help for the new information to get a link to what is already
known is using similes and analogies. These can also be used as an active learning method. It
is like this, either the teacher can facilitate the students to identify similarities or differences.
Provide something else and say what are the differences between these two or what are the
similarities between the two.
Or still a better method is - if each student can build or identify their own analogies or create
similes and analogies. It is a very effective method to link new information to the existing
body of knowledge that the student already has.
Then comes another instructional method, graphic organizers. This all of you must be
knowing many times by just drawing a picture, however bad or good it is or drawing a graph
or putting a table, one can understand things much better. The graphic organizers organize the
content graphically, that is all. Graphic organizers help students to organize ideas, see
relationships, and facilitate retention of information.
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Graphic organizers are best at showing the relational information. This kind of instructional
component can be used in all disciplines, whether it is history or physics or sociology or an
engineering subject, in every place they can be used.
For example, they can be used by teachers as means to display information to the class, like
you draw a graph on the board or put a table on the board or if there are other tools that are
available, you can also use that using a computer and projecting it. Or it can also be used by
the student as an activity and as a means to plan writing.
For example, a student can create his own graphic representation of the information that is
one way of internalizing. Also graphic organizer can be used for planning writing, making
notes and supports to help answer questions and discuss issues. For each type open source
tools are available.
How graphic organizers are going to be used will depend on the objective and preference of
the teacher as well. One way to do is you present a diagram either on the, using any of the
Internet devices the students use, or draw a diagram on the board, but with little text, and ask
the students to keep filling it up.
If they are able to effectively fill it up, that means they are learning better. That is one way of
half finished graphic organizer can be used as an effective learning tool.
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One way to do is you make use of some standard templates a teacher is proposing to use and
ask the student to use them to save time - instead of trying to draw continuously these
diagrams, you can use some templates in which you start filling it up. So the student is
creating his own graphic representation of the information that is being given by the teacher.
Still better is, you do not tell him exactly using a specific template, you ask the student to
graphically represent, let the student choose whether he wants to use a table or graph or pie
charts or anything like that. There are software tools, both proprietary and open source,
available for creating such graphic organizers, example that we have already dealt with this
Concept Map, which is an open source tool.
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These are simple graphic organizers, like you have Venn diagrams or something like a tree
diagram if you want to make it look interesting, or a bubble topical organizer, or a
hierarchical topic organizer, or just text which is organized in a hierarchical fashion.
Any of these simple graphic organizers can be used by the teacher as well as the student. It
does not have to happen in the class, student himself while he is reading back at home or in
the hostel, he can make use of this kind of tool to record his own understanding for his own
benefit.
This is another one which is used by several, it is called fishbone diagram and also called
Cause and Effect diagram, or it is called Ishikawa diagram. What do you have here? It is a
visualization tool for categorizing potential causes of a problem in order to identify the root
causes.
Here if you look at the example is website went down, and then you start identifying the
major causes, unable to connect to server or DNS lookup problems. This can happen because
of several possibilities. Same way, these are the all possibilities. Besides these two, if you
have other issues, again, you can keep adding it like this. So your fishbone diagram can be
expanded this way.
It is a generic one and you can start filling it up and make it look like this. Then you know to
organize based on this, either you follow certain sequence of steps or develop your software
tool for that.
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Another way, what we call spectrum or timeline that you want to do. It is a little graphical
method, it makes it look interesting, electromagnetic spectrum from one end to the other.
Similarly, here a similar timeline kind of thing can be drawn here, that is you have series of
activities and then you have milestones. When you say milestone, you write in that what is a
milestone that you are expected to achieve.
If you are starting here, then you keep on identifying these milestones and go over to this and
finally you reach your goal. This is another simple graphic tool that one can use.
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Yet another instructional component is storyboarding. A storyboard is a graphic organizer in
the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing an
interactive media sequence. Storyboarding is used extensively in many of the corporate
training programs or even at a lower end, training the mechanics or somebody who is
required to do a kind of a routine type of activity, they can be effectively utilized.
Storyboarding is also used in software development, as part of identifying the specifications

for software. What you do, during the specification phase, screens that software will display
are drawn. Obviously, when you are working for a software on the screen, and using other
specialized software to illustrate the important steps of user experience. Storyboarding is also
fairly standard one, if you are even getting trained for corporate training itself.
Then you have another tool called Mind Map. Mind Maps are powerful visual tools for the
teacher to explore along with the students in the classroom. Like if you want free association,
and explore all kinds of implications about it, many of them may not be exactly fall into the
same category. So it is a kind of a free exploration of a relationship of one to the other.
Students also, as a teacher explains something, they can write their own mind map the way
they understand the relationship between one entity to another entity.
These as claimed, it can be also effectively used. They allow the students to look beyond the
obvious. If something strikes, if you are able to put it in a form of a mind map, yes you can
explore that, you can think beyond what has been presented to you by the teacher.
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Now, this is one sample that is available on the Internet. If you look at that, this is related to
emotional intelligence. We do not get much chance or going to look at the emotional
intelligence that is it belongs to the affective domain. Emotional intelligence here for
example, we are looking at how do I respond to others’ emotions, and how do I manage my
own emotions, what are the benefits of emotional intelligence, and what is emotional
intelligence at all. What is EI and tools to develop EI?
See, first level, you are trying to say what is EI; why am I concerned with benefits of EI? And
then how do I develop my emotional intelligence? Once I develop, how do I manage my
emotions and how do I understand others emotions? You keep thinking about it, you keep
discussing about it and keep on building the various tracks of this. This is one powerful way
of identifying all the issues related to emotional intelligence.
So, mind map is a powerful tool to kind of identify all the issues related to either one concept
or an issue.
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The other one is concept map, also another graphic tool. The concept map as we have already
dealt with it in the course design part of this course, is a diagram that depicts suggested
relationship between concepts and it is more structured than the mind map. These concept
maps can be drawn at several levels, at course level, course outcome level, or even a
competency level. It can also be used by the teacher to facilitate students to make links with
what students already understood.
I can draw the concept map in such a way, I bring some concepts from the earlier lessons or
earlier course outcomes and whatever I have learnt there, in what way the present one is
linked to that I can show that linkage in a concept map.
Students also, like mind map, can use it as a way of note taking. This is due to Novak and it is
an open source tool as we have mentioned, it can be used to really draw your own concept
maps if you like this. I personally like this tool very much. It can depict all aspects of a
course from a conceptual concept perspective.
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Another instructional unit is note-making and summarization. This is a process by which

students discover the big picture, the main points from their learning. Let us say instead of
copying what the teacher is writing on the board, you can write your own summary; not while
the teacher is teaching, teacher can ask them to draw a mind map of what they have
understood; or create your own graphic representation at the end of a presentation rather than
while the teacher is teaching.
Or you can ask the students to make their own notes in a small way than copied notes or
books. Like you listen, when you have your memory is fresh from what we have learnt, can
you write a few sentences about what we have learnt, that is what we call note-making. Note-
making or summarization, if you recall, is one of the sub-processes of Understand cognitive
activity as per Bloom.
So if you are able to effectively make notes on your own without copying what is already
given on the board, then you are moving towards understanding. So it is also a fairly
powerful tool to improve your understanding of the subject.
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What are the types? 2 minute paper is an example of summarization. The teacher gives just 2
minutes to students to write something, whatever they have understood, not more than that.
Teacher can also design templates for his proposed activities for note-making and
summarization - give a template and ask them to fill it up. So you are structuring, you are
kind of forcing certain method of doing it.
Visualized note-making is a strategy that encourages students to associate language with

visual imagery. That is, you give a template, half finished template, and then start writing the
text inside the template. For all this, you have plenty of ICT tools, if you can use them and
teacher can explore whatever ICT tools that are appropriate for his subject and as per his
preference, then you can make students' engagement with the knowledge a lot more effective.
Tools make the engaging activity more efficient.
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Then there is another important one, which will be explored more later, it is called activation
principle. The learning needs to start from what the learners already know. So the starting
point for teaching anything is to start from what the students already know and build on that.
Learning needs to build on existing mental models of the world. But what happens, existing
mental models of the students are not the same for all.
So the teacher will have to slightly elaborate on this that means you have to start at multiple
starting points and hopefully, a few of them will kind of subsume mental models of all your
students by activating this prior knowledge. Activating this prior knowledge is you have to
really make the student, make connections to the new information. How do you do this?
Simple information oriented pretest of the material to be taught does not constitute activation
of prior experience. So, you have to bring your prior experience, debate about it and then see
that you are building from what you have already understood.
So, simple quiz kind of thing may or may not help this particular activation principle. Now,
activation principle as per Merrill, which will be, will be explored in the following units,
states that learning is promoted, well, learners activate a mental model of their prior
knowledge and skill as a foundation for new skills. So, they have to be able to activate their
mental model. That is if it is dormant and they have done something either several weeks ago
or maybe several courses ago, you have to somehow bring it into the active state from which
you are building the links to the new knowledge.
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When left on their own, sometimes the students may activate inappropriate mental model. He
may be bringing something wrong and try to build on top of that. building on an
inappropriate mental model will also lead to misconceptions and show up as errors when
learners attempt to solve a new problem. So there is a possibility that the students do activate
an inappropriate model.
directing learners to recall past relevant experience and checking this recollection for
relevance to the problems under consideration, are more likely to activate appropriate mental
model. So the teacher not only has to make sure that the students do activate their prior
mental model, but they also make sure that they are activating an appropriate mental model.
You have to ensure that, that is what activation is all about.
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some of the strategies for activation; reflection and recording, brainstorming, small group
discussions, concept map. All these 4 you can call them as instructional components. So one
instructional component can be part of another instructional component.
We have seen a few of them, not all the instructional components. There is plenty of literature
on the Internet. We encourage you to kind of explore these instructional components and
make or select your own, where you feel comfortable and that to with respect to the subjects
that you are teaching and with respect to the students you have. If you can internalize and
incorporate these instructional components into your teaching, you are facilitating your
students to learn better.
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As an exercise, we request you to present how you propose to use one of the instructional
components (which we have presented) in an instructional unit of your course taking the
situational factors into consideration, your own situational factors, not hypothetical.
In the next unit, we attempt to understand the principles of learning, including Merrill's five
first principles of learning and Gagne's nine events of Instruction. Thank you very much.
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Lecture 40 - Principles of Instruction Design
Greetings, welcome to Module 2, Unit 19 on Principles of Instruction Design. Evidently,

instruction has to take into account the principles of learning also, thus this unit would
discuss principles of learning as well.
In the earlier unit, we understood how to use a variety of instructional components in

classroom. The outcomes for this unit would be, understand principles of instruction design
including Merrill’s five first principles of learning and Gagne’s nine events of instruction.
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Instruction design is concerned with the organisation of appropriate pedagogical scenarios to

achieve the intended instructional goals. These goals would be, to ensure that the students
attain and demonstrate the planned course outcomes as well as competencies.
The instruction design provides guidelines which can provide the basis for developing
approaches to teaching. Evidently, instruction has to take into account the learning by the
students, so instruction design is based on learning theories also. How people learn comes
into the picture of instruction design.
The models provide guidelines and what should happen during instruction, the activities of
learners and teachers. There are many theories of instruction design; we discuss only
Merrill’s five first principles of learning and Gagne’s nine events of instruction. There are
many other models for instruction design, there are many models which provide micro level
details of how a classroom should be organised.
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Merrill’s vision was to distill a set of interrelated descriptive principles for interaction design.
These principles are prescriptive to the extent that an instruction design implements these
principles - the instruction design will be of higher quality. Such principles are to be
independent of any specific instruction model or instruction method, any model or method of
instruction can incorporate these principles.
Principles are not in and of themselves a model or method of instruction. A model which is
the choice of instructor can incorporate these principles in order to become a model of good
quality. These principles can be implemented by different models and methods. Merrill
identified five such principles after exhaustively analysing a large number of models
proposed in the literature and trying to figure out the principles which are common to all
these models which have been really implemented in practice and found to be effective.
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There are five such principles; they are Task Centred Principle, Activation Principle,
Demonstration Principle, Application Principle, Integration Principle.
The task centred principle is a major theme around which rest of the principles are
interwoven. Learning is promoted when learners engage in a task centred instructional
strategy. The learning from a task centred instructional strategy is enhanced when the learners
undertake a simple to complex progression of whole tasks.
Now, the task centred principle is different from topic centred instructional strategies. Topic
centred instruction strategies typically teach all relevant component skills required to solve a
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problem before actually get in to solve the problem. The required skills are covered first, and
the actual solution of the problem happens later. Task centred instructional strategies start
with a hole task upfront, the task presented to the students initially itself is a whole task. A
minimal task centred instruction strategy is a single task.
But Merrill suggest that, the instruction can be more effective if the students are made to go
through a series of tasks - tasks ranging from simple difficulty levels to progressively higher
difficulty levels. So, learners undertake a simple to complex progression of whole tasks,
however in a given situation, instructor may have to do with a single task also, but even then
the task should be a whole task.
The second principle is activation principle: direct learners to recall describe or demonstrate
relevant cognitive structures learnt earlier ensuring that appropriate mental model is invoked.
This activity promotes learning according to the activation principle. That means the students
are made to recall the relevant cognitive structures learnt earlier.
Learning from activation is enhanced when learners share previous knowledge and
experience with one another. Such a sharing provides vicarious experience to the peers and
stimulates similar recollections in them. Some students may be able to recollect the earlier
knowledge, the earlier problem solving skills, the earlier mental models more vividly, and
this in turn may promote similar recall from the other students also. Learning from activation
is enhanced when learners share previous knowledge.
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Recalling or acquiring a structure for organising the new knowledge helps the learners during
demonstration, application and reflection phases of instruction. Thus it is required to ensure
that students recollect the prior knowledge and they invoke an appropriate mental model
ready to receive the new knowledge.
Learning is promoted when learners observe a demonstration of the skills to be learnt, that is
consistent with the type of content being taught. So teacher must demonstrate the skills which
the students have to acquire. Learning from demonstration is enhanced by peer discussion
and peer demonstration.
Once the teacher demonstrates the skills, the students must discuss among themselves 'what
is involved in the new knowledge that they have to gain. If they can demonstrate to each
other the newly acquired skills, their learning will get promoted. Learning is also enhanced
when learners are guided to relate an organizing structure to specific instances. If they can
place the newly acquired knowledge in a framework in an organizing structure, then their
learning would be enhanced.
Learning from demonstration is also enhanced when learners observe through media that is
relevant to the content, depending upon what is the content that is being demonstrated, the
teacher must use appropriate media. They can be texts or graphics or animations or
simulations whatever suits best the content must be used by the teacher. Learner guidance is
quite useful in making learner focus on critical elements of the demonstration. While the
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teacher is demonstrating the content, it would be better if the teacher can guide the learners to
focus on the critical elements of the demonstration, this will promote learning.
Merrill distinguishes between ‘information’ and ‘portrayal’ during demonstration, there is an

information and portrayal phase during demonstration. Information is presentation of general
principles and learners must be able to recall it, so information is about general principles.
Portrayal is demonstration of general principles with specific cases and learners must be able
to apply the principles to any given case.
Teacher demonstrates the applications of general principles with specific case. Students must
be able to apply these principles to any given case. Depending on the nature of the content,
instructor must provide appropriate guidance to learners during information and portrayal.
Demonstrations must obviously use appropriate media as I mentioned, it could be text or
graphics or simulations etc.
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Then we have the application principle: Learning is promoted when learners engage in
application of their newly acquired knowledge that is consistent with the type of content
being taught. Learning from an application is enhanced when learners receive corrective
feedback.
After demonstration, when learners are trying to apply the newly acquired knowledge to
specific cases, teacher must evaluate the response of the students and provide them corrective
to feedback. It has been proved in many empirical studies that such corrective feedback is
extremely important in enhancing the quality of learning by the students. So learning from an
application is enhanced when learners receive corrective feedback.
It is also important that the teacher must use their feedback in a positive and constructive way
to help the learners, there should not be any ridicule or there should not be any sense of
inferiority induced in the minds of the students. Their feedback must be provided in a
positive, constructive way to help the learners improve their skills in applying the newly
acquired knowledge. So, learning from application is enhanced when learners receive
corrective feedback. The delay between the application by the students and providing of the
feedback by the teachers should be as minimum as possible for the feedback to be more
effective.
Learning from an application is enhanced by peer collaboration also. When learners

collaborate together in their efforts to apply the newly acquired knowledge their learning
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improves. Peer collaboration helps create a social environment which promotes learning by
the students. So learning from an application is enhanced when the students collaborate
together.
Learning is also enhanced when learners are coached and when this coaching is gradually
withdrawn for each subsequent task. With the initial tasks the teacher may provide
considerable amount of guidance to the students but as the learners progress through a series
of tasks, teachers must gradually withdraw their coaching.
Students must be able to apply the knowledge more or less independently as they move
through a progression of whole tasks. So learning is enhanced when learners coached and
when this coaching is gradually withdrawn for each subsequent task.
Integration principle: learning is promoted when learners integrate their newly acquired
knowledge into their internal cognitive structures by being directed to reflect on it. Having
gone through demonstration and application, the students must be able to integrate the new
knowledge into the structures which they already possess, thus the new structure would be
the integration of the new knowledge with the earlier knowledge and teacher can help the
students in this process by directing them to reflect on it.
Reflection helps learners in retaining what is learnt. Learning from integration is enhanced
when learners publicly demonstrate their knowledge. When the learners demonstrate their
knowledge publicly, they would be forced to reflect on their newly acquired knowledge, they
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would be forced to articulate their new understanding and this would promote learning.
Learning is also enhanced by peer discussion and peer critique. Students can discuss among
themselves regarding the new knowledge acquired, it is also good if a student plays the role
of a teacher, and presents the material and the other students provide a critique of it - learner
plays the role of a teacher.
We all know that when one tries to teach any content, the understanding by the teacher
improves, thus if the students can be made to play the role of a teacher temporarily by asking
them to publicly demonstrate the new knowledge, then their learning would be enhanced.
Learning from integration is enhanced also when learners create, invent or explore personal
ways to use the new knowledge or skill.
This may be sometimes very difficult in the short run but if learners can create, invent
personal ways to use the new knowledge, then their learning would be much better. But often
this would require longer duration and that may not be possible in most of the instructional
models. However, if the students can be helped to engage in this activity of creating or
inventing or exploring personal ways to use their newly acquired knowledge or skill, then
certainly it would enhance their learning.
Thus, we see that there is a four phase cycle of learning. The four phases are - activation,
demonstration, application and integration and these four phases are centred around the task.
The centred principle is the key ingredient, it is the glue which links all these four activities.
We start with the activation phase that is followed by the demonstration phase and then we
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have the application phase and that is followed by the integration phase. All these four phases
occur in the context of a whole task or a series of whole tasks.
If you look at the role of the teacher, during the activation phase, the teacher help the students
recall an earlier structure, an earlier cognitive model. Thus the role is here to ensure that the
students recollect an appropriate model suitable for acquiring the new knowledge - the model
is of the earlier knowledge. So the first phase is concerned with structure.
During the demonstration phase, the teacher provides guidance to the students. Teacher
demonstrates the new knowledge and the skills and guides the students in focusing on critical
aspects of the new knowledge and in helping them understand the new knowledge in the light
of the model of the earlier knowledge that they already have invoked.
During the application phase, the student is trying to apply their newly acquired knowledge
or skills on specific cases and teacher plays the role of a coach. Teacher guides the students in
their efforts to apply the new knowledge and as students work through a series of whole
tasks, progressively from lower difficulty to higher difficulty and higher complexity, the
teacher withdraws the coaching. Initially, teacher may provide extensive coaching but as the
students progress through the tasks, the coaching is gradually withdrawn. So, during the
application phase teacher plays the role of a coach.
Then finally, during the reflection phase the students are helped to integrate their newly
acquired knowledge with the knowledge that they already possess. This phase is essentially a
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consolidation phase and this helps the students to retain their knowledge for longer periods. It
is essential that this reflection phase is not ignored. What kind of instructional components
can be used to help the students during this reflection phase will be discussed in the next unit.
Merrill considers that the levels of instructional strategy can become higher quality levels as
they incorporate more and more of these five principles. As more of the first principles of
learning that implemented in the instruction strategy, the instruction strategy will reach
higher levels. Merrill observed that ‘information only’ instruction with, ‘remember what I
told you questions’ tag onto the end is a very low level instructional strategy.
Merrill has observed that any such strategy which is information only does not lead to good
quality learning by the students. A given model may or may not incorporate all the five
principles of Merrill but as the instruction incorporates more and more of these principles, the
instruction tends to be of higher quality.
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Now let us look at the Gagne’s model of nine events of instruction. Gagne’s model is a
behaviourist model. But it also draws from cognitivism. Gagne makes conditions of learning
as the focus of his model; he distinguishes between internal and external conditions of
learning.
Internal conditions deal with previously learned capabilities of the learner, in other words
what the learner knows prior to the instruction. Gagne calls this as internal conditions of
learning. The external conditions - stimuli a purely behaviouristic term that is presented
externally to the learner; the instruction provided to the learner. Gagne calls this as external
condition.
Conditions of learning get reflected in the model of instruction. According to Gagne, there
are nine events of instruction that need to be planned based on the intended learning
outcomes.
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The first event of instruction according to Gagne is gain attention. Before learning can
commence, students must pay attention to what is being taught in the classroom. So it is
important to gain the attention of the students before the actual instruction commences. How
does one gain the attention of the students?
There can be several instructional components that are possible. Anecdotes to motivate the
students; presenting a good problem to which students can get connected easily; sometimes
teacher can ask questions, which stimulate the students into thinking about the nature of the
new content that is to be presented. There can be several techniques to gain the attention. But
without gaining the attention of the students, if one proceeds with instruction it is likely that
the learners really will not be able to observe the new content that is being presented.
The second event is to clearly describe the goal - what the students are expected to be able to
demonstrate at the end of the instruction. This is what we have been calling as an outcome
statement, course outcome or competency when the course outcome is expanded into several
competencies. Describe the goal, state what students will be able to do at the end of the
instructional unit.
The third event is stimulate recall of prior knowledge. Remind the students of prior
knowledge relevant to the current lesson; the prior knowledge could include facts, rules,
procedures or skills. Show how knowledge is connected, in other words show that the prior
knowledge is linked to the new knowledge that they are going to gain. So teacher must
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provide the student with a framework that helps learning. One can easily see that this also
relates to the Merrill’s principle of activation. Many of the good instructional models do
share several features like this. So the third event is stimulate recall of prior knowledge.
The fourth event is present the material to be learnt, the actual new content is presented now.
It could be in form of text or figures or graphics or simulations and so on. Present the new
information in small units of instruction. We have already seen in the earlier unit on how
brains learn that if a single capsule of a large time of about 50 minutes say is presented then it
is likely that there will be an overload on the memory structures of the brain. Thus, present
the new information in small units of instruction, typically 15 to 20 minutes; this will avoid
the memory overload.
The fifth event is, provide guidance for learning. Presentation of the new content is different
from instructions on how to learn. Not only the teacher must present the new content but the
teacher must help the student in learning the new content. So teacher must provide guidance
for learning. For example, one could use side boxes which show what are the essential points
of the new information being presented and how to learn them, how to integrate them with
their prior knowledge and so on.
Elicit performance practice: let the learner apply the newly acquired knowledge. If time does
not permit the teacher to allow the students to practice extensively, at least she can use
multiple choice questions and students would be forced to perform some practice at least. So
at the minimum level use multiple choice questions, but if time permits teacher can allow the
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students to practice in the application of the newly acquired knowledge. This is very essential
for the students to learn well.
The seventh event is provide informative feedback. We already so while discussing Merrill’s
principles that providing feedback on the learner performance is found to be the most
important event that helps in the quality learning by the students. When learners practice or
learners perform, if they receive positive feedback, constructive feedback, feedback that helps
them to improve their learning, then it will be extremely valuable.
So provide informative feedback is the seventh event of instruction according to Gagne.

Analyse the learners practice performance and provide feedback. If required and if possible
teacher can present a good solution to the problem also. Teacher can present an ideal solution
and students would be able to compare their practice performance against the high quality
solution presented by the teacher. This is not absolutely necessary, it is an optional step if
teacher wishes to, she can present a good solution. But providing feedback to the students is
essential.
Eighth step is assess the performance: conduct some kind of summative assessment and
evaluate the students’ performance. Test the depth of the learning and if it is possible provide
a measure of the general progress of the students. Provide an indication of the extent to which
the students are able to understand the new knowledge.
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Then the last and final event is - help the students to retain their newly acquired knowledge
and help them in their ability to transfer this skill to a novel context. This can be done by
informing the learner about similar problem situations and by providing them additional
practice. This step is not that easy to implement in limited time.
However teacher must try to ensure that students are able to transfer their newly acquired
knowledge and skills to novel situations. Teacher must help the students in enhancing the
retention and transferring of their skills to new situations.
So the Merrill’s five principles of learning and Gagne’s nine events of instruction are two
typical instruction design models. As I mentioned, there are several other models but these
two models capture most of the generally useful principles. In the next unit, we will look into
some models of direct instruction which incorporate some or all of the features of Merrill as
well as Gagne.
An exercise for you, assess the extent to which your favourite instructional strategy
incorporates Merrill’s five first principles of learning. Another exercise would be to assess
the extent to which your favourite instructional strategy incorporates Gagne’s nine events of
instruction. The nine events of instruction may not be incorporated in the exact sequence in
which the presentation of these events has occurred, but if the instructional strategies that you
prefer, incorporates these events in any order, please let us know.
Thank you for sharing the results of the exercise at nate.iiscta@gmail.com.
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In the next unit, we will understand models of direct instruction which make use of the
Merrill’s first principles of learning and or Gagne’s nine events of instruction. Thank you and
we will meet in the next unit, thank you.
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NBA Accreditation and teaching- Learning in Engineering (NATE)
Indian Institute of Science, Bangaluru
Lecture 41
Direct Instruction – 1
Greetings, welcome to module three, unit one on Direct Instruction.
In the earlier unit, we understood the principles of instruction design including Merrill’s five
first principles of learning and Gagne’s nine events of instruction.
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The outcomes for this unit are: understand the principles of direct instruction; understand a
model of direct instruction that is based on Merrill’s five first principles of learning.
Direct instruction is face-to-face instruction in traditional classroom settings. Direct

instruction continues to be the most commonly used approach to instruction particularly in
formal programs. The content to be delivered in a formal program is generally quite vast.
Further, this vast content has to be delivered in fixed time. The instruction schedules are
fairly rigid. These are the characteristics of a typical formal program - vast content, rigid
schedules and fixed time in which the content is to be delivered.
Direct instruction is perceived by many to be the most efficient in terms of resource

utilization under the given constraints. Thus, direct instruction continues to be the most
common and popular approach used by most of the teachers.
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One common concern with direct instruction is as follows: Students admitted to an

engineering program are relatively homogeneous. They are relatively homogeneous in the
sense that they all have gone through similar kind of school programs; they all have
completed the plus two education with specialisation in maths, physics, chemistry kind of
subjects (at least they include these subjects) and they have gone through similar kind of
qualifying entrance examinations. To that extent, the students are homogeneous.
Still significant differences do exist in the cognitive abilities of the students in the level of
their entry level competencies and in their motivations. Direct instruction may not be very
convenient way of accommodating such differences. It may be very difficult to accommodate
these differences in direct instruction because direct instruction operates under very severe
constraints of time and other resources. We may need special approaches to address slow
learners as well as fast learners.
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Several models for direct instruction have been proposed in the literature. One general
attribute of these models is that the essential content is taught to students via an active
presentation by the teacher. Teacher makes the presentation of the essential content to the
students. Another common feature is that teacher is in control of the entire process of
instruction, though the teacher may take the preferences of the students into account.
Teacher is in control of the entire instructional activity. We present a model of direct

instruction that is based on Merrill’s first five principles in this unit and another model of
direct instruction called transactional model in the next unit.
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Recall that the five first principles of learning, as stated by Merrill are: Task-centred
principle, Activation Principle, Demonstration Principle, Application Principle and
Integration Principle.
A model of direct instruction based on Merrill’s five first principles of learning can be like
this: Instruction consists of a sequence of instruction units. An instruction unit is associated
with one specific course outcome or competency as the case may be. The instruction unit
implements all the five first principles of learning. The basic unit of this model is instruction
unit. One instruction unit is focused around one course outcome or one competency.
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This graphically deputes this model. The course outcome or competency plays the role of the
task. Around that the remaining four phases of the instruction are linked. The activation and
motivation phase followed by demonstration phase, followed by the application or
engagement phase, followed by the integration phase.
All the four phases of instruction occur in the context of one specific course outcome or
competency. Learning is focused around this CO or competency and the task or tasks
students are expected to solve reflect this. This feature implements Merrill’s task-centred
principle of learning. Here the tasks focus around the CO or competency with which the
instruction unit is concerned.
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The first phase of instruction proper commences with the attention and activation phase. This
phase implements the activation principle of Merrill but it also includes another learning
principle called attention. If you remember, attention was one of the instruction events in
Gagne’s model also.
Attention of students can be gained through motivational stories, examples, case studies and
simulations. Sometimes teacher can ask some questions which excites the students and that is
another mechanism for gaining the attention of the students. Allows students to understand
the relevance of the CO or the competency; allows students to see the significance of this CO
or competency for their professional career. So, this phase includes the attention activity.
This is followed by the activation principle of Merrill; students need to be able to link their
new learning to something they already know. It must build on something which they already
know. An appropriate mental model is required to be recalled. The prior learning and the
required mental model are activated. Teacher help the students recall the appropriate mental
model based on their prior learning.
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The instructional components which can be used for this phase of the instruction can be as
follows: The teacher can explain why students must be concerned with this particular course
outcome or competency. Teacher can explain the relevance of this competency for their
professional career. Teacher can narrate some motivational stories. Teacher can organise a
classroom discussion involving the particular CO or competency.
We can also conduct a quiz which makes the students recall their prior relevant knowledge.
We can have an advanced graphic organizer which shows the structure of the prior learned
content to the current competency. There can be several such components and in an earlier
unit we already have seen the wide variety of components which are available to a teacher.
Teacher can select appropriate components to implement this phase of attention and
activation.
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The next phase in this model is demonstration - this is the demonstration principle of Merrill.
Presentation of new information what Merrill calls as Information. One or more worked
examples of a problem based on the CO or the competency. This shows how the presented
information is applied to specific situations. This is what Merrill called as Portrayal. So, we
have both the information and portrayal as presented by Merrill. Presentation of new
information and working out of examples based on the new information.
Demonstration should be consistent with the nature of the CO. Learners should be guided to
relate the general information to specific instances. The students must be able to remember
the general information and also must have the competency to apply the general information
to specific cases.
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The instructional components that can be used for the demonstration phase are as follows:
Plain lecture in a classroom, it can be an interactive lecture. A multimedia presentation is
possible. Simulations can be used in the classroom. Example problems can be demonstrated.
Students can be taken on a field trip to understand the new knowledge or competency that
they are supposed to acquire and demonstrate. It can be an experimental demonstration. It can
be a graphic organiser. There are several other components which can be used during the
demonstration phase.
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The next phase is the Apply or Engage phase. This corresponds to the Apply principle of
Merrill. Learners should engage with or apply the newly acquired knowledge and
demonstrate skills to solve problems consistent with the competency. Learners should engage
with the new information skills with minimum time gap after the demonstration. The time
gap between the demonstration-application should be as small as possible. So, learners should
engage with the new information and skills with minimum time gap after the demonstration.
Learners should receive either intrinsic or corrective feedback to ensure correctness and
adequacy of their newly constructed mental model for solving the problem. As noted in the
earlier unit, providing corrective feedback is an extremely important activity to ensure good
learning by the students. So, during this phase, teacher must provide corrective feedback to
ensure the adequacy of their newly constructed mental model.
Coaching can improve learning, teacher can provide hints; teacher can provide some
assistance while the students are applying or engaging with the new knowledge. Coaching
should be gradually withdrawn. During the initial stages, when the students are using their
newly acquired knowledge to solve a problem, teacher can provide construable assistance.
But as students progress with the tasks in a sequence, teacher should gradually withdraw the
coaching. Ultimately the students must be able to solve the problems all by themselves.
The instructional components can be: Note making, summarization, individual problem
solving, group problem solving, report writing, making presentations, engaging in group
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discussions or practicing at home. A variety of instructional components are possible during
this phase of Apply or Engage.
Then we have the phase of integration which is essentially the Integration principle of
Merrill. Learners should reflect on their newly acquired knowledge. Learners can discuss
with peers about their newly acquired knowledge. Learners must be able to relate the newly
acquired knowledge to their prior knowledge and integrate the new knowledge into their
existing mental model. So, their mental model gets enriched with the integration of the newly
acquired knowledge.
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The instructional components can be again: Discussions in the classroom, there can be group
discussions, teacher can conduct a quiz and students can try to summarise the entire leaning
experience from the instruction unit.
The structure of an instruction unit would be as shown here. Initially, we have a clear
statement of what the students are expected to do at the end of the instruction unit that is an
explicit statement of the course outcome or a competency. This is followed by a phase in
which these students’ attention is gained and their prior leaning is activated. The activation of
the prior learning that is relevant to the current competency is an extremely important step.
So, in this phase, Activation and Attention happens. Then we have a series of pairs of
activities. There is a demonstration by the teacher, followed by application by the students
and this sequence can be repeated as many times as required. That would depend on the
specific competency or the outcome of this particular instruction unit. At the minimum, there
will be one single demonstration by the teacher, followed by one single session of practice by
the students.
But, if the competency requires that there be multiple cycles of demonstration followed by
application, teacher can implement them in the instruction unit. So, there would be
demonstration followed by application, repeated certain number of times. Then finally there
in an integration phase where the students integrate the newly acquired knowledge with their
prior mental model to develop an enriched mental model.
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As an example, one sample is presented here, it is the particular instruction unit twelve and
the course outcome with this specific competency is - design precision rectifiers and DC
voltage regulators. The planned number of classroom hours is 2 and there are no laboratory
hours planned for this particular instruction unit.
The relevant course outcome itself is - design circuits that perform analog linear signal
processing functions including amplification, summing, differentiation and integration and
non-linear signal processing functions including log and anti-log amplification, current
sensing, rectification, and DC voltage regulation using passive and active devices.
It looks like quite a heavy CO, so this is split into multiple competencies. So, the specific
competency with which this sample instruction unit is concerned is - design precision
rectifiers and DC voltage regulators.
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So, in the first classroom session, we first spend some time about 3 minutes explaining the
relevance of this competency to the profession of the students. Teaching activity can be to
make the students understand the importance of this competency for their professional career.
Precision rectifiers are necessary for low voltage AC to DC conversion; DC voltage
regulators are required in creating a stable DC voltage source for electronic circuits. The
mode of teaching can be to use PPTs.
This is followed by the activation phase, for which the allocated time is ten minutes. The
teaching activity would consist of presenting a macro-model of a diode, characteristics of Op
Amps, zenor diodes and current boosters. The mode of teaching would be a PPT and also a
quiz administered at the appropriate time. The time allocated is ten minutes.
Then the first pail of demonstrate application activities takes place. Demonstration is for
thirty minutes and application is for fifteen minutes. The teacher explains the behaviour of
half-wave and full-wave rectifiers and precision rectifiers, and simulates their behaviour. This
is based on a simulation model as well as a board.
Then, immediately after this demonstration by the teacher students Engage with the newly
acquired knowledge, they Apply this knowledge to a specific case study. So, the time
allocated is fifteen minutes, students have to work with a precision half-wave circuit and
demonstrate its precision over the input voltage range of ten millivolts to five volts. This can
be through a simulation study.
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This is followed by another cycle of demonstrate and application. So, in this particular
instance, the teacher has decided to use two cycles of demonstrate and applicate. So, two
cycles of demonstration followed by application.
The second demonstration is for thirty-five minutes and here the characteristics and
parameters of voltage regulators are explained. Their operation and design of linear voltage
regulator and the low drop-out regulator is also explained. This is through traditional black
board.
Then the second application phase commences, the time allocated is fifteen minutes and the
students are expected to design a linear voltage regulator. This is followed by their final
integration phase of the model. This is executed for about ten minutes and the mode of
teaching is primarily classroom discussion. Discuss the role of feedback around an Op Amp
in achieving two important signal processing applications including precision rectification
and voltage regulation.
It is during this phase, that the students are expected to integrate their newly acquired
knowledge into their earlier mental model. This is a sample design of an instruction unit.
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An exercise: Develop an instruction unit using all the five first principles of learning of
Merrill for a chosen course outcome or competency from the course you taught or are
familiar with. Please ensure that your instruction unit implements all the five first principles
of learning. Thank you for sharing the results of the exercise at nate.iiscta@gmail.com.
In the next unit we will understand another model of direct instruction called transactional
model. Until then, we wait. Thank you.
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Indian Institute of Science, Bangaluru
Lecture 42
Direct Instruction – 2
Greetings, welcome to module three, unit two on Direct Instruction 2.
In the earlier unit, we understood the principles of direct instructions and a model of direct
instruction that was based on Merrill’s five first principles of learning.
In this unit we will understand the transactional model of direct instruction.
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This block diagram outlines the key features of the transaction model of direct instruction.
There are 4 basic phases to the transaction model, Presentation Phase, Practice Phase,
Assessment and Evaluation and there is a Phase Monitoring and Feedback which occurs
throughout the instruction. That’s how, the arrows from the phase D are to all the three other
phases.
Phase A is Presentation, this phase consists of five instructional activities; review, What,
Why, Explanation, Probe and Respond. In the other phases there are similar instructional
activities. At the outset it may look like the time available to address a given CO is
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inadequate to cover so many instructional activities. But we will see that many of these
instructional activities do not consume excessive amount of time.
It would be a good practice to cover all these activities because they promote good learning.
And depending upon the available time, instructor can allocate suitably the time to different
instructional activities, but it would be good to address all these issues. So, in the presentation
phase we have five activities, review, What, Why, Explanation and Probe and Respond.
From the cognitive psychology perspective, it is very important to link new information to
the existing cognitive structures. We saw the importance of this aspect in the earlier unit also.
Students must be able to link the new knowledge with their prior knowledge with their prior
model of understanding. The first three methods of presentation namely review, what and
why provide a rich structure within which instruction will take place.
The transactional model lists these three instructional activities in one specific order that is
review, what and why. However, instructor can change this order if seen fit. For example, in
a specific context, instructor may first touch upon the ‘what’ and then move on to the
‘review’ and then ‘why’. What is important is that all these three activities are completed
before the explanation of new information is started. Review, what and why must be
completed before new information is started.
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The first activity is review. Activate the prior knowledge that is relevant or prerequisite to the
new learning that is to take place. Teacher and students can together review, discuss such
material. Teacher could create an activity that requires students to utilise the relevant
prerequisite competencies that have been previously learned. It is very important for the
students to link the new knowledge with the existing knowledge.
Students must be able to form the links between prior competencies and the new competency.
Instructor can sometimes conduct a small quiz and use that quiz as a vehicle to create a
situation in which students would be able to recollect the earlier knowledge, the earlier
models with which the new information can be linked.
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What: This activity is to essentially make it clear upfront to the students as to what is it that
they are expected to be able to do at the end of the instruction unit. We have been calling this
as the Course Outcome or when the Course Outcome is expanded further into a set of
competencies, we are calling this as a competency. So, a clear statement of a Course
Outcome or competency is always helpful.
It is a good practice to state upfront the assessment instruments that will be used by the
instruction in relation to this CO and/or competency. This makes the CO or competency more
clear to the students. Students would be clear as to how they would be assessed. This would
make it clear to them what is it they are expected to do at the end of the instructional unit.
Thus, it is a good practice to state upfront the assessment also.
Further, an outline of the lesson schedule of this instructional unit also would be desirable.
Students would have an approximate idea of the number of lessons that constitute this
particular instructional unit and the sequence in which this material is going to be presented.
But essentially the ‘what’ activity is to make the students clear about the CO or the
competency that is concerned with this particular unit.
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The third activity is why. Instructor must satisfactorily answer the students’ question, why
should I be engaged in this learning process. What is the relevance of this particular
competency to my professional carrier? How is it related to what I am going to do in the near
future? How is it linked to the competencies that I am to acquire in the subsequent semesters?
Essentially the teacher must answer this natural curiosity of the student as to why the student
should be engaged in this particular learning process. Teachers can use anecdotes,
discussions, case studies, competencies required in related courses and so on to make quote
“see” unquote, the importance of the stated CO/competency to his/her professional life.
Essentially, this also serves the purpose of gaining the attention of the students.
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Then, the actual Explanation of the new material commences. Begin the instruction of the
new material. Instruction must facilitate students to acquire and demonstrate the stated
CO/competency. We have touched upon this point, several times in the earlier units also.
Instruction must facilitate to acquire and demonstrate the stated competency. Instructional
components must be chosen appropriately. In an earlier unit, we discussed the variety of
instructional components which are available to the teacher and teacher can choose from
these components based on the content that is to be delivered.
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The next activity is Probe and Respond. During instruction, teacher must probe the students
regarding their learning of the new material being presented. The probing consists of quick
and short formative assessments. They can be in the form of very small quizzes conducted
frequently or they could be in the form of structured questions to be answered by all the
students or they could be very small diagnostic problems to be solved by the students.
These are essentially quick and short formative assessment instruments. This data would be
helpful in improving the instruction as we shall see while discussing the phase C on
assessment and evaluation. While posing the questions to the students and assessing the
extent of their understanding, care must be given to the pause times or wait times. Plan these
wait times carefully.
These wait times occur between the probe and the response; between the response and further
teacher’s response. If teacher asks a question, what is the time that the teacher should allow
for the students to respond? If it is too short, students may start feeling somewhat agitated
that they are not getting enough time to respond to the queries.
If it is too long, it may impinge on the instruction schedule. So, teacher must plan this pause
carefully. Similarly, once the students respond to the queries, there must be reasonable pause
before the teacher further responds to the responses of the students. So, plan these wait times
carefully, they cannot be too short nor they can be too long.
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Then we get to phase B, which is Practice. It is widely established that providing learners
with a very large number of opportunities to practice the competencies being acquired is a
crucial element of quality learning. Students must be able to apply the newly acquired
knowledge or students must be able to engage with the newly acquired knowledge and/or
skill in order to ensure quality learning by them. The practice phase of this model has three
activities, Guided Practice, Independent Practice, Periodic Review.
In the Guided Practice, students practice the application of newly acquired knowledge and
skills under the direct supervision of the teacher. Students could work independently or in
groups. And teacher closely monitors/supervises what the students are doing.
The most important aspect of this activity is that the teacher must monitor the students’
activity and provide feedback immediately to help the students in their practice. The value of
providing such an early feedback to the students is well recognised today. And many people
consider that such an immediate feedback is the most important element that ensures good
learning by the students.
To have this guided practice frequently in the classroom may be difficult because of the time
pressures. It is possible less often in the regular classroom sessions. However, it can be more
extensive in tutorial sessions. If the course plan does not have enough tutorial sessions then
probably, teachers have to device alternative means of providing the practice to the students.
This is particularly an activity that consumes fair amount of students’ time as well as
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teachers’ time. So, the schedule of the instruction must take into account, the requirements of
guided practice and teacher must plan these activities carefully upfront.
Independent practice: students independently practice the application of newly acquired

knowledge and skills. In the initial stage, students practice the newly acquired skill under the
direct supervision of the teacher; gradually the supervision is withdrawn and students must be
able to practice independently the application of the newly acquired knowledge and skills.
This can again occur in the classroom but consumes fair amount of time, so most often this
happens outside the classroom. Take-home assignments are generally used for this purpose.
But when take-home assignments are used or when the practice occurs outside the classroom,
there is one extremely important requirement for this activity to be useful. Students must
complete the work and their work must be evaluated by the teacher and teacher must provide
feedback to the students.
If, all these three activities do not happen then the independent practice would not be
contributing much to the learning of the students. So, it is essential, that students realise the
importance of the independent practice, they complete the assigned work and it is equally
important that the work is evaluated by the teacher and that is followed by the feedback that
the teacher provides to the students.
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Periodic review: this activity can be incorporated into teacher probes, guided practice and the
independent practice. The key feature of this activity is that, student practice on tasks, that
require them to use recently acquired knowledge, and skills, as well as those acquired earlier.
So, important aspect of this periodic review is that, students work not only on the newly
acquired knowledge but also on the knowledge acquired earlier.
Such a revisit to material learned earlier is known to promote learning significantly. Thus,
there is a phase during which students practice on the newly acquired knowledge together
with earlier acquired knowledge. Even when the material is in long-term memory, students
need practice retrieving that information and using it appropriately.
This component generally is missing in most of the instructional plans that are presently
being used in several institutes. But it has been established that the periodic review
contributes significantly to the learning of the students. It would be nice, if we could
incorporate this activity into the instruction plan.
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The Phase C is Assessment and Evaluation. It includes formative assessment and summative
assessment and evaluations. Formative assessment and evaluation - the primary purpose is to
gather data that can be evaluated to decide if any mid-course connections to instruction
and/or additional instructional sessions are required to improve the learning.
Teacher uses this kind of formative assessment to understand the extent to which learning is
occurring and based on that data may wish to modify the further instruction or teacher may
wish to add some additional instructional sessions to the plans already made. Data from
probing and responding, observations during practice and periodic review as discussed in
previous phase of presentation and practice can be used for this purpose.
Additionally and often data from specific formative assessments like quizzes administered
during the course are also used. In other words, teacher may explicitly administer certain
quizzes and the data from these quizzes can be used to determine if any modifications are
required to the way the instruction is happening. Any mid-course corrections to instructions
or any additional instructional sessions required can be decided based on such data.
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Summative Assessments and Evaluation: Data from summative assessment instruments

administered as part of continuous internal evaluation is used in the computation of the
attainment of COs as already discussed earlier. The most important point is that, all
assessment must be aligned to COs. This aspect also we have seen earlier that alignment must
exist among instruction, course outcomes and assessment if good learning is to occur.
The Phase D which is Monitoring and Feedback includes two instructional activities and
these activities should occur as often as required throughout instruction. These activities are:
Cues and Prompts and Corrective feedback and reinforcement.
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Cues and prompts. These are used when previous material is being reviewed, questions are
being asked by the instructor, or students are engaged in guided practice. In all such cases,
cues and prompts can be used. These are provided to students when they are almost there but
are unable to proceed further. They are very near to the complete solution of the problem on
which they are working but they are unable to complete the process.
A cue may help them to complete that activity. If repeated cues and prompts fail to get the
students complete the task then it is likely that the understanding of the students is
incomplete. In such cases further instruction may be required. If the understanding of the
students is reasonable, a small number of cues and prompts should help them to complete the
process of applying the new knowledge, if they are stuck somewhere close to the solution.
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The other activity is Corrective Feedback and Reinforcement: Instructor must provide
corrective feedback and reinforcement after every assessment of student learning - formative
as well as summative, during the instruction. Evidently, we cannot do this in the case of
semester end examination but teacher must do this activity of providing corrective feedback
and reinforcement after every other assessment. During the entire continuous internal
evaluation activity there are several assessment instruments which are administered - teacher
must provide corrective feedback and reinforcement after all these assessments.
The delay between the assessment and feedback must be as small as possible to make it really
effective. If an internal test is administered feedback regarding the performance of the
students in that test must be provided to the students as early as possible after the completion
of that test, similarly, with all other assessment instruments.
This is found to be generally correlated most strongly to student achievements compared to

other action of the instructor. Once an assessment instrument is administered, students’
responses are available; teacher must provide the corrective feedback at the earliest available
opportunity. This is considered as extremely important.
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Feedback must be provided to help students more, not only the right answer but also the
reason why a particular answer is right or wrong, as it could be. That means students must not
only know the correct answers but also must be able to understand correctly, the logic behind
the answer being correct. Feedback must obviously be provided in the spirit of helping the
students. Ridiculing the students, insulting the students or making the students feel
inadequate are totally inappropriate ways of providing the feedback. Students must see value
in the feedback provided by the teacher.
Reinforcement, a positive appreciation of academic achievement is also generally found to be

contributing to the quality of learning. If a student does provide a high-quality response, it
would certainly motivate her better, if teacher provides a positive appreciation of the
performance of the students. Of course, such an appreciation must be provided without
ridiculing low achievers.
It is very important while the appreciation of the bright students is happening; there is no
ridiculing of the low achievers. Such a positive appreciation is also found to be contributing
to quality learning. This phase is different from the previous phase - assessment and
evaluation in that monitoring and feedback occurs throughout instruction as and when
required! Assessment and evaluation on the other hand is more structured.
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The transactional model of direct instruction presented here has twelve instructional activities
spread over 4 phases. We discussed Merrill’s five principles of learning and Gagne’s nine
events of instruction in an earlier unit. Though the terminology and organization of
instructional activities in this transactional model of direct instruction is somewhat different
from those of Merrill and Gagne it is easy to see that there is a good correspondence among
them.
The transactional model incorporates, features from Merrill’s first principles of learning as
well as features from Gagne’s nine events of instruction. Thus, this is another instance of a
direct model which makes use of Merrill’s principles and Gagne’s events of instruction.
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This is a good reference to get more material on the transactional model of direct instruction,
William Huitt et al. Direct Approach to Instruction; this is in volume three, on Instructional
Design Theories and Models, edited by Reigeluth and his associates.
An exercise for you – Describe the instructional activities and their sequence that you used
when you taught a course based on direct instruction. Thank you for sharing the results of the
exercise at nate.iiscta@gmail.com.
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In the next unit, we will understand Project based approach to instruction. Thank you.
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Lecture- 43
Project-Based Approach To instruction
Welcome to module 3 unit 3 on Project-Based Approach to Instruction.
In the earlier unit we understood the models of direct instruction specifically, transactional model
of direct instruction.
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In this unit we will understand project-based approach to instruction.
In a general sense Engineering Education is going through some sort of a crisis these days; it is
under severe pressure. Expectations from all stakeholders are changing very rapidly. Industry,
Accreditation bodies, and society in general are demanding that engineering graduates must
demonstrate, at the end of the program, not just memorized technical knowledge, but higher-
order competencies.
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The expectations are becoming more and more stringent. Such expectations as captured in the
Program Outcomes (POs) specified by the NBA include aspects of professional practice like
communication, team-work, life-long-learning etcetera.
Even the technical competencies stated in the POs of NBA include aspects like “problem
formulation”, “solving complex engineering problems”, “research literature” etcetera. Most of
the formal engineering curricula available presently in India really do not address issues like
problem formulation or complex engineering problems.
Further, Metacognitive processing including self-monitoring, self-regulated learning is valued

highly in the current work places and students do not get opportunities to improve their abilities
in this direction. There is not much instruction that happens in normal engineering programs; that
promotes the Metacognitive processing abilities of students. Most of the problems faced in the
actual profession are fuzzy, open-ended, and complex.
Current demand from industry insist that students be trained in solving such realistic problems.
In contrast, the problems with which the students work in the engineering programs are highly
structured. The problem is specified very clearly and students practice on such structured fully
specified problems. They are not exposed to open-ended problems, fuzzily stated problems,
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incomplete problems. They demand from the industry is that students must be trained in solving
that problems which have more realistic flavor.
These concerns cannot be addressed by the traditional approaches to engineering education.

Increasingly, institutes are turning to other approaches including Project-based instruction,
Problem-based instruction, Experience-based instruction and so on to address the above-
mentioned challenges.
Institutes cannot remain mute to the challenges. They need to address these challenges; hence
they are exploring the alternative approaches to instruction. In this unit we will discuss project-
based instruction and in a later unit we will look at problem-based approach to instruction.
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Project-based approach is being used in several broad senses these days. The term has become
quite popular, but its usage does not seem to follow any one single consistent pattern. A project
in the final year of Engineering program, a common feature in most of the institutes, does not by
itself, constitute project-based approach to instruction. In other words, one single final year
project does not mean that, the institute is practicing project-based approach to instruction.
This project in the final year is typically called as the Capstone project in the US. But, in India
we are more accustomed to calling it as simply final year project. That is quite common in the
engineering curricula; but this does not comes to project-based approach to instruction. The
approach means that project work plays significant role throughout the program and results in
project-based learning.
The curriculum must provide several opportunities for the students to learn through the projects.
Some regular courses also can be offered in project mode. There must be several opportunities
for students to learn based on project work. Then we can say that the institute is practicing
project-based approach to instruction. Implementation details vary across institutes. But many
institutes are trying to implement project-based approach to instruction these days.
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Key features of project-based approach; there are six key features. Learning by doing, Real-
world problems, Realistic solution, Instructor as a guide and/or mentor, Interdisciplinary nature
of work, Collaboration and group work. There are other features of project-based approach, but
we can consider these six features as the key elements of a project-based approach.
The idea that “doing is central to learning” was advocated very strongly by the American
philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer John Dewey way back in early part of the
last century. It is quite an old idea. An approach to instruction must have this doing by the
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students. This was known for quite long time. Any approach to instruction does have doing by
instruction as an important component.
However, Project-based approach is different in that it accords a central role to quotes “learning
by doing” unquote and this scope of doing is quite substantial. Practice beyond the final year
project work and laboratory work is the focus of project-based approach. Thus this approach
incorporates project work throughout the program. The curriculum has many components which
require the students to work and learn through work.
The central position of praxis in the Project-based approach is linked to doing being centered on
real-world problems. The focus is on real-world problems. The real-world problems capture
students’ interest and attention. The problems are generally expected to be complex and open-
ended in order to permit a range of possible solutions and also to help students with the problem
formulation skills. When the problem is stated, in a natural language and in a fuzzy way; students
need to acquire the skills of formulating it as a proper engineering problem first.
Thus, the problem formulation skills are learnt by the students in this activity. Problems may be
specified by the instructor or the department with or without the scope for choice by the students.
Generally the preferred scenario is that students do get some choice in the project work selection.
However, the practical constituents may force sometimes the instructors to assign the ideas to be
worked on to the student teams.
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Department in collaboration with industry may select the problems. This can happen if there is a
good functional MOU with an industry. The department may collaborate with the industry in a
long-term fashion and it may be ready to pick-up some problems which are of interest to that
particular industry and these problems may be offered as project areas to the students.
Students may have a choice in selecting one problem from the given list or they may be assigned
a specific problem. In all these cases problems must be complex and open-ended. They cannot be
the typical, well structured and neatly formulated problems. They need to have this open-ended
nature in order to promote good learning by the students.
There is another issue with the selection of the real-world problems. Can we use simulated
problems or should the problems be real ones? In some context, students may be able to work on
real problems. However, the department may have certain difficulty in providing real problems
to the students. In such cases the department may provide simulated problems. Is this approach
okay?
Now it seems that in practice both seem to be working well. As long as problems are complex
and open-ended, whether they are simulated or real? Student seems to be learning substantially
from working on such problems.
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Another key feature of this approach is that the solution is expected to be a realistic solution.
Project-based approach attaches significant importance to the final solution resulting from the
project. It must be a product of good quality providing realistic solution to the original problem.
The product can be artifact, a software package, a professional-quality technical report or
anything else as decided upfront by the department.
Students also may have a say in the kind of final product that they wish to produce. In any case it
is important to produce a final product that is of professional quality and it must be assessed
appropriately by the department.
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Another key feature of project-based approach concerns the instructor. In the traditional format-
instructor is more like a sage-on-the-stage. Instructor provides the instruction as an expert. But in
the project-based approach to instruction a substantially student centric activity; the role of the
instructor changes; it is more like a guide or a mentor or a facilitator. There is a shift in the role
of the teacher from sage-on-the-stage to guide-on-the-side. Instructor must relinquish ‘control’
and facilitate student autonomy.
Students must be able to work more or less independently, make their own design decisions and
justify them. Instructor must be comfortable with students assuming responsibility for their own
learning. This requires a change in the mindset of both the teacher and the students. But, such a
change in the mindset is essential for the success of project-based approach to instruction. A
change in the mindset of both the teacher and the students is essential.
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Another key feature is Interdisciplinary nature of the work. In real-world practically all the
activities are interdisciplinary in nature. It is only in the academic world that most of the students
work in independent silos. Interdisciplinary projects are preferred in the project-based approach
because of this reason.
They must equip the students with the adaptability and holistic thinking that is necessary to
tackle issues which defy strict disciplinary boundaries. Almost all the real-world scenarios are
interdisciplinary in nature and the project must provide the opportunity for students to work in a
similar context. This is again a feature which is generally absent even in the final year projects as
they are implemented in the current scenario.
Most of the projects are confined to the domain of knowledge that is very specific to the
department concerned. Very rarely students get an opportunity to work on interdisciplinary
projects. But, for the project-based approach to instruction to succeed majority of the projects
must be interdisciplinary in nature. This feature ties-in neatly with the next key feature which is,
Collaboration and group work.
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Collaboration and group work is very essential for the students to acquire the kind of skills
required to succeed in real industrial scenario. Student teams engaged in a series of interaction
over extended time during the project work. And this leads them to acquire and demonstrate
transferable skills such as communication, planning, respect for different cultures and viewpoints
and team working.
Depending on the nature of the project, collaboration could be with industry, social groups
outside the institute as well; leading to development of further professional skills, behaviors and
networks. Sometimes the students may be able to work in a nearby community on problems that
are relevant to that community. Thus students get exposure to interactions with the real-world;
this would further enhance their professional skills.
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There are several advantages of project-based approach. It leads to improved academic

achievement. It leads to better motivation and joy of engineering. And students acquire and are
able to demonstrate a broad range of competencies. It is not merely an academic knowledge that
the students gain.; they are able to get a several professional skills which are very important for
success in today’s competitive industrial scenarios.
The claims made of the project-based approach include teamwork, communication, ethical
behavior, problem solving abilities, critical and innovative thinking, data collection and analysis,
project management, inter-personal skills, time management, self esteem; the list seems to be
endless. But, many of these benefits do occur when project-based approach to instruction is
implemented in its true spirit in an institute; and many of these competencies are directly related
to the POs specified by NBA.
Better outreach is also possible; better opportunities for quality work by faculty also exist.
Particularly, if there is a collaboration between the department and the industry and if the
students work on the projects related specifically to the problems of that industry, the faculty
guiding such projects do get an opportunity for better quality work. Thus, this approach is
beneficial for the faculty also.
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There are some issues related to the assessment of the project work. Assessment, both formative
and summative is a critical activity in any education system and this is particularly important and
complex in the case of project work. At the end of the project students typically submit a written
report, demonstrate the solution and make a presentation.
Addressing all the above outputs from the project team requires considerable planning by
instructors up front. Groups as well as individuals need to be assessed. The contribution by the
group must be evaluated and the student’s individual contribution in the group needs to be
evaluated separately.
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The process as well as the product needs to be assessed. The final solution presented by the
project team needs to be assessed. It is really, equally important to assess the adherence to the
process also. Thus process as well as product needs to be assessed. Appropriate rubrics need to
be developed and shared with students before the start of the project work.
Any, specific competency that we expect the students to acquire and demonstrate because of the
project work, becomes possible only if the rubrics have a reference to such specific skill or
acknowledge or ability.
Students may need to be trained in activities like maintaining reflective journals. They are not
generally exposed to the intricacies involved in maintaining the reflective journals. Such journals
help the students reflect on the knowledge, skills that they have acquired and integrate this
knowledge and skills with their prior mental models. Students may need training in this area.
Experiences across the institutes vary in this regard. No unique way of managing the assessment
of project work. Institutes need to evolve assessment methods best suited for them.
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There are several key implementation challenges, challenges for faculty, challenges for students
also in adapting project-based approach to instruction. While implementation of a final year
project is a well understood process for both students and faculty a wider focus on project-based
approach to instruction and learning is still not that familiar to many of instructors or students.
The final year project has been a regular feature of engineering curricula for a long period and
hence the institute, students as well as faculty are quite comfortable and the familiar with the
process. But when project-based approach to instruction is adopted the emphasis on the project
work increases significantly; and this may be a new scenario for the institutes, students as well as
faculty. Implementing project-based instruction on a significant scale has many challenges both
for faculty and students.
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What are the key challenges for students? The first key challenge is the ability to work in a
group; group work is the first challenge. This may not be too severe for final year students, but
significant for students in the earlier years. This would be a real challenge particularly for
students in first year.
The prior culture of the first year students is of a competitive nature. Students in their plus two
level studies are accustomed to a competitive attitude; while trying for admission into the limited
number of seats available in top ranking institutes. Thus when the students enter the engineering
institutes they come with a competitive mindset.
The appreciation of benefits of group work are not yet made accessible to the students. They are
not really familiar with the benefits of group work. It may be very difficult for them to switch
from a competitive mode of working to a cooperative mode of working.
In group work there is another problem and that is the problem free-riding by some group
members. In any group work it is quite likely that, some students really do not contribute in any
reasonable fashion to the total work; essentially they free-ride the work. How to ensure that all
the students contribute in a group is one of the key challenges of project-based approach. Lack of
experience in group work and handling conflicts also occurs quite frequently.
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Another difficulty is in adapting to project-based learning. Students are generally accustomed to

working under the direct guidance of teachers. They are, accustomed to receiving the wisdom
from the faculty. So, there is difficulty in adapting to the new approach of project-based
instruction, where students need to make many choices which have implications for their grades
and they themselves have to make these choices and they are generally reluctance to assume
responsibility for their learning
Coping with relatively unstructured learning environment early in their programs, may not be
very easy for many of the students. They also may have concerns regarding the evaluation. Many
of the students may also fear that the load would be overwhelming. They may prefer to have
regular courses where they can study and be confident of getting good grades in a manner with
which they are familiar.
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There are challenges for the faculty also. They are used to the role of being a knowledge provider
and perhaps they are also used to the role of being a mentor of final year students. But they may
have certain difficulties and certain challenges in accepting the same role for very young and
untrained students in the earlier years of engineering.
There may be difficulty in finding resources for heavy projects. Because the components
required for such a project may involve substantial expenditures. If there are too many such
projects in curriculum there may be difficulty for the institute to provide the necessary resources;
and obviously there is a heavy load on the faculty, so they may fear this overload.
And the faculty needs to ensure that the students focused on the process as well as the product.
This would require substantial amount of effort from the faculty side also. Managing student
conflicts and expectations also may impose additional burden on the faculty’s time and
capabilities. These are all the challenges that faculty face, when project-based approach to
instruction is adopted on a fairly, reasonably large scale in any engineering curriculum.
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While there is no unique solution to solve these problems, certain general implementation
guidelines have emerged over the recent years based on the experiences in several institutes. The
first key point is that substantial planning in advance is required if this approach is to succeed.
The domain from which the projects are to be given; the resources which are required in order to
successfully implement the projects, the scope to which the projects must be constraint; all these
issues must be planned upfront.
Early discussions with external agencies is required if the project is to be conducted with the
collaboration of external agencies. The external agencies could be industries or they could be
other organizations working in local communities. In all cases early discussions are required to
establish the framework and to make it systematic.
Careful examination, pilot study and testing of the principle ideas before offering them to the
students may also be required. If an untested idea is being tried and if this leads to a failure, then
the consequences for the students may not be that acceptable to the institute. Training the
students and providing scaffolding as necessary is also important.
Mentoring to facilitate collaboration also is extremely important. This is although more

important for the first year students. Fair and transparent assessment must be there to ensure that
students feel that the project work is really helpful for them. All these become more important as
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the project work share increases much beyond the final year project - in other words, when the
institutes adopt project-based approach to instruction.
You want to adopt project-based instruction? There are many choices at every step of the
process, right from forming student teams to the final step of summative evaluation. The choices
depend on many specific situational factors, contexts that are unique to your institute.
Choices need to be made at the level of the institute, at the level of the department and at the
level of individual instructors also. There are no unique solutions; choices need to evolve over a
period of time. You must take your specific, unique situational factors into account; while
developing solutions for all these problems.
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This is one good reference that you can use, Nichola Harmer, Plymouth University: Project-
based Learning – Literature Review. There are many other links available, but this is a Meta
pointer and this contains link to several other useful articles.
An exercise for you – Describe your experience in mentoring students in project work (final year
project or project work in earlier years). The description may include the challenges faced, the
solutions that worked, and the advantages. Please confine your written response to 300 words.
Thank you for sharing the results of exercise at nate.iiscta@gmail.com.
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In the next unit we will understand the problem-based approach to instruction. Another approach
that is being tried by several institutes to address the emerging challenges of engineering
education. Thank you.
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Lecture- 44
Problem-based Approach to Instruction
Greetings, welcome to module 3 unit 4 on Problem-based Approach to Instruction. In the earlier

unit we saw Project-based Approach to Instruction. The outcome for this unit is Problem-based
Approach to Instruction.
The term Problem-based Approach is being used in several broad senses these days. In the
previous unit we saw that the same problem existed with project-based approach to instruction
also. The term Project-based Approach is being used in several different senses. Similarly, the
term problem-based approach is also being used in several broad senses these days.
Sometimes the term is used interchangeably with terms like Inquiry-Based Approach, Activity
Based Approach, Experiential Approach and so on. Further, Problem-based Learning is the more
common term that you will find in the literature. We use problem-based instruction in the sense
that it is the approach to instruction that results in problem-based learning. It is generally
perceived that PBL values effectiveness over efficiency. Thus the focus of PBI is effectiveness.
We will see in later that in general terms PBI may not be very efficient. However, it is quite
effective and it is capable of addressing some POs, which are otherwise not addressed by regular
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courses. So, we look at what are the key features of problem-based approach to instruction. What
are its advantages? What are its limitations? And what can be implementation guidelines if the
department decides to introduce problem-based approach to instruction.
Historically, PBI was developed in the context of Medical Education. It was introduced way
back in 1969 at McMaster University, Canada. One good definition for problem-based approach
to instruction is as follows: A progressive active learning and learner-centered approach where
unstructured problems are used as the starting point and anchor for the learning process.
This definition is taken from the work of Tan entitled Problem-based Learning Innovation: Using
Problems to Power Learning in the twenty first Century. It is quite popular in medical education
and allied areas like nursing. But it is being used more and more in several other domains also.
For example, it is being used quite extensively in management education also. Some of the
engineering institutes also have started to implement problem-based approach to instruction.
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What are the key principles for problem-based approach? The first principle is - formulate and
provide authentic problems to learners. Problems must be compatible with the intended
outcomes, Course Outcomes and encourage cross-discipline thinking. The second principle is
that, teacher plays the role of a tutor supporting the development of learner’s metacognitive skills
and her problem solving abilities.
The third principle is that, assessments that validate the outcomes must be used. And the fourth
principle is that, thorough debriefing to consolidate the key concepts gained from the learning
experience. There are several other principles which characterize problem-based approach.
However, these four are the key principles which capture the spirit of problem-based approach.
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Authentic problems: The problems should reflect the cognitive demands that are consistent with
the environment for which the learners are being prepared. The problems that the students faced
during the problem-based approach to instruction; must be quite similar to the kind of problems
that they face when they become professionals. That is why these problems are called as
authentic problems.
They reflect the cognitive demands that are consistent with their professional demands. The
problems should be ill-structured. Being ill-structured is a characteristic of the problems that one
faces in the profession. Learners must able to deal with these kinds of problems; because these
are the kinds of problems that they will actually encounter in their profession. So, the problems
should be ill-structured. The problems should be complex enough to challenge the learners
individually and as a team. Problems must be contemporary and be able to excite the students.
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The domains as well as the problems in that domain are selected by the instructor in accordance
with the intended outcomes and are then assigned to students. However, instructor can state the
problem in a fuzzy fashion to allow the learners practice problem formulation skills also.
Instructor does select the domain, does select the problem and assign it to the student.
However, the problem need not be stated in a totally precise fashion. PBI is designed to support
higher order thinking and is not appropriate for teaching basic skills. It is assumed that the
learner has some basic knowledge which enables her to start the process. This basic knowledge
should be sufficient for the learner to engage with the problem.
If the learner does not have this basic knowledge; instructor may have to provide initial
instruction to help the student to capable of engaging with the problem. Instructor may also have
to provide some learning materials as well. Once the student reaches certain level of maturity she
will be able to engage a realistic problem as required in this approach.
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The instructor’s role is very crucial for the success of PBI. The role of the instructor is as a
facilitator of learning; it is not that of a provider of the content. The instructor acts more like a
mentor or facilitator or a tutor. It is to be noted that the tutor may not even be an expert in the
relevant domain. The tutor may not be all that familiar with the domain in which the students are
working. His role is not to act as an expert; his role is only as a facilitator. So, the role is not even
that of a coach, it is that of a facilitator.
But instructor must probe repeatedly to ensure that the learners do not stop their work too early.
The learning process does not terminate prematurely. Instructor must focus on the group process
to ensure that participation by all learners happens. For PBI to succeed, it is essential that every
participant in the group engages with the problem. Instructor must focus on this group process
also.
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All learners must be able to articulate their understanding of the problem, the problem-solving
process, the information gathered from research and its relevance to the task of problem solving
and the proposed solution. Instructor facilitates this process. The problem posed initially may or
may not remain unchanged during the learning process; both possibilities exist. Instructor must
closely monitor the progress of the group.
He must be able to sense when the problem is boring or frustrating the learners. If it is the case
that the problem is frustrating the learners, then instructor must modulate the problem
accordingly. If the group is progressing well, instructor may leave the problem unchanged, if
necessary instructor modulates the problem. For this it is essential that instructor monitors the
progress of the group vey closely.
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Assessment - both formative and summative is a critical activity in education system. We have
seen these aspects several times. This is particularly important and complex in the case of PBI.
Assessment must be aligned to the intended outcomes; that is Course Outcomes. Knowledge and
skill in the relevant domain must be assessed. Problem-solving skills also must be assessed.
Metacognitive thinking also needs to be assessed.
One of the key features of the PBI is that it promotes metacognitive thinking in the learners. So,
instructors must assess the metacognitive thinking abilities of the learners. So, knowledge and
skills in the relevant domain must be assessed, problem-solving skills must be assessed and
metacognitive thinking also must be assessed.
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Summative assessment of the final solution presented by the student teams must be assessed. But
it may be the case that the tutor is not a domain expert. Thus the assessment of the final solution
presented by the student teams may require the assistance of external experts; that is okay.
Whatever be the format specified by the department, the students have to submit the final
solution in that particular format.
And if the assessment requires the evaluation by external experts; the department must make
arrangements to invite such external experts. It is evident that we also need proper rubrics to
evaluate the students. The rubrics must be defined and shared with the students upfront. Some
activities like maintaining reflective journals are very important for the benefits of PBI to be
substantial. However, not all learners may be familiar with the concept of a reflective journal.
So, students may need to be trained in activities like maintaining reflective journals. Reflective
journals allow students to record their thought processes while they are engaged in solving the
authentic problem. Such a journal would help the students during the final phase of debriefing
also. Teachers may have to train students in the art of maintaining reflective journals.
Experience across the institutes varies; there is no unique way of performing the assessment.
Institutes need to evolve assessment methods best suited for them.
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Debriefing is considered as the most important phase of PBI. This should not be skipped; it is
essential for the benefits of the PBI to be realized. Debriefing helps learners recognize, verbalize
and consolidate what they have learned. It helps the learners integrate the new knowledge with
previous knowledge.
In an earlier unit while we were discussing the first principles of learning stated by Merrill, we
observed that reflection is a key aspect of deep learning. Debriefing in some sense is such a
reflection activity. It helps the learners integrate the new knowledge with the previous
knowledge. During the debriefing instructors must ask questions covering all aspects of learning
that happened during the implementation of the PBI.
For this it is better if the instructor prepares questions in advance. Instructor prepares questions
to be asked covering all the learning that has been discussed during the learning activity. We
already noted that instructor closely monitors the progress of the teams. So, instructor is familiar
with the discussions that happened during the problem solving phase. The discussions among the
group members; the questions that were raised by the group members and the answers provided
by the group members. Instructor can prepare a set of questions covering all these aspects.
Instructor must ensure that everyone answers them; this very important. We cannot have a single
student acting as the spokesperson of the group and answering all the questions. It is essential
that every student faces the questions and answers them.
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Encourage the learners to depict their learning after the integration, perhaps with a concept map.
This allows the students further in integrating their newly acquired knowledge with the previous
knowledge. Learners can be asked to prepare a concept map showing the integration of the new
knowledge with the previous knowledge.
If we look at the key features of PBI, we can immediately see that it is closely related to the PO2.
Key features of PBI make it a powerful approach for enabling the students to attain PO2. Recall
that PO2 deals with problem analysis. Students are supposed to be able to demonstrate their
ability to identify, formulate, research literature and analyze complex engineering problems
reaching substantiated conclusions using first principles of mathematics, natural sciences and
engineering sciences that is PO2.
We have seen that in PBI students try to formulate the problem as an engineering problem. They
also research literature, they analyze the problem to reach substantiated conclusions, they defend
their solutions. Thus the activities undertaken by the students during the process of the
implementation of PBI closely match the activities that support the attainment of PO2. Though
there are implementation difficulties with respect to PBI, it is worthwhile for institutes to try to
implement PBI; because of this close correspondence between PBI and PO2.
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We have looked at project-based approach to instruction in the previous unit. We also noted that
both project-based approach to instruction and problem-based approach to instruction try to
address many POs which cannot be addressed adequately by regular common engineering
courses.
How do they compare with each other? There can be several criteria based on which we can
compare problem-based approach with project-based approach. We look at some of the criteria
here.
PBI has its origin in medical education as we mentioned earlier and it continuous to be used
quite extensively in that and that related fields like nursing and other healthcare professions. Its
use in the engineering programs does not seem to be that extensive. We do have some case
studies reported in the literature regarding the implementation of the PBI approach in the
engineering institutes. However, these reports are quite small in number.
Engineering educators generally seem to prefer project-based approach to problem-based one.

Both approaches are experience oriented and share several features; yet, they are distinct
approaches.
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Let us look at how these two approaches fair with respect to the criteria of the project
management principles. Project management principles are considered important knowledge and
skills to be acquired and demonstrated by students in engineering education. Project-based
approach to instruction emphasizes this fact and considers that students must demonstrate project
management principles.
However, this is not a key feature of PBI. There is no concept of a project in problem-based
approach to instruction. Project-based approach as the very name implies focuses on the work of
the students as a project work. If you look at the process that is followed by these two
approaches; we see that PBI uses a cycle of asking questions, information gathering, refining the
solution, discussion and revisiting the problem and so on.
The students go through this cycle several times. They ask questions, they gather the
information, they refine the solution, they discuss the solution and revisit the problem if required.
This cycle is repeated as many times as required. The focus in project-based approach on the
other hand is completion of the project in a phased manner resulting in a product. So, there is
difference in the process that is adopted by PBI and the process adopted by project-based
approach to instruction.
PBI focuses on students acquiring knowledge to solve the problem. The focus of PBI is problem
solving ability. The focus of project-based approach to instruction is that learners are able to
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apply knowledge and skills to create an artifact. This artifact must satisfy the user needs as stated
upfront. So, the focus of project-based approach to instruction is that of creation of an artifact to
satisfy the requirement stated upfront.
There is a difference between these two approaches. In PBI any solution produced by the
students is acceptable, if the students are able to defend that solution; and if the process followed
by the students is an adequate one. However, in project-based approach the final product
developed by the students must satisfy the requirements stated upfront.
In other words, the end result expected from the students is different in these two approaches. In
project-based approach though different choices are indeed possible for the student teams in
building a solution; it must be validated by demonstrating that it satisfies the requirements
decided upfront. The requirements are given at the initial stage of the work. The final product
must be shown to satisfy those requirements.
Students must validate the solution produced by them. PBI insists only that the student teams
must solve the problem satisfactorily; no other requirements are stated upfront. There is a
significant difference between these two requirements. The focus of PBI is on problem solving
abilities only. They can be compared on several other criteria also.
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For example, we can compare these two approaches based on cost, resources required and so on.
But the criteria that we have compared so far are the most key features. Generally, project-based
approach seems to be more popular in engineering programs. However, given that problem-
based approach is capable of addressing PO2 quite effectively; it may be worthwhile for
departments to explore the implementation of PBI in their curricula.
Entire programs in medical profession have been designed using PBI in some institutes; however
such an approach is quite rare in engineering programs. PBI in engineering programs is often
limited to a small number of courses.
The implementation of PBI in engineering institute typically involves replacing the laboratory
component of an integrated course with a realistic set of problems. Large sets of problems which
can be used in PBI are not yet available in engineering domain. Institutes need to experiment and
decide on the extent to which they wish to incorporate PBI into their programs.
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There are some situational implementation issues with respect to PBI. Typically engineering
classes are large in size. PBI works best with only small groups of about 5 to 7 students. A
typical engineering class may have 60 to 70 students.
So, if the department wishes to implement the problem-based approach to instruction, it must
create small groups. That may mean creating many resources. One possible way of solving this
issue is to create small groups, but make all the groups work on the same problem. In such a case
the department has to provide multiple sets of resources; but this will certainly reduce the burden
on the instructor.
Another important guideline can be to let the teams stay together for multiple problems. This will
help them to in realize the benefits of collaborative work. Teams are not to be changed
frequently; the same teams continue to work on different problems. This will help them
appreciate the benefits of collaborative work. Of course we need strategies to manage the large
number of small groups.
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There is another issue of leaner reluctance when PBI is implemented in a department. Learners
facing PBI for the first time may be very uncomfortable with the approach used in PBI. Prior
training has made the learners dependent on the inputs provided by the teacher. They are
accustomed to the role of passive receivers of information. PBI requires the students to engage
with the problems in a more active fashion.
Articulating the understanding, independent research and working in groups may appear to the
students as too much burden. Instructor must invest considerable effort in scaffolding their
learning process. The types and the complexities of the problems need to be matched with the
maturity of the learners.
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Total commitment of the instructor and the organization is essential for the success of PBI. PBI
must be implemented in its true spirit if the benefits have to accrue. Assigning some problems to
be solved by the students with the learning context remaining the same is not problem-based
approach. If the department wishes to implement the problem-based approach to instruction; it
must do so in all its true spirit.
Appropriate infrastructure is also essential for the success of the PBI. Students need to sit
together and discuss. They need physical space where they can carryout this process of
discussions more comfortably. Another key for the success of PBI, an extremely important one at
that, would be extensive use of ICT at every process step. This would reduce the burden of the
faculty as well as the burden of the learners.
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An exercise for you – Discuss the feasibility and desirability of PBI in the courses that you are
teaching. Thank you for sharing the results of the exercises at nate.iiscta@gmail.com.
In the next unit will understand the instruction for Design Thinking. Thank you.
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Lecture- 45
Instruction for Design Thinking
Greetings, welcome to module 3 unit 5 on Instruction for Design Thinking.
We understood problem-based approach to instruction in the previous unit.
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We will look at instruction for engineering design thinking in this unit. So, the outcome for this
unit is, understand instruction for engineering design thinking.
Design in a major sense is the essence of engineering; design begins with identification of a need
and ends with a product or system in the hands of the user. The product or the system must meet
the requirements of the user. Design is concerned with synthesis. Most of the engineering
courses deal with analysis. Design is concerned with the activity of synthesis. It has to produce a
product.
Another definition is that design defines engineering. It is an engineer’s job to create new things
to improve society. It is the University’s obligation to give students fundamental education in
design; this is due to William Durfee.
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Another definition due to Dym et al is as follows. Engineering design is a systematic, intelligent

process in which designers generate, evaluate and specify concepts for devices, systems or
processes whose form and function achieve clients’ objectives or users’ needs while satisfying a
specified set of constraints. This looks like a pretty elaborate definition, it is elaborate. However,
it captures all the major features of the design process.
But please note that the word ‘concept’ in the above context is used in a peculiar fashion. It
means specifying the functionality or the use to which the device or system is to be put. This
meaning is different from the way we normally use the word ‘concept’ in the Bloom’s taxonomy.
Dym et al use the word concept to mean the specification of the functionality.
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Design problems reflect the fact that the designer has a client or a customer who, in turn has in
mind a set of users or customers for whose benefit the designed artifact is being developed. The
artifact is designed to meet the requirements of customers. The design process itself is a complex
cognitive process.
Design is generally considered difficult to learn and more universally considered difficult to
teach. Design thinking reflects the complex cognitive processes of inquiry and learning that
designers engage in while developing solutions. These solutions must meet the identified
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requirements. The term design thinking was first introduced by Peter G. Rowe in his book titled
Design Thinking. This book was published in 1987.
The focus of this book was design thinking in architecture and urban planning. This book did not
deal with engineering design. Its focus was architecture and urban planning. In some way this is
similar to the origin of patterns in design. The concept of patterns in design also arose in the
context of architecture. Subsequently this concept was integrated into the engineering
disciplines.
Design thinking in the specific context of Engineering Design is now accepted as an integral and
necessary component of engineering curricula. The CDIO initiative of MIT is one often-quoted
example. CDIO stands for Conceive Design Implement Operate. The d.school of Stanford is also
often quoted as an example; but d.school is not specifically concerned with engineering design.
Several program outcomes specified by NBA refer to the competencies that are related directly
to engineering design. Engineering designers perform in a system context, making decisions as
they proceed, working collaboratively as teams in a social process and speaking several
languages with each other. Instruction to facilitate these competencies is itself a complex design
activity.
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Some key features of Engineering Design Thinking are as follows: Generative questions,
systems thinking, uncertainty, design decision choices, teamwork, visualization, creativity,
communication in design language. There are other features but this list of features more or less
captures the essence of engineering design. This is adapted from engineering design thinking
teaching and learning at the link which is shown in this slide
(http://www.asee.org/about/publications/jee/upload/2005jee_sample.htm).
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Let us look at these features in brief. Traditional engineering courses invite deep reasoning
questions and the answers must converge to “true” answers in the relevant knowledge domain.
The objective of these questions is to arrive at true answers. By contrast questions that arise
during design thinking are exploratory in nature. The objective of the questions raised during
design thinking is not to arrive it true answers.
Their objective is to generate additional ideas and intents of the customer. Their objective is to
extract the hidden intent of the customer. Often customers are not very clear about their own
requirements. Generative questions help to bring out additional ideas and intents of the customer.
These would be useful for framing the solution space.
So, the questions asked during design thinking are qualitatively different from the questions
whose intent is to arrive it to true answers. Generally, these two types of thinking are called
convergent thinking and divergent thinking respectively. Convergent thinking tries to raise
questions to arrive it to true answers. Divergent thinking tries to raise questions whose purpose is
to make a clear intents of the customer.
Teaching divergent inquiry in design thinking is generally not addressed in engineering. Case
study based group discussions may help students in learning to ask generative questions.
Instructors must plan these case studies carefully and monitor the learning process of the students
carefully; to ensure that they acquire the skill in generating such questions.
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Interactions with real clients, where possible and subsequent guidance from instructors would be
of great help. They promote the ability for divergent thinking. We can also have role plays,
simulation games to promote divergent thinking. Institutes must consciously plan for such
activities. Promoting divergent thinking requires conscious, explicit planning by the institutes.
Engineering systems are increasingly becoming more ambitious and more complex. Further, the
Program Outcomes specified by NBA require designers to consider issues related to
environment, sustainability, society etcetera. This means that students must be trained to
anticipate the possibly unintended consequences emerging from interactions among the multiple
parts of a system, and interactions between the system and the environment.
Students must be trained to anticipate the consequences of interactions between the systems and
the environment. Students must be trained to assess the impact on the environment of the
solutions proposed by them.
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Students must be trained to deal with incomplete information, ambiguous goals and approximate
models. Systems thinking would involve the ability of the students to deal with incomplete
information, ambiguous goals and approximate models. When designers start building models
for a real system, their models often tend to be approximate. The reality is too complex to be
modeled easily. Students must be trained to work with proper approximate models.
They must also be able to understand uncertainty; think statistically. Often designers make rough
estimates of physical quantities in a given context. These rough estimates are both for sanity
checks and for figuring out the parameters that can be ignored safely. Students must be trained to
make such rough estimates.
Students also must become capable of designing suitable experiments when required. These
experiments may have to be designed to get relevant data or to validate a design idea. Students
must be trained in the art of designing experiments.
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Students have to work in multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural teams? As professionals they would

be required to work in such environment. Thus it is necessary that students are trained to work in
multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural teams. Allowing the students to work in multi-cultural teams
may be somewhat difficult for many institutes. However, they can provide an opportunity for the
students to work in multi-disciplinary teams certainly.
Students also must be trained to communicate using appropriate design languages. A variety of
design languages exist; they can be textual statements, graphical representations, mathematical
or analytical models, domain specific schemes. There can be many different design languages,
depending upon the domain in which the students are working, they must be trained to
communicate with appropriate design languages.
They also must be trained to make design decision choices. Design decision choices are
characterized by the fact that the choice is not between right and wrong decisions. A design
decision is often a choice between right and right decisions. We have to prefer one right solution
to another right solution. There can be several criteria based on which such a decision is taken.
Students must be trained to make such design decision choices.
It is also necessary that students are trained in estimating the resource requirements. The
resource requirements include human resources, material resources, cost, schedules, several other
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aspects are involved. It is necessary to provide some training in the art of estimating the resource
requirements also.
So, what are the approaches possible for instruction for design thinking? We can use project-
based instruction or problem-based instruction or simulation-based instruction or experiential
approach to instruction. There are other approaches also possible for instruction for design
thinking; but the above four are the most common approaches.
As discussed in earlier units, the most popular approach for design thinking in engineering
curricula was and continues to be project-based approach to instruction. Project-based approach
to instruction provides most authentic experience to the students in the process of design
thinking.
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Traditionally, engineering program curricula included a major project work in the final year or in
the final semester. Such a project work is generally called as a ‘capstone project’ in US. In India
we are accustomed to calling it as the ‘main project’.
This main project was the first and only opportunity provided to students to engage with
engineering design activity. Students get exposed to the design activity only in the main project
which comes in the final semester or final year. Some programs most notably Mechanical
Engineering and Civil Engineering programs do include a core course on design.
This core course on design usually is a part of the curricula of earlier years. In some institutes it
may occur in second year, in some institutes it may occur in third year. But this feature of having
a separate course on engineering design is not common in many other disciplines. The courses on
engineering design when they are part of curricula are typically core courses.
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The main project in final year is really valuable; but it appears too late in the scheme. Typically
it is a part of only the final year activity, or final semester activity. More favored approach
currently is to provide design experience to the students in the final year itself.
An independent design thinking or engineering design course is introduced in the first year itself
using problem-based approach to instruction. The course can have no theory component, no
tutorial component, but only a practical component. So, the credit structure can be 0:0:1 or 0:0:2.
1 or 2 credits of practical work only would be involved.
Instructors must provide considerable didactic instruction to address the issues discussed already.
So, though the course is only practical oriented; certain amount of theoretical inputs must be
provided to the students by the instructor.
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If we have an engineering design course in the first year, what are the challenges? Students may
have considerable difficulty with the initial problem statement and final formulation of the
problem. The problem is stated in a natural language at the beginning. Students must be able to
translate it into a formal engineering problem. This may be difficult for many of the students
when they are in first year.
We need to form multidisciplinary teams and that also may be a very challenging issue. Students
need certain core competencies in order to work with projects. These core competencies include
familiarity with concepts, tools and also an appropriate attitude for undertaking design activity.
Students may not be competent in these aspects. Teachers may have to provide some initial
training to the students in all these aspects. They may not be familiar with the design process to
be used also.
There is another issue which is the load on the faculty. If all the first year students are to be
engaged in a design activity; there is considerable load on the faculty. Further, assessment of the
work of the students also imposes substantial load on the faculty. Faculty have to assess the
finished work as well as the compliance to the process. Faculty have to assess the individual
contribution as well as the work of the team as a whole. All these activities would mean
considerable burden for the faculty.
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Several approaches can be tried when engineering design is introduced in the first year. The
usual approach is as follows: Initially students are provided with some direct instruction. The
direct instruction would include some basic concepts of design theory as well as familiarization
with some of the essential tools.
There will be close mentoring during the problem formulation stage. Gradually the guidance is
reduced. The students begin to work independently on the projects. Still the load on the faculty
remains an issue to be resolved at the institute level.
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Another approach is being tried in some of the institutes. This approach consists of splitting the
design activity into multiple phases. Initially again students are provided with certain minimum
information regarding the theoretical concepts and tools to be used. This may last for about two
weeks; then a small project is assigned by the faculty.
This project provides a basis for learning the design tools. This scope of the project is fairly
small and students work on this project to gain some practical experience with the design
activity, and familiarity with the design tools. This activity may last for about 4 weeks. Then a
project is assigned to the student, which engages them in reverse engineering activities; this
activity may be for about 4 weeks.
A complete product is given to the students and students have to figure out through reverse
engineering activities; how the product was synthesized. After these three preliminary activities,
a main design project for a real or role play client is assigned to the students. Students would
have about 6 weeks to complete this design activity.
This seems to be working well but the main challenge again is the load on the faculty. Faculty
have to find adequate number of resources to be provided to the students for all these activities.
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Despite the challenges, a design project in first year is becoming increasingly popular as the
advantages are considered to be very significant. All the stake holders seem to agree that a work
on engineering design in the first year has substantial advantages.
The major advantages claimed for the design activity in the first year are as follows. It enhances
student interest in engineering. It motivates better learning in higher semesters. The experience
in many institutes seems to indicate that the students perform better in higher semesters
academically; when they are exposed to design activities in the first year.
It leads to better performance in the final year project also. Students have already had exposure
to the design activity in the first year. They tend to do better when it comes to the final year
project also.
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Student engagement with design in final year is quite well established and student engagement
with design in first year is being introduced in increasing number of institutes. Some institutes
are experimenting with a design project even in second year and/or third year. Advantages are
very clear, but providing the necessary resources can be quite a challenge for the institutes.
Institutes need to experiment and decide on what is best for them.
Some of the activities that can be adopted in an institute would include mini projects in some of
the courses. They could include design activity in second year also. They could include design
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activity in third year also. So, please indicate what are the instructional approaches implemented
in your department for facilitating design learning by your students. That is one exercise for you.
Another one would be - develop one engineering design problem for the first year students and
develop an instructional strategy for it. Two exercises for you; please share your experiences.
Thank you for sharing the result of the exercises at nate.iiscta@gmail.com.
We will understand the instruction for metacognitive learning in the next unit. Thank you.
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Professor N J Rao
Lecture 46
Simulation Approach to Instruction
Greetings and welcome to NATE module 3 unit 6 on Simulation Approach to Instruction.
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In the earlier unit, we looked at instruction for design thinking or what we call we tried to
understand design approach to instruction and in the current unit we will try to look at
effectiveness of instruction using the simulation. Today the simulation has become a very
powerful tool to look at complex systems and sometimes even simple but nonlinear systems.
Simulation is a tool that is now dominantly integrated into both classroom instruction, for
projects and research.
We have to start with defining what a system is, a system is a group of interacting or
interrelated entities, objects and/or people organ or organisms that form a unified whole.
What we mean by that is several entities are interconnected with each other. They are
interconnected for a specific purpose and they together fulfill something.
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An element of a system simultaneously can be element of some other system - that should be
remembered. Because the purpose is different, the elements that come into the other system
are different. A system is identified by the spatial and temporal boundaries, something is
valid only from 1 point of time into the another and also there are certain boundaries; once
you cross the boundaries, the behavior predicted by your simulation is not necessarily true.
Engineering systems that we are concerned with can start with a simple electrical or
electronic circuits, a civil structure, an engine, an aircraft, a factory, a power station, an
electric power grid or something like an engineering college and a corporate, they all are kind
of engineering systems.
When you look at some of these systems, some systems have only physical elements like
circuits or a civil structure, they are only physical elements in that, but some of the things like
a factory or if you want to look at even power station, in engineering college or corporate will
also have persons and machines interacting with each other.
Now, what is simulation? Simulation is an animated model that mimics the operation of an
existing or proposed system. Essentially simulation, what it is doing is you are modeling a
particular system or elements of a particular system, their elements are interconnected and
you are now actually solving those equations. Because one may not have closed form
solutions for many of them. So, you try to solve on a computer, the equations that you use for
modeling.
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The modeling and simulation are two processes, they are highly interrelated. By just
modeling and leaving it there, it does not serve purpose, but neither you can simulate
anything without modeling. So, essentially simulation consists of solving a large number of
or at least multiple number of equations on a computer.
Let us say even in educational contexts, modeling and simulation skills and tools can further
support the integration of both divergent and convergent thinking. Divergent thinking means
you are exploring some options and if you want to explore those options in a virtual world
simulation is the only possible tool. If I give some input to either a circuit or a civil structure
or anything like that, then I am trying to find out what is going to happen because we cannot
simply have closed form solution to any of those equations.
So in today's world both modeling and simulation are going to be used to aid analysis and
design of systems. These skills, that is modeling and simulation skills have been integrated
across many science and engineering disciplines. These tools support the study of complex
phenomena and as predictive tools that can anticipate the suitability of new designs.
Also what happens is you are essentially exploring the options like - if I do something, if I
change a parameter like this, if I give this input, if I change the boundaries, if I want to
expand the time scale in which it is functioning, any of these things you want simulation is
possibly today is the only tool that you will have.
So, it is a powerful evidence based approach to decision making. Obviously, when you are
using for decision making, you have to be doubly sure that your modeling is appropriate. If
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you make any assumptions in the modeling and you try to go beyond those assumptions, then
the results that come from the simulation will prove to be wrong. There have been any
number of instances around the world where people have simulated or modeled something
beyond their original constraints there was assumed.
Let us look at where the where it comes into the education. Industry expectations as per
survey done by Vergara in 2009, the graduates should be able to - characterize and solve
problems at the operational and conceptual level, translating between physical and virtual
world.
Virtual world is modeling, and when I am modeling something, and I predict the behavior,
how to constantly check back that my modeling has been appropriate, and it matches with the
physical world. So, this business of constantly shifting from physical world to virtual world is
a skill that every graduate should acquire, should make it a kind of habit.
They also found, the industry wants the graduates to manage (manage means collect, store
and secure) data, draw meaning from information and communicate that information to
others in a meaningful way. That is you should be able to process the data communicate to
the concerned people.
Learn multiple software and computational systems. Your skills and knowledge cannot be
confined to one or two narrow scope, tools. Use information technology like collaborative
tools or instant messaging to increase the business productivity. So, these were the
requirements expressed by industry.
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How do the faculty look at it? From these sentences faculty have translated the industry
expectations into learning outcomes, saying that the student should be able to - identify and
describe the governing fundamental physical principles or behavior of devices. Identify and
describe the fundamental physical principles of behavior and devices, materials and other
artifacts using simulations.
Like for example, if you have a transistor, which is a semiconductor device, if I want to
predict its behavior, if I want to get into very detailed behavior under different temperature
conditions, different voltages, different currents and so on, then my model will have to be
fairly detailed, that means, I must be able to capture all the underlying physical phenomena.
When you end up writing those equations, the equations may not permit themselves to
produce a closed form solution. What am I doing? Those equations simultaneously if I solve
using a computer, it will produce an output from which I can make some sense.
Now, what happens if I am putting a large number of transistors together like in today's
world, the number of transistors on a single chip can run into almost a billion transistors on a
single chip. Obviously no two transistors are 100 percent exactly equal. So, to that extent, I
have to incorporate the behavior of each and every individual transistor.
As you can see, the number of equations will be phenomenally large, then the only tool that I
have will be simulation. Obviously simulating such a chip or behavior will take lot of time.
When you simulate, you may not be interested in the very-very extreme details that is from
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pico second level behavior and I may not be interested in kind of instantaneous values all the
time or a period of time.
So, your requirements of study may vary from one situation to the other and the equations
will have to be correspondingly chosen. Then the faculty understand - the student should be
able to build simulations to apply modeling and computational techniques to perform
engineering design tasks.
Not only study the behavior of elements, but you want to perform engineering design tasks,
that is I should choose certain parameters, I should select some parameters or add elements to
get the required behavior and I need to make decisions about that. So, this is how faculty
understands, and though it is not exactly the same what the industry is asking for but faculty
in a formal program try to use simulation for these two aspects.
On top of that, from our program outcomes as per NBA, PO5 is related to modern tool usage.
What does it say? Create, select and apply appropriate techniques resources and modern
engineering and IT tools including prediction and modeling to complex engineering activities
with an understanding of the limitations. See all the words that are there except that it did not
say simulation tools it said IT tools.
IT tools can be either for data processing, or simulation or communication it can be used for
all. Here, what it is saying create, select and apply. So, these are 3 different activities. But at
least a student in an engineering college may not be able to create as a part of a course or he
may create a small tool with limited scope as a project.
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Because creating an operational simulation tool is a very-very large and complex process
which cannot be fitted into classroom activity. But mostly the students are going to apply or
occasionally select from a limited set of tools that are available. So, to that extent, the PO5
does identify the modeling and simulation activities to either understand or design complex
engineering systems.
So, simulation constitutes one of the modern tools to understand and design complex
engineering problems. There are any number of open source and proprietary simulation tools
available for all needs and occasions. Most of the college students today are familiar with two
tools for circuit courses circuit branches as we call them, something based on PSpice is used
or for other engineering systems they use something like MATLAB or Scilab
Also these days, many simulation tools have good presentation and visualization features.
What are these? After the end of simulation, the output is presented in some graphical form,
with proper possibly using colors and sometimes 3D features and so on. It makes the learning
experience of that a lot more meaningful and even immersive. That is, through this graphic
interface you are really getting involved inside, you are getting immersed into the system.
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Where can we use the simulation? Let us say take now courses. There are two types of
systems that we deal with one you can say static system, the other is a dynamic system. So, a
static system is expressed as a parameterized algebraic relation in terms of one or more
independent variables.
What happens? Simulation is used to explore the effect of varying parameters on the output
variable of such a static system. Take the example here – Chebyshev or an equi-ripple
function can approximate a box like behavior of a filter and the equation is given like this
magnitude of the transfer function T is given by 1 by root 1 plus K 1 omega square plus K 2
omega raised to 4.
Now, we do not necessarily have a closed form solution for this or one can work it out at least
at this stage. But if I want to keep on exploring the effect of these parameters, K1, K2 how
exactly the magnitude of T changes.
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Simple tool called graph, which is open source tool and I can use this and it provides a lot of
facilities, I can expand the y axis, x axis, I can put colors to different things, I can adjust the
amplitudes and so on. As a function of frequency the magnitude is plotted, as I keep changing
the K1 over several values. For example, here K1 equal to minus K2, so there is only one
parameter; as I keep changing the parameter I can draw several curves.
I can see by changing the parameter, how does (let us say here) this particular filter is likely
to behave. If you look at this, beyond the critical frequency or natural frequency of the filter,
the rate at which the attenuation happen should be large that is a desirable characteristic. But
I have a little more ripple in the pass band. In the stop band it is desirable behavior whereas,
for some other values of K you have better behavior in the pass band, but less rate of
attenuation in the stop band.
Such properties can readily be studied by using a simple tool like graph. It is very easy to
understand and very easy to use, and you get the behavior of a static system like this.
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Then comes the simulating dynamic systems which engineering systems many of them are.
For example, many of the engineering elements, we are interested in their behavior as a
function of time, whenever variables change with time that means we have a dynamic system
to be considered. So, a dynamic system consists of several dynamic elements or subsystems
interconnected in open loop or closed loop mode.
First thing is to develop mathematical models of the dynamic elements involved in the
system. And then they are interconnected to create a system under consideration and
simulation software like MATLAB and Scilab can be used to simulate and study the behavior
of the dynamic system. MATLAB is a proprietary one and Scilab is open source - it depends
to which one you are used to. Both the software tools have very good visualization features,
that is one major advantage.
When the system under consideration has multiple feedback loops, it is difficult to develop a
feel for the system behavior without using simulation. Say for example, if you have a static
system or even if you have one feedback system with one loop, it is by trial and error you can
pick up a feel for that.
Like if I, if I am changing some parameter what is likely to happen, I can have a feel for it.
But when you have multiple feedback loops, especially if they cross each other, they happen
when human beings are involved. In such a case, it is very difficult to develop a feel for it and
the only tool that you have is simulation.
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Once again we have plenty of tools, which are domain specific which are mastered and which
are being used by the industry, which are domain specific. For example, spice based software
tools like Microcap, TINA, TINA-TI are used for study and design of electronic circuits. That
is you can piece the electronic components that you are going to use opamps, resistors,
capacitors, power supplies and so on. It is a drag and drop kind of thing and you can count
these elements and then solve the related equations through simulation.
Bond graph is another explicit graphic tool for capturing the common energy structures of
systems. This modeling technique is used in studying power hydraulics, mechatronics,
general thermodynamic systems electronic or non energetic systems like even economics and
queuing theory.
For example, let us say an engineering mechatronics system if you take you have fine
mechanisms, you have electronic circuits, some of them will be analog, some of them will be
digital and you have sensors and what happens when you look at them the timescales in
which these work can be quite different, like your electronic circuits respond in
microseconds, sometimes nanoseconds.
Whereas mechanical elements will take a few milliseconds or more than possibly a second
also. So, when you simulate behavior over such wildly time varying scales, you need to be
careful about your modeling and the way you want to handle and predict systems for that
kind of thing, bond graph seemed to be a very effective tool.
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Similarly, TSAT - Thermal Systems Analysis Toolbox in open source software is a graphical
thermal system modeling and simulation package, again built into MATLAB and Simulink.
You have other things like Flo Therm, ANSYS and ABAQUS are other tools for thermal
simulation tools. So, you have plenty of domain specific simulation tools that are being used
in many of the engineering colleges and institutions.
Another example using TINATI and if you want to study the behavior of this kind of circuit.
This is a Frequency Locked Loop with multiple feedback loops, there is one feedback loop
here and there is another feedback loop like this. On top of that there are highly nonlinear
circuits here using diodes and resistors plenty of them and they are also part of this.
That means they are getting converted - a square wave is getting converted into a sine wave
using this. This is the FLL. If you want to study this - let us say I want to change one
capacitor value here and what happens to the system and there is no easy way by writing the
equations and solving them to find out whereas if you use a tool like TINATI, which is right
now open source, within a few seconds you can get the behavior.
What is the behavior? Behavior I need to see here at this point and I need to see the behavior
here and I need to see the behavior here. I can simultaneously look at all of them and the
visualization tool will present me all the waveforms over a period of time in one frame kind
of thing.
TINATI is a very effective tool, but the only thing is TINATI as we are calling it TI the ICs
that are used, these opamps that are used, they are mostly selected from or they are selected
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from the components that are manufactured by TI. If you want to use some other company’s
ICs and components then possibly TINA-TI is not the appropriate one, you will have to go
for another such open source tool available in the market.
Simulation of Real-Life Processes: you can observe let us say you have a very slow process
that takes minutes and sometimes hours. But we do not want to wait for hours to see what
happens. So, present day computers will allow you to kind of compress that time because you
have enough amount of power of computation available to you. You can see what is
happening in the process as time progresses.
Also it can be interactive, so you can quickly adapt in any way that you might consider
changing the real process. That means if you want you can slow down a process or you can
speed up a process. For example, as I said, if something is happening very slow, you can
speed it up but sometimes very fast processes cannot be simulated in real time in spite of
having a fairly powerful computer and powerful tool.
Let us say you are trying to design an IC (integrated circuit) using large number of transistors
or active devices and passive devices in that sometimes the simulation of a circuit may take
several hours, even when you have a very powerful computer.
Another advantage of this is you can keep on changing the configuration of the system also.
ifI slightly modify the structure, what happens under the same circumstance, and I do not
think there is any other alternative to study such behaviors other than simulation.
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There is also what is called Intuitive Simulation Software tool called SIMUL8 where instead
of starting from very detailed modeling and equations, it gives a visual mock-up of a process
like creating a flowchart. So, you have a list of things which are available as a library from
that you would drag and drop and quickly build a system as per what you think is the system.
Based on maybe this is how I visualize my system; I can quickly put it and add some timings
and rules around the tasks. I can simulate a system very fast. So, simulates intuitive drag and
drop interface ensures the user spends less time building simulations and more time
experimenting with changes to make confident decisions.
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When you have people in systems, this story is different. Now you have to model the decision
making of human beings - like policymakers or even any humans who are participating in
that. Here one approach is what is called agent based modeling. Like software tools or
Swarm, MASON, Repast, StarLogo, NetLogo, OBEUS, AgentSheets and AnyLogic are some
of the tools which are agent based modeling and simulation.
There is AHP based tools are there named expert systems which facilitates modeling the
decision making. When multiple decision makers are there, and each one have a separately
their own criteria of coming to a conclusion, but the system in which they are operating they
are all interconnected for such a thing analytic hierarchy process based expert system is a
very convenient tool.
Yet another one called Vensim is a tool for simulating business and societal dynamic
systems. It uses participatory modeling that means players are actors who are part of the
system. They themselves can say this is how I make my decision. They can say that and we
can capture that very quickly in a tool using Vensim.
There are also if there are multiple decision makers and we clearly understand how they
make decisions, which is actually given by them. There have been several such things done
very complex and big systems are simulated by using tools like Vensim and virtual reality
and gaming are also effective in studying systems with people.
In all these, what should the teacher do with respect to using simulation? Now, in many
courses even I would say a first level mathematics course or a differential equation course a
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teacher can use a simulation tool to develop a feel for the students with regard to what that
actually a differential equation is. If I change this parameter, how is the system likely to
behave; I can visualized the behavior of a dynamic system, which is modeled by differential
equation. So, even in mathematics courses, or even chemistry, physics in all of them, one can
use simulation tools. And you can use the simulation tools which is open source.
Even if the course directly does not demand that a teacher can effectively use this as a very
effective instructional method. As we say, demonstration of the behavior of the system using
simulation, before modeling and explaining the underlying concepts and procedures is greatly
motivating to the students.
So, I can reverse the process before I actually start modeling the physical behavior, I already
know how the system behaves, can demonstrate how the system behaves and that way
various conditions and then start modeling to explain that behavior. In that sense, the students
are motivated, first they understand how the system behaves graphically or in some kind of
whatever graphic GUI that tool provides you. First I have a feel which will motivate them to
get into the details of modeling and explaining.
Also what if simulation that is, what happens if I change some parameters and that is a
wonderful mechanism of learning the behavior of any phenomena. You have open source and
sometimes student versions of proprietary software are also available free and they will, they
can readily be used.
For example, TINATI there is a TINA which is a professional tool; TINATI is an open
source, it has some limitations in terms of the number of components and all that that you can
use but as far as the course is concerned, generally it is adequate. It may not be adequate for a
project if you want to do, but for classroom instruction, such student versions are quite
adequate.
But, the teachers must make special effort to learn the simulation tools effectively. And you
will be really, really adding a lot of value or improve the quality of learning of your students
if you can bring the simulation into the classroom.
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So, we request you to give an example how you used or intend to use simulation in your
course, for effective and engaging instruction. Thank you for sharing the results of your
exercise at this email id.
In the next unit, will attempt to understand instruction for metacognitive learning. We have
explained what metacognition is, but what kind of care, what kind of things that you can
incorporate into your regular instruction, which will facilitate metacognitive learning, which
becomes more important in colleges where you have students with less cognitive abilities.
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P Professor N J Rao
Lecture 47
Instruction for Metacognitive Learning
Greetings and welcome to NATE module 3 unit 7 on Instruction for Metacognitive Learning.
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In the earlier unit, we understood the instruction method of using simulation to instruct in
engineering courses. In this unit will try to understand the need for and methods for
Instruction for Metacognitive Learning. While we mentioned a little bit about metacognition,
in the taxonomy of learning, once again, would like to emphasize the metacognitive call it
dimension becomes very important in today's context.
Because of the requirement of equity, we get students with very widely varying cognitive
abilities, and what you can say with metacognitive abilities. That is a reason why in many of
the institution, the teacher has to take the metacognitive abilities of the students into
consideration and also facilitate them to learn. Besides that some of the program outcomes
more importantly, PO12 related to lifelong learning requires significant abilities of student
with respect to metacognition.
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First let us briefly define, what metacognition is? It is thinking about one's own thinking.
Simply stated, but you need to spend some time in understanding what that is. It is also the
ability to assess our own skills, knowledge or learning. That means every individual should
be able to assess one's own skills and one's own level of knowledge, and also how he learns
in any particular situation. If we do not have awareness of that, it becomes difficult to
improve in that dimension. Also it is a person's awareness of his or her own level of
knowledge and thought processes.
So, all of them are state the same thing, but stated in different ways. So, metacognition is
really your own awareness of how you think, or what you already know, what you do not
know, and how you actually think about something. All these processes are considered to be
part of metacognition.
So, this ability of being aware of these processes or contents will affect how well and how
long the students study how much and how deeply students learn. So, both the issues are very
important, especially in institutions where you have a wide spectrum of students with
cognitive abilities spread over a wide range.
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Let us look at a little more informally what metacognitive ability means. It means using
learning goals, success criteria and descriptive feedback. First thing is students should know,
what is the goal of his learning? For example, in any subject, he should be able to be very
clear, what is it that he needs; he should be able to do at the end of some learning. These
learning goals are stated as outcomes in the case of a course, the course outcomes.
When do you say that you have attained them, what are the success criteria? Also when a
when somebody gives you feedback, how do you make use of it. So, metacognitive ability
means you are aware of all these things. It also means recognizing how attitudes and habits
influence learning. Obviously, our habits and attitudes have a significant role in learning.
Identifying, communicating and acting on learning preferences and strengths. This is a habit
that one should acquire over a period of time. Some people do, some people do not. But when
it is mentioned to you, each student, or including the teacher should make an attempt in
identifying, communicating and acting on learning preferences and strengths.
It also means assessing learning situations and developing plans of action. All learning
situations are not the same. For example, you can have a descriptive course, you can have a
laboratory course, you can have a mathematical course. Each learning situation is different
and for each situation you should be able to develop a different plan of action. So, that is a
metacognitive ability. Good students have these abilities they may not be aware of them.
They may not be using this language but good students seem to be having this metacognitive
ability.
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It also means reflecting on learning and engaging in conversation about ones own thinking.
Normally, people do not prefer to keep talking about this. But if you have a learning group,
where you feel safe and comfortable with then you may not mind having conversation with
your peers about once one thinking, and in fact students should feel very comfortable with the
teacher in engage in engaging such conversations. If they feel safe with the teacher, they are
likely to talk about these issues.
It also means seeking clarification and support when barriers to learning are encountered.
When I seem to have some difficulty in crossing certain barrier, let us say I do not understand
that kind of concept, it is not cognitive part, maybe I seem to be approaching it in some
wrong way. So, whenever such barriers are encountered, first thing is the student should be
willing to seek clarification and support and that should be encouraged by the teacher. So,
metacognitive ability as you can see, it consists of many, many issues related to the process
of learning.
Why should we be concerned about metacognition? High performing students have better
metacognitive skills. It has been observed that you do not have to particularly focus on their
metacognitive skills, they learn. They learn or when they have barriers, they will ask
questions discuss with them and you have no issues about this. Teacher does not have to
spend too much time about facilitating this metacognitive learning.
Whereas weaker students typically have poor metacognition, besides other things, he may
have weaker cognitive abilities, but also has poor metacognition. Poor metacognition is a big
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part of incompetence. All, students are not equally competent. So, metacognition happens to
be big part of incompetence. And if a teacher is aware of it, teachers may find some ways of
helping the students when they have issues related to metacognition.
So, students with poor metacognitive skills, shorten their study time prematurely, thinking
that they have mastered course material that they barely know. You read for a little while, and
then you think a mastered and then move on. They become grossly overconfident in their
levels of understanding. Also they underestimate or overestimate their performance in tests
and make very poor study decisions. So, students with poor metacognition are likely to do
some or all of these errors in their learning.
Now, let us formally approach metacognition. Elements of these metacognition are

metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive monitoring and metacognitive control. Sometimes
monitoring and control are together referred to as a regulation by many researchers in this
area. So, you can treat it as the elements as two knowledge and regulation or knowledge,
monitoring and control.
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So, let us look at what is metacognitive knowledge. Metacognitive knowledge is knowledge

of tasks and content. That means, I should be able to really know what is the task that needs
to be performed and what are the contents of the task. Also this knowledge consists of
knowledge about cognition and cognitive strategies.
So, further classifying that, so first part is declarative knowledge. What different types of
strategies are available for memory thinking and problem solving etc? That means, what are
the strategies that I have, that I know of, I am not practicing it, I know these are the strategies
that are available for doing that is putting it in the long term memory or for thinking or
problem solving, I know that these are the strategies available.
Then what do I need to know is procedural knowledge. How to use and enact different
strategies? So, if I know a strategy, I know the procedural knowledge of that how to actually
use that strategy.
There is a third aspect namely conditional knowledge, when and why to use different
cognitive strategies. Actually, if you look at the procedural and conditional knowledge, they
are also part of what we call the cognitive level of applying something. How to use and enact
different strategies, I should have the procedural knowledge. That means the student should
know that he has or does not have the procedural knowledge, or that conditional knowledge.
Also metacognitive knowledge is related to one’s own strengths and weaknesses as a learner
or a thinker. So, everyone must know what their strengths and weaknesses are in their
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capacity to learn or to think. Essentially, what it means is we should know at what level we
are and what we are with respect to learning and thinking - that is what cognitive knowledge.
Now, let us look at metacognitive monitoring, it is defined as assessing the current state of a
cognitive activity. That means, assessing how easy or difficult a learning task will be to
perform. First I must know that, that means I must be able to judge how difficult a learning
task will be to perform, I must know that.
Monitoring learning that means, I must be able to judge to what extent to have learned I
should make a judgment of my own learning. Also we do have feelings of knowing
something but we are unable to recall it completely. That is also a monitoring, that is feelings
of knowing or being aware of something that we know something and seem to be familiar
with, but I cannot recall it completely. That happens because we are aware of something, but
we do not remember all the details. We will come to that later.
Then you have confidence judgment that is making judgment of the correctness or
appropriateness of the response. So, monitoring consists of making a judgment of the
correctness or appropriateness of the response.
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Now, let us look at the third element - metacognitive control. Metacognitive control is
regulating some aspect of cognitive activity based on cognitive monitoring. So, control will
follow monitoring. What does control consist of? One is setting goals for learning, how much
time do I use for each part of the learning and what is the goal for my performance? That
means, I should be able to say that okay let me aim at solving problems of this difficulty
level. Towards that, how do I plan my time?
Second part is making decisions about strategies to use for a task and when to change
strategies for performing a task. I should solve this kind of problems, this variety of problems
before we get into a particular problem of choice. That means, one strategy is solve easier
problems before we move on to the more difficult problems. That is a kind of a strategy
selection.
Also a student should be able to allocate resources. What are the resources he has? Like time
that he wants to spare and the amount of effort he wants to put in and also the pace of
learning - all these are his resources, and he should be able to control and regulate these three
resources we are talking about - time, effort and pace.
There is also another dimension, another aspect of metacognitive control, what we call
volitional control. That is control and regulation of motivation, emotional and environment.
Let us take the first two motivational and emotion.
Whenever we have mild difficulties, we suddenly say you get irritated, you get bored or you
do not like it and suddenly because of that, you lose motivation to continue. So, this
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volitional control is something that every student will have to master. That means, there will
be so many instances where such experiences leading to irritation because of the task or the
environment that come, you should be able to sail through that, that means, he must have
volitional control.
Some people do have, some people do not have, it depends on how strongly they feel about
irrespective of the environmental issues or situational issues, that you are willing to put the
effort. Obviously metacognitive control decisions influence the direction and the way
learning will continue. So, all these activities have significant influence on the way the
learning continues.
Why we are getting into this level of detail is if you know all the detail processes and all the
things that can happen with regard to this, the teacher may be able to help at least with some
of them. Of course, teachers are not trained psychologists, but at least if you are aware, aware
of all these different processes, maybe intuition or by experience, you may be able to help the
students to overcome some of the limitations of this.
Otherwise, some good teachers intuitively may have that ability without formal training, but
we are not you cannot afford to say that we are on intuitively great teachers. One will have to
spend time to learn many aspects of the issues related to the students.
Once again, we want to ask the question why examine metacognition? Having known the
elements of it let us re-ask the question, why metacognition. In today's context, we require
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the ability to engage with and transform increasingly more information across single and
multidisciplinary contexts. That is one of the requirements.
Today because the kind of information that is available on the internet and our requirements
to engage with much much more knowledge than what is required. One of the reasons why
we need to examine metacognition. As access to information is continuously increasing the
process of accessing, choosing and distilling information will become a major task.
In today's world, for everyone, irrespective of the discipline, that is a major task. Otherwise,
you will end up spending any amount of time reading and working with some unrelated and
useless information for you. Institutions and educators require students to undertake
independent learning in increasingly less directed environments.
At every stage, for every part of it, somebody like a teacher is not available to make a
decision for you, you do this or do not do this. So, we have to become autonomous learners.
When you want to become autonomous learners, your metacognitive knowledge should be
improved. Otherwise, you will not be able to become an autonomous learner.
So, improving and fostering metacognition learning is one way of doing this. To meet the
requirements of today's world, that is you must become autonomous learner; to become an
autonomous learner, you should have a better metacognition.
So, who is a metacognitive person? Metacognitive person is someone who monitors his or
her understanding and uses strategies to regulate understanding that is what we have been
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telling. He monitors his understanding and uses the strategies to regulate understanding. So,
when you have a metacognitive person, it also means there is also a non-metacognitive
person.
One of the goals of education is to foster independent learning, in case of engineering

programs PO12 is related to lifelong learning, then it is necessary to prepare learners as
metacognitive persons. As all engineering programs have to attain this PO12. So the program
itself should be designed to make all their students metacognitive persons to attain PO12. So,
teachers need to understand how to improve learner metacognition.
Metacognitive teaching: teaching metacognitively includes teaching with metacognition.

Teacher himself should have metacognition, that is teaching with metacognition and also
teaching your students for metacognition. So, you have to improve the metacognition of your
students and you yourself must have metacognition about your subject or with respect to your
learners.
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Teaching with metacognition, what does it mean? The teachers should think about their own
thinking regarding their teaching. Each teacher will have to say, how am I teaching? Why am
I following certain procedure? What should I teach? So, all the thinking process related to
their teaching is what we call metacognition of the teacher.
Teaching with metacognition includes reflecting on instructional goals. First of all, you must
have very clear instructional goals and these will include the course outcomes and the POs
they are mapped into how much time we have, at what cognitive level are we talking about.
So, he must have clear instructional goals, and think about that.
Also what kind of students do I have? That means their characteristics and needs, I must have
an idea. How is the content organized, what level it is, and how should I sequence my
instruction? As we already said, sequencing may consist of going from simple to complex, or
abstract to concrete, concrete to abstract and so on. Each teacher depending on the nature of
the subject, he may have he or she may have their own preferences.
He must also think of the teaching strategies. I may be following something but I should say
what is the strategy I am following? Is this adequate for this? So, if you think about it, then as
a consequence of that you will be teaching with metacognition.
Nature of materials and other issues related to curriculum, instruction and assessment. If you
are able to reflect on all these aspects, then you are likely to teach with metacognition. Such
thinking occurs before, during and after lessons in order to maximize instructional
effectiveness. So, if you start with my goal, that I must continuously improve, and I must
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make my instruction effective. That means the learners/my students are able to attain the
outcomes that are stated.
If you want your students to keep doing that, then you have to continuously think about all
these aspects before, during and after lessons. We have taken all these factors into
consideration and presented many of these things as part of Implement Phase of ADDIE
though we did not mention metacognition word prominently in writing those templates for
you.
Now, we look at not only we the teacher should have metacognition, but now you want
teaching for metacognition. That means you want to promote metacognition in your students.
So, one methodology that was developed by us Vanderbilt University we can present here,
like encouraging students to examine their current thinking.
Like asking a question, what do I already know about this topic that could guide my learning?
Let us say, at the very beginning of a lesson, you ask this question and make people write one
sentence two sentences about it. Or you can have a kind of discussion in the class, but you
have to make everyone do this.
The best method to do that will be to use something like Google Forms or Google Docs some
tools like that. If you can use the tools and the students have internet devices with them, then
such things can be done more efficiently without taking too much of time.
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Also giving students practice in identifying confusions. For example, after something is
presented, you can ask them what was the most confusing about the material explored in class
today? If they can point out, these are the concepts that I find some contradiction or variance
between them or I find it difficult; if they are able to find that even the process of pointing out
that itself leads to metacognition. Or if they passively write down the notes from the board,
obviously that does not lead to metacognition.
Another part - pushing students to recognize conceptual change. Like before this course I
thought stability of a system meant … If he can point out that and now I think stability is…
There is a conceptual change that has occurred and this has occurred over time. So, if the
student is able to recognize that conceptual change, then metacognitive knowledge has
occurred.
Further, another method is reflective journals - providing a forum in which students monitor
their own thinking. Like they write for themselves, if they can write for themselves, like what
worked well in my exam preparation that I should remember to do next time. If I am able to
identify and point it out, if I can write; actually when you write, you will realize that the kind
of vaguenesses that we have, will have to be addressed before you can put a sentence on a
piece of paper.
So, if you can write a reflective journal, that writing reflective journal itself is a process to
improve metacognition. Another example, what did not work so well that I should not do
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next time? Or that I should change? It is this kind of questions if you ask, then the you are
training yourself in metacognition.
Instructions for Metacognition should be embedded with the content and activities about
which students are thinking. The teacher should be able to embed the instruction for
metacognition with the regular content of the course or activities that you are following. It is
not as if you are having a separate set of hours dedicated to addressing metacognition. If you
are able to weave these things that promote metacognition, it will be good.
It is most effective when it is adopted to reflect the specific learning context of a specific
topic, course or discipline, there is always a context that is associated with anything that you
learn. They should be able to reflect on the specific learning context. For example, if you
have solved a problem, what is the context of the problem, how many assumptions have been
made? If you are able to reflect on that, then your metacognition improves.
In explicitly connecting a learning context to its relevant processes, learners will be able to
adopt strategies to new contexts rather than assuming that learning is the same everywhere
and every time. This is most important especially in engineering, where you are applying
your knowledge to or you are doing your cognitive activities in a context that is very different
from what was done in the classroom. To do that, if you are aware of the context in which
you have learnt, you will realize that you need to change.
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The strategy to be adopted to solve the new problem or a real world problem that has to be
different from what you have learnt earlier. For instance, students’ abilities to read
disciplinary texts in discipline appropriate ways would also benefit from metacognitive
practice.
We will try to present a case of introductory programming course. This particular course that
is whatever name you give, ‘problem solving through programming using C’ or Java or
whatever, Python or anything like that is a compulsory course for practically all people.
Internationally this has a very high failure rate and a dropout rate. But in India dropping out is
not an option. Most engineering institutions in India achieve high pass percentage in this
course and dropping out of the course is not an option.
Institutions achieved this by making students learn a fixed set of programs. Over a period of
time all the institutions have by trial and error came to the conclusion. Practically this is what
is followed in most of the affiliated colleges that is non-autonomous institutions. They learn a
fixed set of programs, some 20 programs or 25 programs are given covering all aspects of the
course and assessment methods are also based on the student's ability to reproduce these
programs in the lab.
That means, the code is given in the classroom and they have to reproduce this code. They
cannot even give an alternate code which works. If you change the code from what was given
in the class, you will not get marks. So what happens by the process you are not allowing the
students to explore, so but this seems to be a assuring high pass percentages.
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What is the issue? A survey established that students lack metacognitive awareness both in
terms of metacognitive knowledge and regulation of cognition needed for writing programs.
So, the very process of conducting this course prevents them from having both metacognitive
awareness and regulation.
A kind of a test established that good grades in this course do not mean good programming
skills. I am sure all of you are aware of that many IT industries find that the people with good
grades are not necessarily employable because they do not have good programming skills.
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Learning programming is a subject different from others, and a study has been done. They
have identified - it involves the acquisition and effective use of 3 interrelated types of
programming knowledge. One is syntactic - specific facts about programming language and
rules for its use, that everybody is clear and that is what they teach.
Then you have conceptual - computer programming constructs and principles. This may be
there in the textbook, but it is not focused upon. Then there is strategic aspect. Programming
specific versions of general programming solving skills. Even if you have related conceptual
knowledge, you must be able to use strategies, different strategies for it. Even this part of the
course is not particularly what do you call, you pay attention to.
What are the instructional practices that you have? Most introductory programming courses
seem to foster the development of syntactic knowledge and not put enough emphasis on the
development of conceptual knowledge, not strategic knowledge, which is left to unguided
discovery. Some people will find by trial and error reading more or trying to solve problems,
sometimes they give up, but that discovery is unguided. Obviously all students will not be
able to do.
A large amount of instruction in programming involves letting students proceed by trial and
error and as if the ultimate instructional goal was to simply to get programs to work.
Somehow you have to make the programs to work. First of all, very rarely in these colleges,
you are even asked to write a program to solve a problem which has not already solved in the
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classroom. Very rarely, if it is given here to some whom is the program work that was the
ultimate instructional goal.
Students tend to develop through these processes what we call fragile knowledge of
programming, described as garbled or inert knowledge, knowledge used inappropriately, or
knowledge not spontaneously accessed in the context of need, because it is still welded to the
initial context in which it has been acquired. What was the initial context, you have to just
remember the code of it as set of programs that is it. If it does not fit into that context, you are
unable to even approach the problem properly. Once you get into this habit to come out of
that will take a lot of effort.
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What can be done? And working with several groups of students at different institutions
established - metacognitive formative assessment helps students plan and invest time in
learning programming, even in social contexts where learning programs will be enough to
pass and get a good grade. You have two situations. One is learning programming, and the
other is learning programs.
If you learn programs that is ability to reproduce code that is given to you in the classroom, it
is enough to pass and get a good grade. But some students do really want to go beyond that
they want to learn programming, not learn only some programs. That is where metacognitive
formative assessment will help students to plan and invest time in learning programming.
This is what we found through studies at several institutions.
What can be done in general? Metacognitive instruction will be context and content specific;
metacognitive learning is generic in nature. If you accept these two statements, if your course
is in the first two years of engineering program should be targeted for deliberate
metacognitive instruction. If two or three courses in the first two years are targeted for that,
then their metacognitive knowledge and regulation will significantly improve and they will
be able to carry on with other subjects in the later semesters.
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We would like you to write a few instances of metacognitive instruction in your course, even
though you did not use or were unaware of the terminology associated with metacognition.
Based on what is presented here, if you can relate to your own classroom instruction and
identify few instances of metacognitive instruction, if you can do that, and communicate to us
it will be of great value.
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Having looked at the entire course design as well as instruction and in the current context,
what should a teacher do or how should a teacher organize instruction with all the
limitations? That is what we will explore in the next unit. Thank you very much.
819
Professor N.J. Rao
Lecture 48
So, What Should the Teacher Do?
Greetings and welcome to NATE Module 3 unit 8, they call it ‘so what should the teacher do’
given all the constraints and which are contextual subject specific students specific and so on,
what should the teacher do.
In the earlier unit we understood instruction for Metacognitive learning.
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In this unit we will say, understand what the teacher can do in his instructional situation. Here
instructional situation which we have elaborated in one of the earlier units is different for
different subjects, different institutions, different managements, different teachers and so on.
Because situation is different how should a teacher plan or what is it that he can do? It is a
kind of a summary type of thing that we will do in this unit.
So, first start with teachers. One is very clear - teachers are the major change agents and
create the future. Teachers should also strongly believe in this and management should also
believe in that. There is no other change agent that we have; it is the teachers that play the
major role of change agents.
They are the main facilitators of learning of students. They never undergo any training in
facilitating learning that is an unfortunate part of it. If you know the subject, it is not
equivalent to your ability to facilitate learning. NATE, this particular course is an attempt to
provide support to engineering teachers. So, several things are presented in NATE.
Of course, all of them will not be applicable in all contexts, in all subjects, in all situations.
But each teacher can pick some elements from what has been presented. You can further
learn about that, and hopefully you can make use of it in your own context and scores.
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Now, this is something that everybody is familiar but let us summarize. Engineering
Education in India has three tire system for engineering programs, universities, deemed to be
universities; private universities; autonomous colleges and non-autonomous colleges. So,
these, the way it is offer is not uniform across the country.
Centrally funded institutions, IITs and NIT’s, Central universities, and a small number of
semi public institutions, like some of the IIITs, recruit faculty and admit students through
elaborate selection processes. That is you are making sure you have good faculty as well as
good students.
The self financing and private universities have already varying qualities. There are some
good places, but there are of very varying quality and more than 90 percent of engineering
colleges in India are self financing and non-autonomous institutions. So, this is a picture of
engineering education in India.
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Now, as 90 percent are now non-autonomous institutions, let us look at a little more in this.
The students entering non-autonomous institutions have widely varying competencies,
cognitive abilities, and motivations. Some how at some point of time, it was considered by
everybody, one can easily get into engineering education. So, the system kind of adopted to
such an extent, anyone who scored 35 percent marks or just passing marks in 12th is eligible
for engineering education, which is an unfortunate thing. Because any subject is not for
everyone.
Curricula and instruction in non-autonomous institutions cannot and should not emulate what
happens in the IIT’s and the NIT’s. First of all, it is a very bad practice to directly take IIT’s
or NIT’s curriculum and on top of that many boards of studies they add more material on top
of what they borrow from IIT and NIT curricula.
Motivations and knowledge of higher education vary considerably among non-autonomous

institutions. Motivations of both the students and management and teachers - they vary
considerably. Many of these institution being non-autonomous maintaining financial viability
and quality of learning together is a major challenge to many institutions. The institution has
to be financially viable. That means number of seats filled should exceed some limit for it to
be financially viable because it only can work with what the fees student pay. With that kind
of thing, the quality of learning becomes a major challenge.
With many options available for carriers now, in today's context, the demand for engineering
programs is reducing. As you can see, every day you hear about the engineering colleges
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getting closed, and one of the most recent report by one committee of AICTE, it
recommended something like more than 200 colleges across the country to be closed, because
they do not seem to have the sufficient input, sufficient faculties, sufficient seats are not
filled. So, obviously things are not happening right. So, that is the current situation.
Coming to management's both of private universities non-autonomous and autonomous

colleges, they do play very- very dominant role. First requirement of management is the
financial viability, which requires admissions to be high, say greater than 75 percent and need
to ensure recognition by AICTE and accreditation by NBA and sometimes by NAAC.
So, they have to ensure the recognition. AICTE has some stipulations every year you have to
submit some current status of your programs and based on that, they will make a judgment
whether something should be done like reduce the number of seats available to a program or
stop some program and so on.
Management assume admissions will be high, if past percentages are high and placements are
good. Unfortunately, this high pass percentage and placements or the way it is going on are at
variance. Strictly speaking, better percentage marks means better learning and leads to better
placements. But in Indian context, High Pass percentages, do not ensure good placements and
managements also expect faculty to perform to meet all this somewhat contradictory
requirements.
824
Managements how do they communicate their expectations? Through HOD’s - HODs are
responsible for something they are answerable to the management so, they play safe and they
translate that into very rigid processes that prevent good learning. So, the main goal is high
pass percentages should be achieved in all courses, whether students are good or not, does not
matter, they have to achieve high pass percentages.
Now, let us come to teachers of non-autonomous colleges. The teachers themselves are
mostly products of affiliated and non-autonomous institutions and have varying competencies
and communication abilities. You have to acknowledge that they are also products of a
similar what we would consider not so good a system. So, they are ill equipped particularly
with respect to teaching and learning. On top of that nobody gets formally trained in teaching
and learning.
If you have a required degree, you are automatically a teacher. They find it difficult to
instruct on overloaded curriculum. Some of faculty in spite of knowing all this, any board of
studies that you take anywhere in the country when they are sitting in the place, they seem to
want their students to learn more and more and more, and they take it as a prestigious issue in
the process they overloaded the curriculum.
Anywhere, you make a survey of the curricula of many of these universities, which have
large number of affiliated colleges; the curriculum is certainly overloaded, especially with
respect to the kind of students they get.
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The teachers also consider the time, which is almost about 30 percent spent in the
administration and documentation activity as an additional burden. They some more consider
their role is only to teach. All the administrative activity related to the teaching-learning is an
additional burden. When you consider it as additional burden either you try to avoid and keep
complaining about it.
Also teach teachers they need to operate in a very constrained environment. If something
does not happen, it is the teachers who get blamed by the management saying that they are
not putting-in enough effort. So, they end up taking extra classes. But by just putting pressure
on the teachers, you cannot correct the inherent systemic issues. Especially for me, the most
important one is the overloaded curriculum.
With all these limitations, a teacher can still make a difference to the quality of learning. So,
what is the answer? How can you do it, use at least some elements of NATE. I am not
marketing the course on NATE. But in it, some elements are presented in this all of them one
cannot use at least use some elements you think you can use, because we have no other
option we have to work in a very constrained environment. As teacher you are concerned
about the quality of learning of your students, so please you should use some elements of
NATE.
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To start with, feel positive that you want to and can make a difference. Again, we always feel
that you know the system is so bad, so spoiled over a long time, there is nothing much you
can do; so, let us take it very easy path, do the minimum that is expected and forget about the
process otherwise. But first, unless you feel positive that you want to and can make a
difference; some teachers inherently do feel, fortunately, we have at least 10 to 15 percent of
the teachers who do have that sense of the commitment and the feel positive about it.
We also know very little about how brain functions and how people learn, but based on
purely experience and now in today's context based on Educational Neuroscience. We do
know something about how brains learn and how people learn. One thing teachers should
realize that emotions greatly influence learning. Emotions would mean if the student has a
negative emotion about whatever is participating, you can be assured that the learning does
not take place. So, it is a teacher's role to ensure that negative emotion is not associated with
anything that is happening in the classroom.
Acknowledge and list the factors that influence learning in your instructional situation. So,
what we suggest is, every teacher should list the factors (this is for his own consumption, he
does not have to share it with anyone) that influence learning in your particular situation.
First of all, acknowledge that, that means you are acknowledging to yourself these are all the
factors that influencing the learning by our students.
In those factors, identify the factors that you can or want to influence. So, at least you can
identify out of maybe 15-20. Out of that you can make at least two or three factors that you
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can influence. Do not be in a hurry to generalize your personalized personal experiences. This
is what everybody does in spite of knowing otherwise.
That is they all the time ‘when somebody states something no, no, it does not happen that
way. It happens this way’. That means you are generalizing your personal experiences is what
happens in all places. And for some reason, everybody does this. You generalize your
personal experiences. So caution yourself and do not be in a hurry to generalize your personal
experiences.
Further, these are all some simple thing it looks like some good statements to make. But I am
only presenting something that is doable in a given environment. Form groups with
colleagues of the department-institute and on the internet exclusively for teaching learning
activities. One constructs knowledge more effectively through social interactions, or group
activities.
This I can assure you my personal experience, especially with regard to some subjects in
electronics that is working with another colleague of yours can greatly influence the quality
of the course that you can offer. So, start forming groups with colleagues. Generally faculty
they do not want to consult their colleagues, they will only share the sort of social issues, or
the institutional issues; who is good or is bad, but very rarely people form groups with
colleagues that is related to teaching and learning.
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So, if you can make a habit of that, if you do not want to interact with your next door
neighbor, you form a group with somebody on the internet - these days that is possible. You
can post questions and you can get their opinions and in that process, both the persons will
learn.
We are responsible for all aspects including administration, documentation of teaching and
learning. So, do not consider again, do not feel bad about the documentation that is related to
accreditation or regulation. Regulatory aspects and accreditation demands a lot of
documentation related to teaching and learning. So, do not feel bad saying that I am
unnecessarily made to waste a lot of time on documentation. That is part of the academic
work actually. But and these days, the ICT tools will make the life easier with that.
Also once you master that, it is not a continuously incremental load. That is every semester,
you do not have to do so elaborately. First time when you do it, you will feel it is a burden.
So, first mentally you should feel responsible for that aspect. That it is considered as your
part of the job you can say.
The program especially the core courses is the responsibility of all Faculty of the department.
Whether you know that particular subject or not, but the core courses are really the
responsibility of all faculty of the department. You should treat your department colleagues
as the members of the team. This is your department, this is your program, and all members
need to contribute. So, if you are able to work as a team, obviously your students will learn
better.
Learn to document your own observations and reflections and be willing to share where
required. Just because you document your own observations and reflections, it does not mean
they need to be shared/you are required to share. But at least if you write if you are very clear
about that, if you can write you will be clear about your understanding.
So, I always recommend that both the students and teachers should constantly document their
observations and reflections. It is an excellent learning tool for learning yourself, whether it is
a subject or about the processes; either way, if you keep documenting, you will learn better
and better.
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Further try new instructional methods and you should note down. You should note that when
new experiment is conducted, it is not necessary that it will work first time because there are
so many aspects about learning. You consider at some level a particular instruction method
will be very effective with respect to a subject or with respect to a group of students.
Just because it does not work for the first time, please do not abandon it. And you should
keep adjusting the method and observations a little more and keep trying it. Generally unless
you try something three, four times, it does not get streamlined. So, you need to have patience
for that.
Use ICT as much as you can. Any experiment that you do if you use ICT for various aspects
of your instruction, it will be easier and also it will be effective because you cannot remember
everything that has happened. After a few days you are likely to forget the detail. But if we
use ICT tools, everything is available to you already somewhere documented.
Note that maximum impact can be made through assessment. We have emphasized this
several times, it is assessment that drives learning and it is the quality of assessment that
determines the quality of learning. But whenever you alter assessment from the existing
practice, students need to be informed and get prepared. It should not come as a surprise
either in the class test or in the final exam that they did not expect that kind of questions or
that kind of assessment. So, they need to be prepared.
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We need to facilitate students to attain program outcomes as given by NBA. That is the
requirement; nobody has any choice anymore on that. So, you should constantly think of how
do I ensure the attainment of this program outcomes and program specific outcomes, though I
am only dealing with a small number of courses.
Keep spending some time in understanding how people learn and pedagogy of engineering
education because that is our job. As teachers, we are in the business of facilitating people to
learn. So, to the extent we should constantly equip ourselves are better ourselves in doing our
job better, which means we need to understand how people learn in different contexts, or
students with different abilities. So, you have infinite number of factors that are influencing.
So, how do I keep facilitating people to learn?
Now, we also want to talk about teachers and students, how should students look at teachers
how teachers should look at students? First thing is teachers should keep reminding
themselves that they exist because of students. If students are not there we are not there; we
do not have those jobs. So, to that extent, you should not, no teacher should ever consider
students as a nuisance.
Students can be challenges. All students are not the same each student has come with his or
her own background. And they can be challenges but they are not adversaries. So, no teacher
should consider students as adversaries. Also it is like this teachers need to work with the
students they have. You do not have any choice. Because that is the type of institute you are
in, you get some students, you have to work with them; and cannot expect to have ideal
831
students. See my students do not work or they do not have abilities. How can I teach, these all
are useless you cannot get into that kind of statements.
Once again about instructional situation, each one of us are stuck with a particular
instructional situation, which contains certain type of students, certain type of management,
and certain type of infrastructure and so on and on. So, you have to work with them and do
not ever expect to have ideal students.
Another thing about the students coming two or four year engineering program, they come in
an age group somewhere between 17 and 21. In that age group, the requirements of students
are many in addition to learning as per the curriculum. So, you have to acknowledge that and
why they are in that particular position is because of the hormones you can say.
Because the way the students in the age group look at the world are not the same the way let
us say somebody who is 35 or more years, looks at the world, and they are in the process of
growing and in fact we need to support them during the process. Some of them will end up
with a lot of what he called wrong endings to their programs. So, the requirement of a teacher
is to understand how the students behave in that age group and at least ensure the system
provides the required support.
Let us look at things teacher can do. Discuss with colleagues and write the context overview
of course you teach which will not be very difficult. Rewrite if necessary the course outcomes
for the course whose syllabus is given by the university that addresses a selected subset of
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POs in collaboration with your colleagues. The process we have already given you as a part
of OBE that is module 1. So, write course outcomes properly, if you want rewrite course
outcomes for the same syllabus.
Design the courses in the framework of ADDIE and document the same. Once you do that,
incremental improvements will greatly help. Design good item banks with proper tagging for
all the courses you teach with inputs from the internet, and colleagues, share them with the
department. These are the things that teachers can do.
Do not limit yourself to lecturing; do not only hang on to the instruction method of lecturing
for in a 55 minute class or one hour class, you are talking more than 50 minutes in the
classroom. You have to do in some cases, but do not limit yourself only to that process.
Select an instructional approach from the approaches presented in NATE and from others
who have explored. Identify your preference for a particular instructional approach for each
CO (Course Outcome or competency and you should be able to write reasons for your choice.
You document initially for your own consumption and generate the instructional material in
the form that can be shared.
Actually, this is what teacher can do in this area. This is called SOTL - Scholarship of
Teaching and Learning because you should treat your classroom as a laboratory for your
research. What is your area of research, teaching and learning and everyday you have access
to the laboratory. So to that extent, you are collecting lots of data, you are experiencing and if
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you are able to document that and you are experimenting in that, this can be shared. And in
fact, you can publish.
That is what all teachers can do, because they have access to the laboratory. They have access
to subjects and they are doing it every day. So, your experience is phenomenal in that form.
So, you can make use of this opportunity and you can contribute to a SOTL that is
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
Make effort in making students engage with new knowledge and skills they are expected to
attain. You must provide time and facility for students to engage with the new knowledge,
not just listen to the new knowledge; they must engage with that. Keep learning about
teaching-learning and the brain. There is plenty of literature you do not have to buy any
books there are plenty of them are available on internet. So, you should make it a habit to
keep learning about teaching and learning and the brain.
We request you to write about the activities you undertook, despite all the limitations of your
instructional situation, to facilitate learning by your students. Whatever experiments you have
done if you feel positive about it, please write maximum 500 words and we thank you for
sharing your output of your effort with us.
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With M3 unit 8, we come to the end of limited presentations on instruction. We have not
presented you all the instructional methods and approaches that are there in the literature. So,
we presented some of them and with this unit 8 we come to an end.
Good instruction practices are many and each one is context dependent subject specific and
teacher dependent. So, there is no universal good method of instruction. There are many, the
remaining units of this module 3 address the criteria of NBA.
So, from U M 3 U9 from that to the rest of the course, we address each criteria of NBA (there
are 10 criteria of NBA and each criterion has some sub criteria) and we will present how to
deal with this each criteria, in what way it will have effect into effect on your instruction.
We will also recommend some ways and means of effectively meeting the sub criteria related
to that. But what you should remember the sub criteria and the way it is measured, the
attainment of each criterion is measured and translated into some marks and what kind of
exhibits you should create those are the ones that decide preparing SAR for your department.
So, we will try to talk about all those aspects about the marks that you have for each sub
criterion and also the kind of exhibits that you have to prepare for presentation to the visiting
committee of NBA. That will be the goal of remaining units of Module 3. Thank you very
much.
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Lecture 49
NBA Criterion 1 Vision, Mission, PEOs 1
Greetings, welcome to module 3, unit 9 on Vision, Mission and Program Educational

Objectives part 1.
In the earlier unit, we understood what a teacher can do in her instructional situation. With
that unit, we completed the discussion about instruction.
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Now, we will commence detailed discussion of all the 10 criteria of SAR, both for tier 1 and
tier 2 Institutes. So, in this unit, we will look at criterion 1, which is concerned with vision,
mission and PEOs of the department. The outcome for this unit is - understand the nature of
vision, mission and PEOs of the department. We will look at sub-criteria 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 in
this unit. We will look at the remaining two separate area that is 1.4 and 1.5 in the next unit.
A quick recap of the 10 criteria of the SAR. We looked at this table in module 1. We can see
that there are 10 criteria and this is true for both tier I and tier II Institutes. The total marks
also remain same for both types of Institutes; we have thousand marks for tier I as well as for
tier II Institute the number of criteria is also same.
However, the individual marks allocated to different criteria may differ for tier I Institute
from those of tier II Institute. They may remain same or they could be different. For example,
for the criterion 5, the marks is 200 for tier 1, as well for tier 2 Institutes. However, for
criterion 1, 50 marks are allocated for tier 1 Institute, while for tier 2 Institute it is 60 marks.
So, there can be some differences between a tier 1 institute and a tier 2 institute.
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Each criterion has several sub-criteria also. The number of sub-criteria under a given criterion
and marks allocated to them may be different for tier 1 Institute from those of tier 2 Institute.
For each sub-criterion, certain exhibits, contexts are to be observed and assessed by the
visiting team.
Department must have the required exhibits ready for assessment by the visiting team. It is
very important that the required exhibits are properly indexed for easy retrieval. The
department can choose any convenient indexing mechanism, but it must be able to retrive the
required document very quickly.
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Criterion 1 is concerned with Vision, Mission and Program Educational Objectives that is
PEOs of the program for which accreditation is being sought. This particular criterion, its
sub-criteria, the required processes and the exhibits are all the same for both tier 1 and tier 2
Institutes. However, the allocation of marks is different.
There are five sub-criteria 1.1 to 1.5; 1.1 state the vision and mission of the department and
Institute. Five marks for tier 1, as well as for tier 2. 1.2 state the PEOs, 5 mark for tier 1 and 5
marks for tier 2. 1.3 indicate where and how the vision, mission and PEOs are published and
disseminated among stakeholders. Here there are 15 marks for a tier 1 Institute while there
are only 10 marks for a tier 2 Institute.
1.4 state the process for defining the vision and mission of the department and PEOs of the
program. 15 marks for a tier 1 Institute while it is 25 marks for a tier 2 Institute. 1.5 establish
consistency of PEOs with Mission of the department; it is 10 marks for tier 1 Institute while it
is 15 marks for tier 2 Institute. Thus the total under criterion 1 for a tier 1 Institute is 50
marks, while it is 60 marks for a tier 2 Institute.
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Now, let us look at the sub-criterion 1.1, which is ‘state the vision and mission of the
department and Institute’. Allocation of marks is same for both tier 1 and tier 2 Institutes. The
guidelines for evaluation are that the department must make available to the visiting team the
vision and mission statements of the department - it carries 1 mark. Appropriateness,
relevance of the statements - 2 marks; consistency of the department statements with the
institute statements - 2 marks; a total of 5 marks.
The exhibits context to be observed and assessed: availability of the vision and mission
statements of the department, the statement should be available.
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The second guideline is that the statements must be appropriate and relevant. The visiting
team examines the correctness from the definition perspective. It is subjective evaluation by
the visiting team. So, the statements must be reasonable and relevant. This is evaluated by the
visiting team based on their subjective perception of the quality of the vision and mission
statements.
The third guideline is to examine the country consistency of the department statements with
the institute statements. This is again based on the subjective perception of the visiting team.
Now, let us look at the vision and mission statements of the department. The vision
represents the aspirations of the department where the department wants to see itself down
the road, maybe after 5 to 6 years. Growth is implied in the vision. This is in the sense that
the department finds itself at one level and it wants to see itself at a higher level after certain
period of time. That means that the department envisions growth and in the vision statement,
it is better to avoid very heavy and flowery words, like world class excellence.
It is not that these phrases are to be banned altogether. But the vision statement must be
realistic. It is certainly the dream of the department. They do represent the aspirations of the
department. However, the vision must be realistic. In general, it is better to avoid too flowery
phrases. Typically, the vision is represented in one sentence or two sentences at most. It
should be brief and crisp. And the vision must result from a well defined and recorded
process. We will look at the process for defining the vision subsequently.
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Vision is where the department wants to be in the feature. Mission is what the department
does to get there. So, the mission represents the specific plans for realizing the vision.
Typically, mission can be expressed in 2 to 4 sentences. As with vision statement, it is better
to avoid flowery phrases like Global excellence.
If the department is at a fairly advanced level, and if it feels capable of reaching the global
standards, it is okay to include such phrases. Otherwise, generally it is better to avoid flowery
phrases. Mission also must result from a well-defined and a recorded process. We will
discuss again later, the process for defining the mission of the department.
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Vision and Mission of the department must be consistent with the vision and mission of the
Institute. That is the reason that the SAR includes the statement of the vision and mission of
the Institute also in criterion 1. However, the vision and mission of the Institute are included
here, only to check whether the vision and mission of the department are consistent with the
vision and mission of the Institute.
The evaluation of the quality of the vision and mission statements of the Institute is addressed
in criterion 10. So, in this criterion the vision and mission of the Institute are not evaluated.
They are included here, only to enable the visiting team to check whether the vision and
mission of the department are consistent with the vision and mission of the Institute.
Samples of Vision and Mission statements: there is considerable variation in the vision and
mission statements of departments and institutes. They depend on the specific context in
which the institute is functioning and the specific capabilities of the department concerned.
So, they do vary considerably.
Such a variation is to be expected, as the aspirations and contexts of different departments

and Institutes do differ significantly. The samples presented here are from some of the
accredited programs, as reported in the websites of those institutions. These are being
presented here for illustrative purposes only. This is not to say that these are the best
statements, not to say that they are very poor statements. But these are the statements of
accredited programs.
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The first sample - the vision of the Institute - to become a leading Engineering Institute, by
providing quality technical education, and research with professional ethics. Mission of the
Institute is expressed in four different statements. We can see that the vision of the Institute is
expressed in a single sentence.
The mission of the Institute is expressed in four statements. The first statement is concerned
with quality education system. The second one is about an ecosystem that encourages
research. The third statement is concerned with industry-institute interface. The fourth
statement is very specific to the context of that institute. It says to enhance educational
opportunities to the rural and weaker sections of the society. This is specific to the context in
which the institute is operating.
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Now, let us look at the Vision and Mission of the department. Vision of the department: to be
recognized as a premier center in the field of mechanical engineering education and the
research that produces competent engineers.
Mission of the department is captured in three statements. The first statement is concerned
with technical education through effective teaching learning processes. The second mission
statement deals with research. The third mission statement is concerned with industry
Institute interface. So, you can examine what is the extent to which the vision and mission of
the department are consistent with the vision and mission of the Institute.
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Another sample vision of the Institute is - to be a premier technical Institute in the country
that innovation driven engineering education, to nurture value based, competent future
professionals. We can see that this statement is slightly more elaborate than the statement
presented in the previous sample.
Mission of the Institute: the institute is committed to put well directed and honest efforts
through teamwork for molding and minds into ethical professionals and the growth of all
stakeholders. You can see that there is a substantial difference between the mission statement
of this institute and the mission statements represented in the previous slides of the previous
Institute.
Vision of the department: to produce quality civil engineers with the knowledge of latest
trends and research technologies to meet the developing needs of industry and society.
Mission of the department: to impart quality education in line with quality teaching learning
process. That is a first statement dealing with the quality education.
The second mission statement deals with an environment that encourages and supports
innovative research and development. The third mission statement, again deals with industry-
academia interface. So, these are typical samples that one can find on the websites of some of
the accredited programs.
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The sub-criterion 1.2 requires the department to state the PEOs. Allocation of marks is same
for both tier 1 and tier 2 Institutes. The evaluation guidelines: Listing of the Program
Educational Objectives (3-5) of the program under consideration for 5 marks. So the
department must have a list of the PEOs of the program for which accreditation is being
sought and the number of PEOs can be between 3 and 5.
The exhibits/contexts to be observed and assessed: The availability and correctness of the
PEOs statements. Availability means that the list is available. The correctness of the PEOs
statements is based on the subjective evaluation by the visiting team.
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PEOs are what the graduates of the program are expected to achieve within 4 to 5 years of
completing the program. The number of PEOs should be between 3 and 5. PEOs also must
result from a well defined and recorded process. Notice that the vision of the department, the
mission of the department, and the PEOs of the program must all result from a well defined,
recorded process. We have already discussed PEOs in module 1 unit 6; a sample from that
unit is reproduced here.
Graduates of BE in Electrical and Electronics Engineering Program, four years after

graduation will engage in designing, manufacturing, testing, operating and/or maintaining
systems in the field of Electrical and Electronics Engineering and allied engineering
industries. This is the first PEO.
This is followed by three more PEOs, the second PEO deals with solving problems of social
elements. The third PEO is concerned with working effectively as individuals as well as team
members. The fourth PEO, talks about lifelong learning. So, this is a typical sample of the
PEOs of a department.
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Sub-criterion 1.3 indicate where and how the vision, mission and PEOs are published and
disseminated among stakeholders. The allocation of marks is different for tier 1 and tier 2
Institutes. There are three guidelines for evaluation, adequacy in respect of publication &
dissemination; Process of dissemination among the stakeholders; and extent of awareness of
vision and mission and PEOs among the stakeholders.
So, there are three guidelines. The marks for a tier 1 Institute are different from the marks for
a tier 2 Institute. The marks for the three guidelines are 3, 3 and 9 totaling 15 for tier 1
Institute; they are 2, 2 and 6 total in 10 for a tier 2 Institute.
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The first exhibit to be assessed by the visiting team is concerned with the adequacy of
dissemination of vision, mission and PEOs of the department. It is very important that all the
stakeholders are familiar with the vision, mission and PEOs of the department. So, it must be
available, it must be disseminated among all the stakeholders. Some of the ways by which
these can be disseminated among the stakeholders are shown here.
They can be made available on the Institute website under the relevant program link. They
can be displayed on the notice boards of the departments. They can be displayed prominently
in the chamber of the HOD as well as in the faculty rooms. They can also be displayed in the
laboratories, classrooms, library and seminar hall of the department. They can be displayed
on the Department website if one is available. In the department level documents, course
study, including test booklets, laboratory records etcetera also, one can make these three
statements of available. The vision, mission and PEOs can be printed in the department level
documents also.
The next evaluation guideline is concerned with the process of dissemination. Documentary
evidence to indicate the process which ensures awareness among internal and external
stakeholders with effective process implementation. Internal stakeholders may include
management, members of bodies like Governing board, Academic Council, faculty, support
staff, students, etcetera. External stakeholders may include alumni, employers, industry
etcetera. We need a process for disseminating vision missions and PEOs among the
stakeholders.
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The stakeholders change, new students join the institute every year, new faculty and support
staff join the institute, Members of governing body Academic Council may change. So, the
stakeholders change over a period of time. The new stakeholders also must be familiar with
the vision mission and PEOs of the program.
Thus we need a process which ensures such dissemination. A process must be established and
implemented to ensure that the information regarding vision, mission and PEOs is
disseminated periodically and also when the stakeholders change.
A department level committee must be constituted to ensure such timely dissemination of the
information. An internal quality assurance self, if it exists, can coordinate with the committee
in this regard. Records of communication must be maintained. There are some considerations
common to any process in the context of SAR. We will discuss these common considerations
of the notion of a process in the next unit.
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The third guideline is to assess the extent of awareness. This is based on the interaction that
the visiting team will have with internal and external stakeholders. It is essential that all the
stakeholders are well aware of the vision, mission and PEOs of the department. Such an
awareness must get reflected clearly during the interactions with the visiting team.
While the visiting team is interacting with the stakeholders, the stakeholders must be able to
articulate clearly their understanding of the vision, mission and the PEOs. It would be helpful
if the department discusses its vision, mission and PEOs in all its periodic meetings with the
stakeholders. This will ensure that the stakeholders become confident of expressing their
perceptions regarding vision, mission and PEOs. It ensures that the awareness of vision,
mission and PEOs is high among all the stakeholders.
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Two Exercises for you, comment on the samples of vision, mission and PEOs provided in
this presentation; indicate the vision and mission of your institute and the vision mission and
PEOs of your department. PEOs will be for the specific program for which accreditation is
being sought. Thank you for sharing the results of the exercise at nate.iiscta@gmail.com.
In the next unit, we will continue with criterion 1 of SAR. The outcome for the next unit will
be - understand the process for defining the vision, mission and PEOs of the program for
which accredition is being sought. This is elaborated in sub-Criteria 1.4 and 1.5 of the
criterion 1 of SAR. Thank you
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Lecture 50
NBA Criterion 1 Vision, Mission, PEOs - 2
Greetings, welcome to Module 3 unit 10 Vision, Mission and PEOs part 2.
In the previous unit, we understood the nature of Vision, Mission and PEOs. We looked at
this sub-criteria 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 of criterion 1 of SAR.
In this unit will look at the processes for defining the vision, mission and PEOs and
understand the nature of the correlation between PEOs and mission elements. So, the
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outcomes are the first outcome is - understand the processes for defining the vision, mission
and PEOs. The second outcome is - understand the nature of the matrix of PEOs and
elements of mission statements and justifications for their correlations. This is the concern of
the sub-criterion 1.4 and 1.5.
In the previous unit, we saw that sub-criterion 1.3 requires the details of the process for
dissemination of the Vision, Mission and PEOs among all the stakeholders. That means, that
sub-criteria requires the details of the process. Sub-criteria 1.4 and 1.5 also require
descriptions of some processes, as we shall see presently.
Many other criteria in a SAR require descriptions of certain processes. Whenever the word
process is used in SAR document, its meaning implies three aspects. The first aspect is
concerned with the formulation of the process itself, the process must be formulated. The
second aspect is notification of the process to all the concerned. The third aspect is the
implementation of the process. So, whenever we use the word process all these three facets of
the process are implied.
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Process formulation, a clear description of the activities that constitute the process must be
provided. The textual description can be supplemented with a graphic presentation. This will
be quite effective in making the process clear.
The second aspect is that the process must be intimated to all the stakeholders concerned.
Notification to all the concern for each process the department must maintain the list of the
stakeholders to whom the process document needs to be communicated. The stakeholders can
be internal stakeholders, as well as external stakeholders.
The department must have a list of all the stakeholders to whom the process documents need
to be communicated. Department must maintain a record indicating the communication of the
process document to the stakeholders concerned. We must have a record showing that the
process has been communicated to the stakeholders. This becomes part of the process
implementation record.
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The third aspect of a process is the implementation of the process. The process must be
implemented in its true spirit, as stated in the process document and implementation records
must be maintained. We must have evidence that the process has been implemented
appropriately.
As an example, assume that process document specifies that a brainstorming session must be
held with all the stakeholders. A record must be maintained of the implementation of this step
of the process. It means that a record must be available to show that a brainstorming session
indeed was held. The record must include details like the date on which the brainstorming
took place, members present, signatures of the members and the minutes of the session,
etcetera. These records must be maintained separately.
These are different from the process document. The process document is a description of how
the process is planned to be implemented. The implementation records show evidence that
the process has actually been implemented.
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Thus wherever SAR specifies process, the department must have two separate sets of
documents. A process document must be available. These documents give the details of how
the process is proposed to be implemented. Then the department must have implementation
records including the communication to the stakeholders concerned and the detailed records
of process implementation.
Now, let us look at sub-criterion 1.4. It says - state the process for defining the vision and
mission of the department and PEOs of the program. Allocation of marks is different for tier
1 and tier 2 Institutes. The description of the process involved in defining vision and mission
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of the department - tier 1 Institutes will have 7 marks, while tier 2 Institutes will have 10
marks.
Description of the process involved in defining the PEOs of the program - there are 8 marks
for a tier 1 Institute, and there are 15 marks for tier 2 Institute. The total marks for this sub-
criterion would be 15 for a tire 1 Institute while it would be 25 for a tier 2 institute. The sub-
criterion 1.4 is concerned with the definition of the processes - a process for defining the
vision and mission and a process for defining the PEOs.
Exhibits/context to be observed and assessed: documentary evidence to indicate the process,

which ensures effective participation of internal and external stakeholders with effective
process implementation. We already noted that a process implies all the three aspects.
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Description of the process involved in defining the Vision, Mission of the department. Each
department can develop its own process for defining its vision and mission. An outcome
outline of a such process would be as follows - a brainstorming with all the stakeholders
concerned including management, faculty, current students, alumni, employers and industry
experts. The department could invite external academic experts also if it wishes. There can be
multiple follow up sessions.
These brainstorming sessions would lead to the formulation of the vision and mission
statements as a first version. This needs to be validated by experts from academia and
industry. The validation would ensure that the vision and mission of the department are
reasonable and also they are consistent with the vision and mission of the Institute. Such a
validation would always help in ensuring that the department's vision and mission statements
are of good quality.
The above three steps may have to be iterated to arrive at the final version. If the process of
validation leads to a requirement to revisit the vision and mission statements at the
brainstorming level, we may have to repeat the three steps again. So, there can be several
iterations before a final version is reached.
This is only an outline of the process. The actual details of the process would vary from
department to department. But the typical features would be a brainstorming session, a
validation and iteration before the final versions are produced.
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It is a good practice to establish a departmental level committee that can assume the
responsibility for this process. If the institute has an Internal Quality Assurance Cell, it must
be involved in the process to ensure uniformity and quality across all the departments of the
Institute.
The vision and mission of the Institute must be defined first evidently; the vision and mission
of the department must be compatible with the vision and mission of the Institute. The vision
and mission statements must be reviewed periodically to ensure their quality and relevance.
Such a review can be done once every 5 to 6 years. The need for such a review is also
included in the definition of the process.
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This is one sample of the process being followed by the department which has an accredited
program. You can see that the first step of the process is concerned with brainstorming
session. The brainstorming session would be with the faculty and students of the department
only.
So, this department wishes to have initially a brainstorming session with only the internal
stakeholders. That is perfectly alright. But note that this is a brainstorming session, not a one
way communication of the perceptions. It must involve discussions and multi-way exchange
of opinions. It is a brainstorming session, not an information collection session.
The preliminary version of the vision and mission statements is presented in a meeting with
all the stakeholders concerned, including management, faculty, current students, alumni,
employers and industry experts. So, the brainstorming session with all the stakeholders is
considered as the second step in the process. This would lead to the next version of the vision
and mission.
The updated version of the Vision and Mission is presented in the meeting of the
Departmental Advisory Board that consists of the stakeholders representing faculty industry
and alumni. So, this department has defined a process which has certain hierarchical nature.
Vision and mission statements are reviewed and the next version is developed in this meeting
of the Departmental Advisory Board.
The updated version of the Vision, Mission is validated by academic experts from university
and other reputed institutions. Modifications are made as per their suggestion. If the
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modifications are too many, the process may return to the first step. So, the iterations are
possible. If the modifications are minor, then the version after the suggested modifications
becomes the near final version of the vision and mission.
Then, this version of the vision and mission would be fine tuned in a meeting involving again
all the stakeholders concerned as well as experts from the academia. This would lead to the
formulation of the final version of the vision and mission statement. The Vision and Mission
statement of the department are reviewed and modified over a period of about 4 to 5 years
following the above procedure. So, the department can depict this process pictorially also in a
diagram such as a flowchart, in fact this pictorial representation is strongly recommended.
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The second guideline for evaluation in the sub-criterion 1.4 is description of the process
involved in defining the PEOs of the program. The process for defining the PEOs is broadly
similar to the process for defining the vision and mission of the department. Thus, the process
would include similar steps of brainstorming among the stakeholders, validation by the
experts, iterations as required and so on.
However, the vision and mission of the department must be compatible with the vision and
mission of the Institute. PEOs, on the other hand, are to be correlated to the elements of
mission statements of the department. In other words, the PEOs of the program for which
accreditation is being sought are to be derived from the mission statements of the department.
PEOs must be correlated to the mission statements of the department. But for this small
change, the process for defending the PEOs is quite similar to the process for defining the
vision and mission of the department.
Sub-criterion 1.5 deals with the consistency of the PEOs with the mission of the department.
Establish consistency of PEOs with mission of the department. Allocation of marks is
different for tier 1 and tier 2 Institutes. There are two guidelines. The first one says that a
matrix of the PEOs and the elements of mission statement must be available - preparation of a
matrix of PEOs and elements of mission statements. Here, the marks are 5 for tier 1 Institute
as well as for tier 2 Institute.
The second evaluation guideline is concerned with assessing the consistency or justification
of the correlation parameters of the above matrix. This is again, the subjective evaluation by
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the visiting committee. The marks allocated for a tier 1 Institute are 5 while the marks
allocated for tier 2 Institute are 10. Thus the total marks under sub-criterion 1.5 would be 10
for tier 1 Institute, while it would be 15 for tier 2 Institute.
The exhibits/context is to be observed and assessed: Availability of a matrix having PEOs

and mission elements. The matrix having PEOs and mission elements must be available. The
second guideline is concerned with the quality of the justification for each element mapped in
the matrix. This is based on the subjective evaluation by the visiting team. The department
provides the justification;, the justification provided is evaluated for its quality by the visiting
team.
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This is an example of how such a matrix would look. This is the matrix of PEOs and
elements of mission statements. We have n PEOs equals PEO 1, PEO 2 and so on up to PEO
n. Then we have certain phrases from the mission department, mission of the statement, M1,
M2 up to Mk. Note that M1, M2 and so on are not total missions statements. They are key
phrases from the mission statements.
They are distinct elements of the mission statements; they capture some key aspects of the
mission statements. The correlation is established between PEOs and such distinct elements
of mission statements.
The correlation is quantized, the correlation levels need to be entered as 1 or 2 or 3. 1 means

that the correlation is low or slight; 2 means that the correlation is moderate or medium; 3
means that the correlation is substantial or is very high. If there is no correlation, the
department is expected to put simply a ‘dash’ in the matrix. So, in this matrix, each cell is
filled with a value of 1 or 2 or 3 or is marked as a ‘dash’ indicating that there is no
correlation.
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The department must justify the correlation entries made in the matrix. Every mapping
between a PEO and an element of the mission statement shown in the matrix must be
justified. The justification can be quite brief but it must be to the point. The justification may
be presented in one or two sentences.
Quality of the justification is evaluated by the visiting team. This will be based on the subject
to perception of the evaluators. It is better to have a justification, which is brief, terse, logical
and to the point. It is better to avoid verbose and vague justifications.
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As an example of how the justification can be provided. We have one example. This example
is again taken from the documents of an accredited program. PEO4 states - act with global,
ethical, societal and ecological awareness expected of practicing engineering professionals.
There is an element from mission 3 statement which talks of responsible citizens with social,
ethical and environmental awareness. We are not showing here the full mission statement.
This is a phrase from the mission statement 3. The correlation between PEO4 and this phrase
from mission 3 is marked as 3, meaning the correlation is substantial.
The justification provided by the department is as follows. The learning environment

provided in the college is designed to mould the students into responsible citizens with social,
ethical, and environmental awareness. This coupled with the program curriculum will lead
graduates to act with global, ethical, societal and ecological awareness. As the correlation
between the element of the mission statement and the PEO is very strong, it is marked as 3
indicating substantial correlation.
Another example, PEO2 - be successful professionals contributing to the society as

responsible citizens with proven technical expertise. A phrase from mission statement 3 talks
of learning environment conducive for acquiring professional competence. The mapping
between PEO2 and this phrase of the mission statement is marked as 2 that is moderate.
The justification provided is as follows. The learning environment provided in the college is
designed to promote professional competence. This enables the graduates to be successful
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professionals known for technical competence. You can imagine yourself to be the evaluator
and decide on the quality of this justification.
Couple of exercises: describe the processes followed in your department for defining its
vision, mission and PEOs of the program being offered by the department. Another exercise -
show the matrix of PEOs elements of mission statements and provide your justification for
the indicated correlations. Thank you for sharing the results of the exercise at
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We will look at the criterion 2 of SAR in the next unit. Understand criterion 2 of SAR. This
criterion is concerned with program curriculum and teaching-learning processes. Thank you.
870
Retired Principal –MSRIT
Lecture 51
NBA Criterion 2 – Teaching-Learning Processes 1
Greetings, welcome to module 3 unit 11. This unit is concerned with criterion 2 of SAR
program curriculum and teaching-learning processes.
In the last unit, we understood the processes used to define the vision, mission and PEOs. We
also looked at the nature of the matrix of PEOs and elements of mission statements and
justification of the correlations. That was criterion 1 of SAR.
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The outcome for this unit is - understand the SAR requirements related to program
curriculum. That is criterion 2 of SAR program curriculum teaching-learning processes. So,
in this unit we will be looking at the sub-criterion 2.1 which is program curriculum. In the
next unit we will look at the next sub-criterion which is 2.2.
Criterion 2 is concerned with program curriculum and teaching-learning processes. The sub-
criteria, the required processes, the allocation of the marks and the required exhibits differ
between tier 1 and tier 2 institutes.
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This is allocation of the marks; there are 2 sub-criteria under criterion 2. 2.1 - program
curriculum; 2.2 - teaching-learning processes for tier 1 institute it is 30 marks and 70 marks
totalling 100 marks. For tier 2, it is 20 marks and 100 marks totalling 120 marks.
Before we proceed at outset, it is worth mentioning that NBA requires fairly large amount of
detail to be provided by the department under this criterion. It can be quite daunting and
taxing task for a department to provide all these details, at least it is going for accreditation
for the first time. However, all the information required is quite logical related to the criterion
and it requires to be provided by the department.
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So, sub-criterion 2.1 program curriculum - for tier 1 institute. There are four sub-criteria -
state the process for designing the program curriculum, note that for tier 1 institute the
curriculum design is responsibility of the department itself. S
o, first sub-criterion deals with the process of designing the program curriculum 10 marks.
Structure of the curriculum, 5 marks; state the components of curriculum 5 marks; the
process used to identify the extent to which the curriculum addresses the POs and PSOs
(State the process used to identify extent of complains of curriculum for attaining the POs
and PSOs), this has 10 marks. So, a total of 30 marks.
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If you look at the guidelines for these sub-criteria, we will get an understanding of
requirements that the department has to meet in order to score well under this criterion. The
process for designing the program curriculum - evaluation guidelines would be the process
used to demonstrate how the program curriculum is evolved and periodically reviewed
considering POs and PSOs.
It is also interesting that NBA expects the industry to be involved in the process of
formulating the curriculum for a tier 1 institute. So, it also looks at the involvement of the
industry. The department must provide documentary evidence to indicate the process which
demonstrates how the program curriculum is evolved and periodically reviewed considering
POs and PSOs.
The department must have a process document and also it must have implementation records.
The implementation records must show the active participation of all the stakeholders
concerned. The process document must specify the composition of the board of studies, the
periodicity of the meeting and the inclusion of the industry in deliberations of the board of
studies. In fact, board of studies can have 1 or 2 members from the industry to ensure that the
curriculum matches requirements of industry also.
The department must also provide the minutes of the meetings of board of studies. Feedback
and review mechanism must be clearly spelled out in the process document. The curriculum
must be mapped to POs and PSOs and the matrix showing the correlations to POs and PSOs
must be available.
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The structural curriculum and components of the curriculum indicate to certain extent quality
of curriculum. The expectations of the NBA are captured in the criterion 2.1.2 and 2.1.3 in
the SAR. It shows that curriculum must be well balanced it must have a structure that is
appropriate for a degree program and the documentary evidence must show that the
curriculum is balanced and appropriate for a degree program.
The components of the curriculum must also be clearly shown. So the structure of the
curriculum must be presented in the tabular format that is provided in SAR - the course code,
course title and credits. It also requires the department to specify the total number of contact
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hours for lecture, for tutorials and for practical. Note that, the relation between the credits
load and the number of contact hours is well defined both by AICTE and UGC.
If the relationship between the total number of contact hours and the credits as shown in this
table differs substantially from the guidelines provided by AICTE it could be a problem. So,
department must show the total number of contact hours also and the total number of contact
hours shown must match with those required for the specified credit structure. Seminars,
project works may be considered as practical for the purpose of entering information into this
table.
Then the components of the curriculum must be shown in the tabular format which is shown
here and this is what is expected from the department as per the SAR. So, course component
can be categorized into basic sciences, engineering sciences, humanities and social sciences,
program core, program electives, open electives, project or projects, internships, seminars and
if there is any other academic component that needs to be specified.
Against each component the percentage of the total number of credits of the program to that
component must be mentioned. Total number of contact hours also must be mentioned and
total number of credits must be mentioned. This table is used to assess the quality of the
components of the curriculum.
Again, guidelines for the curricular components are provided by AICT also generally
university also will have some guidelines regarding the percentages of various curricular
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components. The department can evolve these percentages suitably close to guidelines
provided by AICTE and/or the university.
Sub-criterion 2.1.4 deals with the process used to identify the extent of compliance of the
curriculum for attaining the POs and PSOs. What is the capability of the curriculum in terms
of addressing the POs specified by NBA and PSOs formulated by department?
The process must clearly show how the mapping is established between curriculum and POs
and PSOs. And from this mapping the department must be able to determine the extent to
which the curriculum will enable the students to attain the POs and PSOs. The documentary
evidence must be available to indicate the process which ensures the mapping and
compliance of the curriculum with the POs and PSOs.
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There are many different ways of developing a process document for this purpose. One
sample is shown here - the program articulation matrix which we will see later comes in sub-
criterion 3.1 depicts the correlation between the courses and the POs and PSOs. When we
look at that column, regarding a particular PO the different courses which address that PO are
all shown there.
So if you look at the column average it is a measure of the extent to which the curriculum is
complaint to that particular PO. So, by looking at column averages we can arrive at an
estimate of the extent to which curriculum is addressing different POs and PSOs. A sparse
column shows that the corresponding PO or PSO is not adequately addressed by the
curriculum. That would mean that the curriculum is not addressing that particular PO or PSO
effectively.
Expectations from relevant organizations like AICTE or professional bodies like ACM or
IEEE and industry may also be considered in looking at the quality of the curriculum. The
department must have a process document as well as implementation records.
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The sub-criterion 2.1 program curriculum, but now for a tier 2 institute. The sub-criteria are
state the process used to identify extent of compliance of the university curriculum for
attaining the POs and PSOs. Mention the identified curricular gaps, if any. Recall that for tier
2 institute the curriculum is provided by the university. The department has no role in
designing of the curriculum. But the department must determine the extent to which the
curriculum provided by the university enables the student to attain the POs and PSOs.
So, the department must have a process to identify the extent of compliance of the university
curriculum for attaining the POs and PSOs. The department must note if there are any
curricular gaps. If the curriculum provided by the university is not effectively addressing
certain POs the department must make note of those POs and that becomes the bases for
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identifying the curricular gaps. There are 10 marks for this sub-criteria. If the department
finds that there are curricular gaps then it must organize delivery of content beyond the
syllabus to help the attainment of POs and PSOs which are weakly addressed by curriculum.
State the delivery details of the content beyond the syllabus for the attainment of POs and
PSOs, this sub-criterion carries 10 marks, so the total would be 20 marks.
NBA states that if the POs and PSOs are being demonstrably met through the university
curriculum, then 2.1.2 will not be applicable and the weightage of 2.1.1 will be 20 - the total
marks for this sub-criterion. However, it is very rare to find the university curriculum that can
effectively meet the requirements of all the POs. Most of the cases, the department would be
finding certain curricular gaps.
However, in case the university curriculum is able to effectively address all the POs and
PSOs and if the demonstrations by the departments is satisfactory, then 2.1.2 would not be
relevant.
So, the sub-criterion 2.1.1 requires the department to state the process used to identify the
extent of compliance of the university curriculum for attaining the POs and PSOs. The
process of determining the extent to which the university curriculum addresses the POs and
PSOs effectively can be quite similar to the process followed by a tier 1 institute.
Create the program articulation matrix, look at each individual column to see the extent to
which curriculum is able to address that particular PO so, the process can be quite similar. the
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process which is used for such purposes carries 6 marks. List the curricular gaps for the
attainments of defined POs and PSOs - this aspect carries 4 marks.
We must have the documentary evidence to indicate the process which ensures the mapping
compliance of the university curriculum with the POs and PSOs. And if any gaps are
identified the department must list those gaps. There must be effective participation of
internal and external department stake holders with effective process implementation. The
department must have implementation records to show the effective implementation of the
process.
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The process used to identify the extent of compliance of the university curriculum for
attaining the POs and PSOs can be quite similar to the one described for tier 1 institute as
already mentioned. Identified curricular gaps if any must be listed along with the
justifications for the appropriateness of the identified gaps. The department must provide the
reasoning based on which it identifies the curricular gaps. And the department must
obviously have proper process document and implementation records.
Sub-criterion 2.1.2 requires the department to provide delivery details of the content beyond
the syllabus for the attainment of POs and PSOs. If the department finds that there are gaps in
the curriculum in terms of its ability to address effectively certain POs and/or PSOs, then it
must plan delivery of content beyond the curriculum to help the students attain those POs and
PSOs. It must list the details of the delivery of content beyond the curriculum.
The evaluation guidelines include an examination of the steps taken by the department to get
the identified gaps included in the curriculum. The department must write a letter to
appropriate authorities of the university, either the chairperson of the board of studies and/or
the Registrar of the university indicating the identified curricular gaps and suggesting what
additional courses could be included in the curriculum to make it effective in terms of
addressing all the POs and PSOs. In fact, if the department can maintain a copy of such a
letter written to the university that itself will fetch 2 marks.
There are three guidelines, 1 is the steps taken by the department; 2 is delivery details of
content beyond the syllabus and the third is mapping of the content beyond the syllabus with
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the POs and PSOs. These three aspects carries 2 marks, 5 marks and 3 marks respectively for
a total of 10 marks.
The department must have evidence that it has communicated to the university regarding the
identified curricular gaps, So, a letter to the affiliating university and chairperson, university
board of studies (through proper channels of course) providing inputs and suggestions
regarding curricular gaps and possible addition of new content/add-on courses in the
curriculum to bridge the gap and better attain the program outcomes.
The department must be able to produce evidence of such a communication. It must also have
evidence of a periodic follow up action regarding this issue.
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Delivery details of content beyond the syllabus is the next aspect examined by the committee.
Documentary evidence of delivery details of content beyond the syllabus yearwise in the
specified formats must be provided by the department. For the past three academic years, the
department must provide these details.
Content beyond syllabus may include additional course, learning material, content provided
to the students, laboratory experiments, projects etc. The mapping between the additional
content and the POs/PSOs addressed by that content must be justifiable. Why this additional
content is being provided? What are the POs or PSOs addressed by this additional content?
These details must be provided by the department.
It is a good practice to analyse the impact of the additional content delivered. For example,
the department is offering an add-on course in order to address a particular PO, let us say
PO7, then it is worthwhile for the department to do some kind of survey to assess the extent
to which that add-on course is enabling the student to attain that particular PO in a better way.
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The delivery details of content beyond the syllabus must be provided in the format that is
indicated in the SAR. What is the identified gap? What is the action taken? And when was
that action taken (the date, month and the year)? Resource person with designation, who
provided this additional content or material? How many students attended this program (as a
percentage of total number of students in that class)? And most importantly what is the
relevance to the POs and PSOs? The mapping between the additional content and the POs
and PSOs must be provided. And this mapping must be done with considerable care and it
must be justifiable.
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The next aspect is mapping of the content beyond the syllabus with POs and PSOs which we
have shown here in this last column. Availability and appropriateness mapping table between
the contents delivered and POs and PSOs. As already noted, the mapping between the
additional contents delivered and POs and PSOs must be available and appropriate.
Many departments do initiate and execute a large number of activities in this direction to
address the curricular gaps. However, the departments need to exercise good care is stating
the mappings. Often the content which is delivered may not be really relevant to the PO or
PSO which is listed in the table here.
For example, a department organizes a purely technical course to address some of the latest
developments in the specific domain and the mapping is to some criteria like environment.
Well, the content may really address that particular PO, but quite often it does not have any
relationship to that particular PO.
The departments are sometimes causal in entering the relevant POs and PSOs that would not
be a proper way of completing this table. The department must ensure that the mapping is
proper, appropriate and justifiable.
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An exercise for you - state the process followed by you to establish the extent to which your
curriculum if you are in a tier 1 institute or the university curriculum if you are in a tier 2
institute is addressing the POs and PSOs. Thank you for sharing the results of the exercise at
In the next unit, we will understand the SAR requirements related to the Teaching-Learning
process. This is the Sub-criterion 2.2 of the SAR which is broadly the program curriculum
teaching-learning process. Thank you, we will meet in the next unit. Thank you.
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Retired Principal –MSRIT
Lecture 52
NBA Criterion 2 Teaching-Learning Processes - 2
Greetings, welcome to module 3 unit 12 - Program Curriculum and Teaching-Learning

processes part 2. In the last unit, we understood the SAR requirements related to program
curriculum which was sub-criterion 2.1 of the criterion 2. In this unit, we will look at the sub-
criterion 2.2. So the outcome for this unit is understand the SAR requirements related to the
Teaching-Learning Processes.
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This sub-criterion is concerned with the quality of teaching and learning, examinations and
projects. It is also concerned with interaction with industry, internships, summer training for
the students. In this sub-criterion the department is expected to provide substantial details
regarding all these academic activity. There are five sub-criteria, they are almost similar/same
for both tier 1 and tier 2 institutes though allocations of marks are different.
These are the allocations of marks between tier 1 and tier 2 institutes for the five sub-criteria.
The first sub-criterion is - describe the process followed to improve quality of teaching-
learning. This is an extremely important sub-criterion requiring fairly large amount of detail
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to be provided by the department. The marks allocation is 15 for tier 1 institute and 25 for tier
2 institute.
2.2.2 is concerned with the Quality of end semester examination, internal semester question
papers, assignments and evaluation. 15 and 20 marks. But note that the end semester
examination has no relevance for a tier 2 institute. For a tier 2 institute the end semester
examination is the responsibility of affiliating university.
2.2.3 is concerned with Quality of student projects - 20 marks and 25 marks for tier 1 and tier
2 respectively. 2.2.4 is concerned with the initiatives related to industry interaction and
finally 2.2.5 is about the initiatives related to industry internship/summer training. For a tier 1
institute the total marks comes to 70 while it is 100 for a tier 2 institute.
Let us look at the first sub-criterion 2.2.1 which is related to the process followed to improve
the quality of Teaching-Learning. There are several aspects of the Teaching-Learning process
which are examined by the visiting committee to understand the initiatives of the department
to improve the quality of the Teaching-Learning.
The first guideline is - Adherence to Academic Calendar. Then, Pedagogical initiatives need
to be described; then the department must indicate the Methodologies to support weak
students and encourage bright students. The next aspect is the quality of classroom teaching;
the next aspect is conduct of experiments in laboratories; The next aspect is continues
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assessment in the laboratory. Then finally the visiting team looks at what the department is
doing with the student feedback of Teaching-Learning processes.
So, the total marks for the tier 1 institute would be 15 and while it would be 25 for a tier 2
institute. Each of these guidelines would require substantial amount of documentary evidence
to prove the initiatives taken by the department. In fact, any claim made under this sub-
criterion must be backed-up by documentary evidence.
Describe the process followed to improve the quality of Teaching-Learning. The first exhibits
would be the availability of the academic calendar based on the university academic calendar
and its effective compliance. Any institute generally has an academic calendar that is based
on the academic calendar of the university. However, it is also required that the department
demonstrate that the department is compiling with this academic calendar.
The department must have records showing compliance to such a calendar. The records must
show that the academic events like internal tests are being organized as per the schedule. Any
deviations must be recorded along with the reasons for such deviations. Quite often the
departments only have academic calendar but no record demonstrating the compliance to that
calendar. It is necessary that the department maintains a record showing complains to the
academic calendar.
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The next aspect is pedagogical initiatives - documentary evidence to support implementation

of pedagogical initiatives, such as real-life examples, collaborative learning, ICT supported
learning, interactive classrooms, etc. Any pedagogical initiative claimed by the department
must be backed-up by appropriate documentary evidence. Thus, documentary evidence must
be available for every pedagogical initiative claimed by the department.
Lesson plans, teaching diaries must show evidence of the initiative been planned and
implemented. If the department claims that it has implemented a particular initiative like
collaborative learning, then it must demonstrate the course in which that activity was
implemented, when that activity was planned and it must back-up these claims with
appropriate documentary evidence including the lesson plan or teaching diary or the
equivalent implementation records that the department maintains.
It is also desirable to assess the impact of the initiative. The department could conduct a
survey for example, to determine the extent to which the initiative is found to be effective.
Thus, the most important aspect of this particular activity of improving the quality of
Teaching-Learning is that every initiative has appropriate documentary evidence.
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Methodologies to support weak students and encourage bright students: Many of the colleges
do provide remedial teaching to help weak students. Some institutes do initiate certain
activities to encourage bright students also. But often the departments may not have a written
procedure for identifying the weak students and the bright students. Informal guidelines are
followed to identify the weak students and bright students.
But NBA requires that all these guidelines must be based on well documented process.
Guidelines to identify weak and bright students must exist. After identification the actions
initiated by the departments must be recorded. The department must also note the impact of
these activities. So a written procedure must be available for identifying weak and bright
students.
Often the identification of weak and bright student is based on their performance in the first
internal test or the first quiz. However, many departments do not have a clear written
procedure stating the guidelines for identifying the weak and bright student. The department
must have such a written procedure. Evidence of following this procedure must also be
available.
Records of initiatives like remedial classes for weak student must be maintained. When were
the classes held? Who were the students who attained those classes? Which faculty members
handled those classes? All these details must be available with the department. Records of
initiatives like optional assignments to challenge bright students must also be maintained. It is
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a good practice to determine the impact of such initiatives, so records of impact analysis must
also be available.
The next aspect is the quality of classroom teaching: usually the visiting committee will
determine the quality of the classroom teaching by their subjective perception of this aspect
through attending certain select classes. They also look at the classroom ambiance, the efforts
made by the faculty to keep the students engaged. Further, the visiting committee will
determine the quality of classroom teaching during their interaction with the students also.
So, this aspect is more or less the subject to perception of the visiting team.
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Conduct of experiments: the Quality of laboratory experience with respect to conducting the
experiments, recording observations, analysis of the data etc. This aspect is also verified by
the visiting team during their interaction with the students. They may also visit the laboratory
and watch while the students are conducting the experiments. So, this aspect is also based on
subjective assessment by the visiting team.
Continuous Assessment in the laboratory: Internal Semester examination and internal marks
thereof, Practical record books, each experiment assessment, final marks based on assessment
of all the experiments and other assessments, if any. This is what is expected from the
department; records must be available showing assessment of each experiment, final
assessment; internal examination marks (if relevant), and so on. The department must have
clear records indicating the continues assessments and evaluation during the laboratory work.
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Student feedback of Teaching-Learning process and actions taken: the department is expected
to provide the feedback format used, the frequency with which the feedback is collected,
analysis and action taken and the visiting team verifies these statements during their
interactions with students also. All institutes generally do collect student feedback. Format
and frequency are also generally defined explicitly.
However, many departments do not have any records showing the analysis of the feedback
data, nor do they have records of any actions taken. As noted earlier in module 2, it is
essential to analyse the feedback data, take appropriate actions and maintain relevant records.
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Sub-Criterion 2.2.2 is concerned with the quality of assessment. The quality of end semester
examination, internal semester question papers, assignments and evaluation. There are four
aspects which are looked into by the visiting team. Process for internal semester question
paper setting and evaluation and effective process implementation; Process to ensure
questions from outcomes/learning levels perspective (learning level is same as the cognitive
level of outcome); Evidence of COs coverage in class test and mid-term tests; Quality of
Assignment and its relevance to the COs.
The allocations of the marks are different for tier 1 and tier 2 institute but the expectations are
quite similar. Tier 1 institute has total marks of 15 while tier 2 institute has total marks of 20.
We must have a process for internal semester question paper setting and evaluation and
effective process implementation also must be demonstrated. Process of internal semester
question paper setting must be available. The process must include the requirement that the
teacher must provide model answers, evaluation guidelines and the department must show
that the particular process is being implemented properly.
So the records required would be the process documents and the implementation records. The
process document would include the schedule of the internal examinations, the format
including the tags to be provided along with the questions.
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Then we need a process to ensure questions from the outcomes learning levels perspective.
Question paper validation is required to ensure desired standards from the outcome
attainment perspective as well as learning level perspective. In other words, the questions
related to a CO must be at appropriate cognitive levels and the questions must address all the
COs in a balance fashion.
That means, the question papers must be of certain quality to ensure that the cognitive levels
are proper and the coverage of the COs is also proper. So, question papers need to be
validated there is a necessity to setup a scrutiny committee for this purpose. So, question
paper scrutiny committee must be established. What should be the composition of such a
scrutiny committee?
Different departments have different perspectives regarding composition of such a

committee. But generally it is a good practice to have a small committee from the
requirements of confidentiality and integrity but the committee must be able to scrutinize all
the internal examination question papers belonging to all the courses. Process for question
paper validation must be available.
Implementation records must be available and they must also include information about any
rejected question paper or modified question paper. If the validation committee or the
scrutiny committee finds that certain question papers are of inferior quality the committee
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may reject them but the records of such rejections also must be maintained. This would
demonstrate complaints to the proper in its true spirit.
Evidence of COs coverage in class tests / mid-term tests mapping of questions with the
course outcomes. Questions must be tagged with Cos; the mappings must be justified and the
department must ensure that all COs are addressed through the total number of internal
assessments mechanisms used. Should the tags be exposed to the students? Departments have
different perspectives but we see no harm in students seeing the mapping between questions
and the COs.
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Quality of Assignment and its relevance to Cos: Assignments must be in such a way that they
promote the self-learning by the students, and they require the students to gather data from
multiple sources. The quality of assignments is extremely important. Assignment evaluation
and feedback to the students is also examined by the visiting committee. Further the mapping
between the assignments and COs is also examined by the visiting committee. Evaluation of
the assignments and providing feedback to the students are essential.
These activities represent substantial load on the faculty and because of this heavy load it
may sometimes happen that the evaluation of the assignments is done in a causal fashion and
practically no feedback is provided to the students. If such is the case, the assignments will
not really serve any useful academic purpose.
So though it represents heavy load, faculty must evaluate the assignments and provide
feedback to the students and the department must maintain a records of these activities.
Assignments also must be mapped to COs. The mapping must be justifiable. As I have
mentioned just now many departments treat "assignments" too casually! This must be
avoided.
Then sub-criterion 2.2.3 is concerned with quality of student projects. The evaluation
guidelines are somewhat different between a tier 1 institute and a tire 2 institute. They are
similar in spirit but differ in details. There are several aspects related to the projects which are
examined by the visiting team.
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Identification of projects and allocation methodology to Faculty Members; Types and
relevance of the projects and their contribution towards attainment of POs and PSOs; Projects
related to Industry; Process for monitoring and evaluation of the projects; process to assess
individual and team performance; Quality of completed projects availability of working
prototypes; Evidences of papers published Awards received by projects etc.
So, one can see that there is fairly detailed list of the evaluation guidelines provided for this
particular sub-criterion.
For tier 2 institute, the evaluation guidelines are quite similar but the allocation of marks are
different. In fact, but for one particular aspect which is the Projects related to Industry the
criteria are quite similar. The total marks will be for 25.
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If you look at the tier 1 and tier 2 institutes in relation to this sub-criterion, we see that the
Evaluation guideline C of Tier 1 institute is absent for Tier 2 institute. That is what I
mentioned just now, Projects related to Industry has no relevance to tier 2 institute. Thus tier
2 institute has only six evaluation guidelines while tier 1 institute has seven guidelines. The
remaining evaluation guidelines are identical in both the cases though the allocations of
marks are different.
Identification of projects and allocation methodology to Faculty Members is extremely

important aspect of implementing the projects. Project is a curricular component for most of
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the departments. They do follow a process. However, some may not have a process
document/a written process document indicating the details of guidelines for project
identification and allocation of project guides. They may be following informal procedures.
It is essential to have a written, well defined process document and also maintain
implementation records. Better to have an institute wide process common all programs. If the
institute has an IQAC (Internal Quality Assurance Cell), that cell can be involved with this
process formulation activity.
Projects can be classified into application type or product type or research type or review type
etc. But it is important that the projects take into account factors such as, environment, safety,
ethics, cost, standards and mapping with POs and PSOs. These are related to some of the POs
specified by NBA which are otherwise not that well addressed. Process document must
indicate that the project must consider factors such as environment as indicated above.
The department must also have Rubrics for the project evaluation, which include these
attributes. Periodic monitoring also must consider these factors. The periodic monitoring
must assess the extent to which the project aims are taking into account factors like
environment, safety, ethics, cost, etc.
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Whether the project is related to industry, this aspect is examined only for a tier 1 institute.
Then, we need to have a process for regular monitoring and evaluation, this is called as
guideline C for tier 2 institute but other than this change in the name of the guideline the
spirit is same.
Continues monitoring mechanism and evaluation must follow a well-documented process.

The process document must include the guidelines for periodic monitoring, evaluation and
also the periodicity. Appropriate rubrics for evaluation musty be developed and shared with
students upfront. These aspect were discussed earlier in module 2 also. Implementation
records must be maintained.
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Process to assess individual and team performance: A project generally is implemented by a

team of 4-5 students, thus there is contribution individually as well as contribution as a group,
these two aspects must be properly assessed and evaluated. So we must have a methodology
which is appropriately documented to assess individual contribution and understanding of the
project as well as collective understanding and contribution.
Process must include appropriate rubrics. The methodology must be documented and
implementation records must reflect adherence to the documented methodology. A good
practice is to share these details with students up front. What are the rubrics based on which
the individual performance is assessed and how the group performance is separated from
individual performance.
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Quality of completed projects, working prototypes is also examined by the visiting team. So
the department can have certain projects which in their opinion are of good quality available
for inspection by the visiting team. Generally, the visiting team may expect certain projects of
high quality, certain projects of average quality and certain projects of relatively low quality
to be available for inspection. They may wish to have a demonstration of the project also.
The next aspect is evidence of the papers published, awards received by the projects. Quality
of the place where the paper has been published and quality of the competition in which the
award has been won would be the basis on which the visiting committee would assist the
value of the paper published or the award received. The department must maintain all the
relevant details for the inspection by the visiting committee.
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Then Sub-Criterion 2.2.4 is concerned with the initiatives related to industry interaction. The
guidelines for tier 1 institute are more or less similar to the guidelines for tier 2 institute.
However, there are very minor differences both in terms of naming the guidelines as well as
the marks allocated to them.
For a tier 1 institute, there are four aspects which are examined by the visiting team. Industry
supported laboratories for 2 marks; industry involvement in the program design and
curriculum 3 marks; industry involvement in partial delivery of any regular courses for the
students 3 marks; impact analysis of industry-institute interaction and action taken thereof 2
marks.
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For a tier 2 institute, the evaluation guidelines are quite similar but they are only 3 in number
and the total marks are 15.
If you compare tier 1 institute with tier 2 institute with respect to this Sub-Criterion, we
notice that there are 10 marks for tier 1 institute while there are 15 marks for a tier 2
institutes. Four evaluation guidelines are there for tier 1 institute but there are only three
evaluation guidelines for tier 2 institute. However, the requirements are identical.
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The first aspect that is examined by the team is, are there any industry supported laboratories?
Types of industries, types of labs, the objectives with which these labs were established, what
are the extent where the labs are getting utilized, and what is the effectiveness of making
these labs operational. These are all the aspects which are examined by the visiting team.
It is necessary that both for tier 1 and tier 2 institutes the laboratories which are setup with
assistance from industry are properly operated to ensure their effectiveness. Records must be
available to show the industry help in setting up this laboratories and utilization of these
laboratories.
The next aspect is industry involvement in the program design and partial delivery of any
regular courses for the students. These are shown as two separate guidelines for tier 1
institute but they are combined into a single guideline for a tier 2 institute. But essentially the
department must have documentary evidence to show the participation of the industry in the
design of the program and if any industry experts are participating in the delivery of a regular
course for students the departments must have such records. So, the documentary evidence
must show the involvement of industry both in the reason of the program as well as in the
delivery of any regular courses for students.
The third aspect is missed by many departments often. The department needs to analyse the
impact of industry-institute interaction and initiate appropriate actions based on that analysis.
Impact analysis can be based on surveys also. Actions must be taken on based of impact
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analysis and these actions must be recorded. Often departments miss this aspect of the
industry-institute interactions.
There are no records of impact analysis or records of actions taken there of. Department must
take care to see that they collect appropriate data regarding the impact of these initiatives and
they further record the actions taken by them based on this data and the analysis.
The Sub-Criterion 2.2.5 which is the last one is concerned with the initiatives related to
industry internship and summer training. There are 4 evaluation guidelines - industrial
training tours for students; industrial internships summer trainings of more than two weeks
and post training assessments; impact analysis of industrial training; student feedback on this
initiatives.
There are 10 marks for a tier 1 institute and there are 15 marks for tier 2 institute. Now that
AICTE has made it mandatory for institutes to provide internship for its students; meeting
this particular Sub-Criterion has become relatively simpler.
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We must have documentary evidence regarding the types of industries where internships is
being provided. Whether all the activities are result of plans or some non-planned activity is
also happening. The department must also clearly list the objectives for which the particular
internship with the particular industry is being provided, it must have records of the number
of students who have gone through the internship, it must also record the relevant area of
training.
Students must be asked to submit reports of their internships or industrial visits or summer
training whatever activity they undertake, they must produce a report of that. And for the
aspect C and D - the department must have impact analyses and it must indicate what is the
format of the feedback that they are using to collect data from the students. They must also
record the analysis of the feedback data as well as the actions taken based on that analysis.
Here again, as with the earlier Sub-Criterion many departments do provide internship
opportunities for the students as well as summer training opportunities for their students.
They do collect some form of feedback from the students. However they sometime miss to
analyse this feedback data and they miss to record any actions initiated based on an informal
analysis. But NBA requires that the departments formally record the analysis of feedback
data and the actions taken based on that analysis.
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An Exercise for you, describe the initiatives implemented in your department to improve the
quality of Teaching-Learning process. Thank you for sharing the results of the exercises at
In the next unit, we will start looking at criterion 3 of SAR which is concerned with Course
Outcomes and Program Outcomes. Thank you.
913
Professor N. J. Rao
Department of Electronics and Systems Engineering
Lecture 53
NBA Criterion 3: COs and POs - 1
Greetings, and welcome to NATE module 3 unit 13 related to NBA criterion 3. NBA
criterion 3 is related to Course Outcomes and Program Outcomes. We will be looking at the
first part of that.
914
In the earlier unit, we understood the teaching-learning processes and the initiatives taken for
improving the quality of assessment and learning to meet the requirements of criterion 2 of
SAR.
In the current unit, we will try to understand how to establish correlation between the courses
and the POs and PSOs as per NBA criterion 3.1 for tier 2 and tier 1 institutions.
The criterion 3 is concerned with the attainment of the Course Outcomes (initially) and
through Course Outcomes how do you compute the attainment of Program Outcomes and
Program Specific Outcomes.
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This criterion and its sub-criteria and the exhibits related to each criterion, differ between tier
2 and tier 1 institutes are besides the difference in the allocation of marks. The difference
between the two is a little bit of terminology, we will explain, but the allocation of marks for
the sub-criteria are somewhat different.
Let us first get a picture of the difference between tier 1 and tier 2 institutions. Tier 1
institutions - you know they design their own curricular, they write their own COs they have
to write the correlation between COs and POs and so on. So, the marks given for tier 1 is
little more than that of tier 2. So as you can see overall, this criterion three has 175 marks for
tier 1 institutions and 120 marks for tier 2 institution.
3.1 is related to correlation between COs and POs and PSOs. Here small difference 25 and 20
and attainment of COs is the 3.2 and it has 75 marks for tier 1 and 50 marks for tier 2.
Attainment of POs and PSOs you have 75 marks for tier 1 and 50 marks for tier 2. Now, let
us try to understand what do we mean by correlation between COs and POs and PSOs.
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Here, the difference between the two comes. In tier 2 institutions, evidence of COs being
defined for every course, so COs have to be defined for all courses and the visiting team will
inspect whether the program has written COs for all courses or not. So, one has to
demonstrate the evidence of this.
In 3.1.2 is related to explanation of CO-PO/PSO tables. That means you have to relate COs to
POs and PSOs and those tables and how they have been build that explanation will
ascertained by the visiting committee. Similarly, explanation of program level course-
PO/PSO tables also to be ascertained. That means, at program level you have large number of
courses on large number of common activities, these will all have to be integrated together to
create a program level Course-PO/PSO (it is course not CO) tables.
As you can see in tier 1, they labelled as ABCD and A, C and D are the same as that of tier 2,
except that B is related to availability of COs embedded in the syllabi. Because syllabus itself
is written by the institute, the COs are do they actually represent the syllabus.
Strictly speaking, when you are designing the curriculum COs have to be written first; from
there you have to talk about what we presently call as syllabi the list of topic should emerge
from that. Though in practice people first write the list of topics and then try to write COs.
When you start with COs and write syllabi, the criterion B is automatically met.
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Now let us come to the structure of how NBA expects. For each sub-criterion, some
guidelines are given and there are exhibits or the context to be observed assessed - these are
the ones that will be looked by the visiting committee. Either they will look at the exhibit or
inspect the context to be observed or what is to be assessed they will be looking at this.
So these are the elements you have a sub-criterion, then you have guidelines, then you have
exhibits to be looked at and the department has to write the SAR with respect to these
elements.
3.1.1 is related to Course Outcomes. Guideline is evidence of COs being defined for every
course. How does the department create this evidence? In presenting COs you will be
presenting only for 3 courses from second, third and final year of study are prepared and
included in SAR. That means, you are only presenting three courses who’s COs are one from
each second, third and final year are to be included physical into the SAR document, but COs
of all courses need to be prepared by the department.
The visiting committee may orbital ask any course to be shown to them whether the COs
have been written or not. So, the documents related to writing COs of all the courses will
have to readily available either in a printed form or in electronic form. If the visiting
committee ask the department they should be able to immediately locate that document and
present it to committee.
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Now, what is the exhibit? What do they assess actually in this case? The appropriateness of
the statements shall be seen for at least one course each from second, third and final year of
study. While the department has presented already, second third and final year one from each
year. Visiting committee may ask some other course from one of these years and inspect.
So what happens after getting whatever courses they want to inspect, it is a subjective
evaluation by the visiting committee whether the statements are appropriate or not. So, if they
find statements are appropriate for the samples that they have seen, they will award
maximum of five marks for 3.1.1.
Here, what happens as the tier 2 institutions are affiliated to the university, the curriculum
designing and writing COs for all courses are done by the boards of studies of the university.
Sometimes the BoS of the university will also do the mapping of COs to POs and PSOs; but
they may or may not do.
Whereas, a department in tier 2 institution may accept the COs in toto as given by the
university or if one is not very happy the way they are presented to them, the department may
rewrite some or all the COs and their mapping to POs and PSO. This part maybe undertaken
by the department, but if you do that the only rule is that the same procedure of writing this
should be followed across all the departments of the institution.
That means, each department in a institutions cannot define for itself a particular process for
this. Like for example what should be the structure of the CO statements? There should be
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some structure. So at the institute level it should be accepted. Similarly what is the procedure
of mapping COs to POs and PSOs should also be identified at the institute level and
implemented. So, if you have IQAC or at the institute level you must have some group which
will decide this.
While NBA directly does not mandate the use of Revised Bloom Taxonomy framework for
writing COs but if you look at across the country it has been the defacto accepted framework.
Because when you are writing CO - each CO belong to some cognitive level of Bloom and to
that extent the Revised Bloom Taxonomy is the defacto accepted framework.
In this framework, COs are written starting with an Action Verb; Action verb that belongs to
one of the cognitive levels, followed by knowledge elements and followed by conditions
which are optional and criteria which are also optional. We have spent considerable time in
module 1, how to write COs course following this particular framework.
But the COs need to be written for the content given by the university. Technically it is
required to start with COs and write the syllabus but it happens the other way. The content is
already given by the university, so you cannot write your own CO or you cannot redesign the
course, you have to write COs if you are rewriting the COs the content given by the
university is your starting point that is what it means.
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This is the format of writing COs you have a course code, course code will be you can say a
some 302, that means third semester second course something like that - each institute may
follow a certain course code or university may give you the course code you have to use that
course code put dot and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or you can have more number of COs and you have to
write the statements in this particular table. So first thing is you have to write your course
outcomes in this form.
This is an example of the course Analog Circuits and Systems and credits are 3:0:1 and you
have to also give Year of Offering; you may change from one year to the other, so to the
921
extent say you are offering this course in 2020-2021. The course outcome as you can see
C202 is the course code and 1 is the CO1 you can say. This is an example how we have
written; there happened to be only six course outcomes for this.
First thing that you have to do is you have to write your course outcomes in the format that
has been shown for all the courses for all the semesters. Present it to the in the SAR only for
three courses one course taken from second, third and final year.
Now, let us look at sub-criterion 3.1.2 for tier 2 colleges. The sub-criterion states that CO-
PO/PSO matrices of courses selected in 3.1.1. You have to present six matrices in this and it
carries 5 marks. When you are creating matrix for this you have to have an explanation of the
table.
How you are creating the table? What are the rules that you followed for preparing the table?
Assessment is done for mapping to be verified for at least two matrices. The committee will
pick out of the six some two matrices and finds that whether that mapping is satisfactory as
per the requirements of NBA, so this becomes a subjective valuation by the visiting team.
922
Now let us look at how the explanation needs to be written or prepared? First thing is tag COs
with POs, PSOs, Cognitive level, Knowledge categories and number of sessions or hours.
This has been presented already in detail in module one, so we are just repeating that this is
the process one goes through. The action verb used in CO and its match with action verbs
found explicitly or implicitly in POs and PSOs forms the bases of mapping COs to those POs
and PSOs.
How do you tag a CO with PO? You look at your CO statement, look at the action verb used
and then look at the action verbs that are already existed in POs or PSOs. For example, take
PO2, it says identify, formulate, research literature and so on. It has it uses some of this
action verbs, formulate is an action verb.
So what you have to see is - the way CO has been written by you, the action verb does it
match explicitly or implicitly. Sometimes PO statements are little bit indirect to that extent
implicitly and if they are there, then you can say that CO is mapped to that particular PO or
PSO. If PSOs are written well, COs of a course map generally to a single PSO - ‘generally’
they get mapped into. So a particular course if you take, you are likely to say same PSO for
every CO of that course.
Now these are desirable: it is desirable a CO to map a CO to one or two of the first five POs
which are disciplinary in nature. First five POs as we have explained in module one
extensively and at least one of the professional POs that is from PO six to PO twelve, if we
923
can do that then it is possible that we are likely to achieve right kind of balance between all
the courses and the POs.
There is also a danger if a CO is mapped to many POs, it can become difficult to conduct the
instruction. Also to convince anybody that I am actually conducting my instruction to meet
all the POs that I have selected and also it becomes difficult to demonstrate the attainment of
selected POs.
Demonstration is through what? The way I have conducted my assessment and if somebody
inspects your assessment items and then say which assessment item is going to meet your
particular selected PO, the department should be able to explain. So to the other extent, if
there are too many POs it becomes very difficult to demonstrate the attainment of selected
POs. These are the points or these are the issues that you have to keep in mind when you
write your explanation.
This is how we presented earlier also; these are the COs of this particular course and we
created a table like this, like first POs and PSOs and then cognitive level; KC is knowledge
categories, number of class sessions and number of lab hours that you have and it works out
to be 3:0:1 kind of thing.
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Because our goal is to write prepare a matrix of a course that CO PO matrix of a course. How
do we do that? Just because we wrote this particular PO is addressed by the CO, you also
have to talk about to what extent does it address? Does it address it very strongly or
substantially or it just slightly?
So, you have to find a method of the strength of mapping of a CO to a PO. This correlation
levels are converted into three level quantised into three levels 1, 2 or 3 like 1 is slightly or
very low correlation, 2 is moderate or medium and 3 is substantial. If you say there is no
correlation with respect to one particular CO and a PO, you just put a dash. Because that is
required by NBA you have to make entries only as 1, 2, 3 or dash.
You have to prepare similar table for PSO also and you have to give an explanation this
explanation will be again will be subjectively evaluated by the visiting committee.
925
So, this is how the structure of CO-PO matrix will be; you have all the six COs written there
and the last row is only (as you see it is not a CO) course code. So based on the entries in the
six rows there you compute an average in some way and put it into the last row. So,
essentially CO-PO matrix - covert into a single row with respect to the course code.
Now, the last row that we have created is important and it indicates the strength to which
each PO is addressed by the entire course not by a single CO. It is expected to make entries
into all the cells of matrix other than the last row and the software tool of NBA computes the
926
average of the entries in the column. Now, how do I select the strength to which? You have to
make only entries one, two, three and a dash, but how do you arrive at that?
We have also given this explanation, in the module one. For example each entry can be made
intuitively taking the features of CO statement and the cognitive activities implied by the
POs. But what happens in this, any two faculty members who are concerned with the course
are likely to differ with this when you are doing it intuitively, depending on what kind of
information he has in mind with respect to that CO and PO.
So, what happens they are likely to differ, that means if you take a particular CO and PO,
each one may put 1 or 2 or 3 or dash kind of thing. In that case, when you take the average of
the column, it will be a non-integer value. We personally recommend that you do not stick to
an intuitive approach which may look very easy and simple. But if you take across all
departments or even across a department different people are likely to come to different
conclusions when you do it intuitively.
Some kind of an objective method should be used. We proposed one justifiable objective
method in MI U20. So what happens? That method will directly give you the last row of the
matrix the way we present it, and that means instead of computing the last row you already
got the last row and you make the same entry in each one of the relevant rows. Then what
happens when you take the average it becomes an integer.
927
Let us take a look at this, that means I have first computed C 302 that last row, the same that
one is copied into all the COs. That is what it means. Then the software tool at the NBA will
compute the average of this and you similarly do it for PSO and then it will produce the final
row that is what we require - one row for one course is required.
928
Now, we come to criterion 3.1.3 of tier 2 institution. The criterion itself says program level
course-PO/PSO matrix all courses including first year courses. So you have to create a matrix
with maybe 30 to 40 rows in that and you have 12 Pos. To other extent this 12 columns and
then you may have what 40 rows that is the kind of table that one has to create. You need to
write an explanation of the tables how you are creating, how you are computing the average
from that. See that explanation itself carries about 10 marks.
What is the exhibit or what is the document that will be assessed? Mapping to be verified for
at least one course per year of sturdy; program outcomes and program specific outcomes
getting mapped with the core courses are also to be verified. This will be subject to
evaluation by the visiting team.
929
How do we have this? As I already mentioned this is called Program-PO Articulation Matrix.
If you have C101 is one entire course C101 and we talked about the entries into this table - as
you can see PO1 is to the strength 2; PO2 is not addressed at all that is why put a dash and so
on.
We create like that for all the activities which are core activities. That means, including the
project or any other kind of core activity that you have you can add row for that. So from this
you have to compute the average.
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Similarly, for PSO you try to add rather fill this particular table - it is called Program-PSO
Articulation Matrix. The Program-PO and Program-PSO Articulation matrices have to be
shown separately.
All the detailed presentations were made in the module one itself that is why we are not again
repeating that here. Now, we come to the difference of all these activities with respect to tier
1 institution. Tier 1 institutions are responsible for designing their own curricula and the
department is responsible for writing the COs of all courses and establishing the correlation
between COs and PSOs that is the responsibility of the department
This correlation between the COs and POs and PSOs is to be formalized by board of studies
of the department and possibly approved by the academic council of the institution.
931
Instead of talking about 3.1.1; 3.1.2 so on, here in tier 1 intuition there is only one set of
guidelines that are given there are no sub criteria for this, but if you look at the guidelines A,
C, D are practically the same as 3.1.1, 3.1.2, 3.1.3 kind of thing. Guidelines are evidence of
COs being defined for every course, you have to show the evidence that you are written COs
for all courses and the additional thing mainly availability of COs embedded in syllabi that is
the additional sub-criterion under this and C and D are the same as that of 3.1.2 and 3.1.3.
Just quickly A is related to evidence of COs being defined for every course carries 5 marks.
COs need to be written for all courses of the program; while NBA does not mandate use of
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revised Bloom Taxonomy of framework for writing COs it has been the defacto accepted
framework. In this framework, COs are written starting with an Action verb followed by
Knowledge Elements and conditions and criteria.
So, what is the exhibit that we look at? CO statements for at least one course each from
second third and final year of study. If those are presented, then the committee will have a
subjective evaluation of the appropriateness of CO statements - that is what the evaluation
would be.
B is availability of COs embedded in syllabi - that carries 5 marks. Normally syllabus is

presented as list of topics; there should be complete correspondence between CO and the list
of topics besides COs indicating the depth to which topic is addressed. That is where one has
to take care and that is where the role of writing good COs comes in.
Does the CO really represent the depth to which a particular topic is addressed? Exhibit is the
brief explanation for each course and how COs are embedded in the syllabus, this is again
subjective evaluation by the visiting team.
933
The C is explanation of course Articulation Matrix table be ascertained which carries 5

marks. Explain the basis for considering a CO to be addressing a PO or a PSO. The course
articulation matrix is to be prepared as indicated in the slides 19 and 20 of this particular unit.
The exhibit - the matrices that are prepared for at least two courses will be evaluated
subjectively by the visiting team.
D is explanation of program Articulation Matrix tables to be ascertained it carries 10 marks.

You have to explain the basis for determining the strength to which a PO addresses a given
PO or PSO. We have explained we have given one objective method of doing it, if your
934
department differs with that, you have to write what is the criterion that you are using to
determine the strength to which a CO addresses a given PO.
Explain the basis for determining the course PO matrix; PO articulation row is to be worked
out. Mapping for at least one course per year of study - program outcomes and program
specific outcomes getting mapped with the core courses as explained in the same unit slides
21 and 22 will be subjectively evaluated by the visiting team.
In the next unit, we will try to understand how to present the attainment of COs, POs and
PSOs as per NBA criteria 3.2 and 3.3 for tier 2 and tier 1 institutions. Thank you very much.
935
NBA Accreditation and Teaching- Learning in Engineering
Professor N.J. Rao
Lecture 54
Course Outcomes and Program Outcomes 2
Greetings and welcome to NATE module 3 unit 14 related to NBA criterion 3. NBA criterion 3
is also related to Course Outcomes and Program Outcomes. In the earlier unit, we understood the
role and method of preparing COs; CO-PO matrices and CO-PSO matrices for courses and
936
present them as required by NBA. Here, sometimes CO-PO matrices are known as articulation
matrices as well.
In this unit, we will continue with the rest of the criterion 3 and try to understand how to
compute the attainment of COs, POs and PSOs and again present them as per the requirements of
National Board of Accreditation or the way you need to present in SAR. We will be looking at
criteria 3.2 and 3.3 of NBA.
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While we presented this earlier, let us look at CO attainment and quality loop. This presents the
way the articulation matrices and the way we compute the attainment gap, set the targets all these
relations are captured in this particular diagram.
If you look at the course, first has course outcome targets, these targets can also be set in several
ways, which you have elaborated in module 1. It can be one target for CO or you can have target
for each course outcome. That means if there are eight course outcomes, there will be eight
targets for that.
Course is defined in terms of course outcomes and the course outcomes are assessed as per
assessment plan, and assessment plan determines the assessment instruments and assessments
instrument determine the student’s CO attainment.
The CO attainment is compared with the target that is set and you compute the CO attainment
gap and it should lead to plan for closing the CO attainment gaps or enhancement of CO targets.
So, broadly this represents the closing the quality loop at the course level.
Now, the same thing is also required as per the sub-criterion 3.2 as well as sub-criterion 3.3. 3.2
says attainment of course outcomes. Here, there are 50 marks for tier 2 and 75 marks for tier 1
institutions. This again is further subdivided into what you may call sub-sub-criterion 3.2.1 in
938
which you are required to describe the assessment processes used to gather the data upon which
the evaluation of course outcome is based. We will presently look at the detail.
3.2.2 record the attainment of course outcomes of all courses with respect to set attainment
levels. The marks as you can see are different, in 3.2.1 you have 10 marks for both tier 2 and tier
1 institutions; and with respect to 3.2.2, you have 40 marks for tier 2 and 65 for tier 1.
Now, coming to 3.2.1 you have to describe the assessment processes used and the guidelines
further in that, you have to first list the assessment processes (just list) that alone will carry 2
marks. The second part, you have to describe the quality and relevance of assessment processes
and tools used. That means the department has to explain why a certain assessment processes are
chosen and on what basis do you think they will determine the quality and relevance of
assessment. They are the two parts of those guidelines.
939
Let us look at the first one, list of assessment processes. First of all, in the case of tier 2
institution, assessment processes are mostly decided by the university. There is not much choice
left to the tier 2 institutions but in some cases, as a part of continuous internal evaluation, there
can be some choice to the tier 2 institution, it depends on the university.
Whereas, tier 1 institutions decide themselves. That means, all the elements - distribution of
marks across internal evaluation and semester and examination, they are all decided by the
institution itself. Some examples of these assessment processes are elements of CIE. That means,
you are trying to say what are the elements of CIE (continuous internal evaluation) these will
include how many tests you are going to conduct? How many assignments you are going to
have? How many quizzes you are likely to have? You are only listing that.
Similarly, elements of SEE, mostly it will contain one end semester exam, but in some tier 1
institutions, you can add additional things like you can add a seminar, you can have a mini
project, the performance of the mini project can be added to SEE, but that is a choice of the tier 1
institution. Whereas, tier 2 institution that is decided by the university itself.
Then you have an assessment plan. As we mentioned in module 1, assessment plan will present
what weightage you give to each one of the elements in CIE and SEE that is assessment plan.
You may have some more elements like this, but it depends on the specific institution, but these
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are only some examples, which form the list of assessment processes. So by merely giving the
list of assessment process, mostly you can get these two marks.
Second one is, the quality/relevance of assessment processes and tools used. What should you
write in this? Explanation of the choice of assessment process in terms of their relevance. Why
did you choose? And why do you consider they are relevant? Explanation of why the department
considers the tools chosen determine the quality of assessment.
For example, if all your instruments are let us say, all your assessment belongs to the Remember
and Understand category type of questions, the particular choice that you made, the process that
you chose actually determines the quality of assessment, it is difficult to justify. So, when you
are writing this explanation, you have to make sure that all the relevant cognitive levels are
addressed. That is the purpose of this sub-criterion 3.2.1.
Then how well the assessment processes and tools address COs at relevant cognitive levels? If
you can add an explanation to that, the relevant cognitive levels, then you are actually explaining
the quality and relevance of the assessment process. So, you can score more marks out of eight.
Quality of assessment plan, the number, variety and frequency of assessment instruments should
all be mentioned in these explanation. It does not mean that you have to have these four
independent documents there, but these are the elements that need to be included in the
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document. So make sure these things are addressed in the document that you prepare for 3.2.1 -
B.
Generally, broad guidelines can be formulated at the institute level. Here, in a tier 2 institution
also, you cannot write completely independently for each department. So, at the institution level,
people sit, should sit together and try to come to a set of broad guidelines with regard to
preparing the document for this.
What are the exhibits or the context to be observed and how do they assess? It consists of
analysing of tagging the items for cognitive levels and their weightages in CIE and SEE
instruments of some sample courses for all semesters.You take one sample course from each
semester and show with respect to one sample course, and how you have tagged the items with
regard to cognitive levels and the weightage that you gave to each one of the, let us say CO
One should also present sample student responses across all levels and the quality of evaluation.
One of the good ways to do is collect student responses - people who got minimum marks,
people who got some average level marks and people who got highest level marks; you collect
two samples of the student responses and include it in a file.
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Also not only the responses, actually the teacher is evaluating them. How are you giving your
marks, if they are all collected they constitute a good data regarding the CO assessment and the
committee will evaluate these documents subjectively and give marks out of the 8 actually.
Coming to sub-criterion 3.2.2 that is related to recording the attainment of course outcomes of all
courses with respect to set assignment levels (set attainment levels are nothing but the targets).
Here, you have 40 marks for tier 2 institution and 65 marks for tier 1 institution.
The guidelines for this is verify the attainment levels as per the benchmark set for all courses.
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Now, let us look at how we can verify this. You have to compute the attainment levels of COs of
all courses, though you need to only include samples only in the SAR document, but this
computations must be done for all courses for in all semesters as per the stated assessment
processes, which we have listed in 3.2.1. That means, you are following what was mentioned
earlier in 3.2.1 and actually implementing in the context of 3.2.2.
You also need to compute the attainment gaps of all COs of all courses and also present the plan
for closing the attainment gaps or enhancing the targets with explanations. This process has been
explained in detail in module 1. But that is our example, but if you are following slightly
different processes, you must implement all that and create the plan for closing the loop. In the
SAR, it is good to include one example to illustrate the about three processes and that would
greatly help that would communicate satisfactorily to the visiting committee and a little
subjective part can be eliminated.
Because the college can decide what is the process they want to follow for computing the CO
attainment. All that you are showing is at the college level we have decided and then we have
implemented, we are showing a sample. What the committee will do? Whether you followed the
process you have declared that is what they will inspect for some sample courses.
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What will the visiting committee will do? It will assess with regard to data collection,
verification, analysis and decision making. They will do this for one course per year of the
program as per the process defined by the department and awards marks out of 40 for tier 2
institution and out of 65 for tier 1 institution.
Mind you this 40 and 65 are fairly large numbers. So, one has to be careful and actually work
closely with the committee to make sure that there are no misunderstandings. Because everyone
will have their own processes in their mind and the process chosen by the department is different
from that, they are likely to have some kind of reservations or doubts. So, that part as a part of
3.2.1 you have to make it very clear to the visiting committee so that there are no
misunderstandings.
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Now, we come to sub-criterion 3.3. 3.3 is attainment of program outcomes and program specific
outcomes. So, we move to the next level and here 50 marks are given to tier 2 institution,
whereas tier 1 gets 75 marks. So, the responsibility is much higher in tier 1 institution. This
consists of two sub-sub-criteria. First one is 3.3.1 describe assessment tools and processes used
for assessing the attainment of each of the POs and PSOs, it is very similar to 3.2.
There the focus is on computation of CO attainments, here the focus is on computation of PO-
PSO attainment. So, you go through the same process - first describe the process, explain the
quality of the process chosen, and then actually do the computation as per 3.2.2. It follows a
similar process. Here for 3.3.1, we give 10 marks for tier 2 institution and 10 for tier 1. Whereas,
3.3.2 will give 40 marks for tier 2 and 65 for tier 1.
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Once again, the relationship among all these can be shown through this kind of concept map,
which is somewhat very similar to what we have shown with respect to CO attainment. How POs
and PSOs are attained? They are not directly attained; they are attained through core courses
projects, presentations co curricular activities and extracurricular activities.
They are attained only through these activities. So, they will decide as to what extent POs and
PSOs are attained. Then you select your target for each PO and PSO and then the gap between
the two that should lead to plan for closing the PO-PSO gaps or enhancement of the PO-PSO
targets if we have set them lower. So, similar diagram as that for CO will also hold good for this.
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Generally, computing PO-PSO attainment one has to understand the background a little more
clearly because it is not directly addressed. Whereas, CO it is very easy to understand in each
course, the teacher as well as the student is directly relating to the COs that have been presented.
But why do we want to compute indirectly the PO-PSO attainment? The main purpose of
computing PO-PSO attainment is to enable us to plan for continuous improvement. As you can
see, there are 12 POs of which 5 are discipline oriented and 7 are profession oriented. When we
are designing a program it is possible that there can be some skew in the way we chose our
courses, the way we are conducting.
So, you have to make sure that all the POs that are given by NBA are satisfactorily addressed. If
they are not satisfactorily addressed, that means, there is certain amount of skew that means your
program itself has not been designed and conducted in a balanced way. So, when we compute
PO-PSO attainment, based on that you can take a relook at even your curriculum design.
The PO- PSO attainment should be computed from direct and indirect methods; direct method is
directly you take the performance of the students in courses and translate them following a very
well defined process. But in all this you cannot say any process that you choose is very precise
and it will exactly tell you to what extent it has been attained.
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So, to that extent, at the PO level, we also look at some indirect methods; indirect methods we
have explained - they include some surveys from your alumni, industry and so on (we will
presently a list what those surveys are).
Then computing PO-PSO attainment from COs will depend on the student performance and the
manner of determining the mapping strength. As we explained earlier, each CO will address a
subset of the 12 Pos. there may be only one CO addressing one PO. In that case, you cannot say
the course addresses that particular PO very substantially. So, you have to talk about determining
the mapping strength; for determining the mapping strength, we have given one objective
method, but sometimes people also do it subjectively but you have to identify some mapping
strength
We are presented one method of computing PO-PSO attainment in the module 1 of this course.
Here the method of computation cannot be done at individual level; the process for computation
should be decided at the institute level and followed by all departments.
Now, come to the guidelines of this. What do you have? Once again as we said list the
assessment tools and processes 5 marks and the quality and relevance of assessment tools used
that is 5 marks.
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Let us look at a list of assessment tools and processes. Assessment tools: first of all, what is the
periodicity that you are computing? Do you do it every year, do you do it every semester?
Attainment of COs that is one of the elements that you start with and do you also do the surveys.
The surveys will include alumni survey, industry survey, and sometimes you can also survey
from the outgoing students and so on. A survey of any of the stakeholders with respect to this
Then if the co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, where you are systematically using some
rubrics and all students are participating, then the results of evaluation of these activities can also
be one of the assessment tools for this.
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Assessment processes, if you look at, they include method of identifying the POs and PSOs
addressed by COs of a course. On what basis are you saying a CO addresses a PO? You just
cannot look at the list and say, I am addressing this PO. Everyone must follow a method (we
have presented one method in our earlier module, but a college can define its own method of
identifying the POs); method of determining the strength to which PO-PSO is addressed (that
also we presented one objective method); method of setting the targets for POs and PSOs.
Now, are you normalizing the attainment to, to a value of 1 or 3 that is your choice and with
respect to that, do you want to put similar targets for all POs. Because as you can see, all POs are
not similar in nature and then they are not addressed by all courses either. So, you have to make
a choice to what varying levels do you want to set targets for POs.
Then percentage weightage to indirect assessment of POs, are you given 20% weightage, 10%
weightage or still higher percentage weightage to indirect assessment you have to decide and you
have to give an explanation. Method of computing PO-PSO attainments simple formula that you
use and plan for reducing the PO-PSO attainment gaps and for enhancing of the targets wherever
necessary.
See what you have to keep in mind: a PO is addressed by several courses. To the extent under
each course, we have already wrote some kind of a plan for reducing the CO attainment gap. But
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now, when we come to PO it is not one course it is several courses. So, one of the best methods
is to pool all the plans for reducing the CO attainment gaps of all the related courses to that PO
and from that pool you come with a conclusion or you decide what plan do you want to create
the to reduce the gap in PO attainment, that is the method that you can follow.
Now, with regard to B - the quality/relevance of assessment documents tools/processed used,

you have to give an explanation like in the case of CO, the choice of PO-PSO attainment
processes in terms of their relevance; and also the tools that are chosen - why do you think that
decide the quality of PO-PSO attainment. Again, you can illustrate with at least one example.
When you write this document related to B, you ended up with one illustration by giving an
example with respect to one PO, how you are doing the calculations. But, whatever process that
you choose, it should be common across all the departments of an institution.
As you can see, the nature of education is such that there has to be certain level of autonomy at
learning level, and yet you need to follow certain type of common processes in an institution.
That is why it is a kind of balance between the two. But if I choose completely different process
for each course, then it is very difficult to kind of pool them together. So the faculty will have to
come to a common agreement across all departments, what are the processes you are going to
use.
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In terms of assessment of 3.3.1, the visiting committee will verify the computation of attainment
of two POs and two PSOs as per the process chosen by the department. So, they arbitrarily can
take two POs and two PSOs and look at the computation of that and based on that, they will
award the marks for this sub-criterion 3.3.1.
Now coming to 3.3.2, this is where the final attainment of POs and PSOs are computed. That is
what 3.3.2 is - 40 marks for tier 2 and 65 for tier 1. Guidelines include verification of documents
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results and level of attainment of each PO and PSO - 24 for tier 2, 50 for tier 1; B. overall levels
of attainment that is its second part of that 16 for tier 2, and 15 for tier 1.
Now, verification documents - what do we include in this? Document that would be verified by
the visiting committee will include method of computing the attainment of POs and PSOs;
attainments of POs and PSOs by each course or core activity (core activity could be project
seminars and so on) and computing the level of attainment of POs and PSOs at the program level
for two batches
Because POs and PSOs have to be looked at batch level, that means you are collecting the data
over four years of the program or over the eight semesters - you have to integrate the data over
that. And at that level, how you have computed and in this process, you have to include the
attainment of POs by all courses and all core activities.
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Then the department itself will have to do an analysis of the overall levels of attainments of POs.
You have a big matrix, what we call the program-PO-PSO articulation matrices. Each matrix will
consist of the list of courses which can be maybe 35-40 rows, and then you have 12 POs and
looking at the overall matrix and the kind of attainment that has been done, let us say if you have
normalized to one, then you will have numbers less than one filling various cells in that where it
is not relevant, you will put a dash.
Now by looking at this, the department should be able to analyse about the quality of learning.
Qualitatively they have to explain to what extent they feel they have achieved or where they need
to further improve. If the year-on-year attainments are reducing for some reason, (because you
are now computing over two batches) if there is a reduction in the PO attainments, you have to
give an explanation for that.
But many colleges are likely to give standard explanation saying that what can we do it is the
quality of the incoming students and that kind of explanation will not be accepted as a proper one
by the visiting committee. So, our request to you is not to use this as the basis for explaining why
there is reduction in the attainment of POs.
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What will the visiting committee do? Visiting committee will inspect all the documentation
related to computation of attainment of POs and PSOs. The committee will verify the calculation
related to computation of two selected POs and two PSOs.
That ends the consideration of criterion 3.3. In the next one, we try to understand the indicators
for student performance and professional activities. Thank you very much.
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NBA Accreditation and Teaching- Learning in Engineering
Professor N.J. Rao
Lecture 55 - Students Performance
Greetings and welcome to NATE module 3 unit 15 on NBA criterion 4 regarding students
performance.
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In the last unit, we understood how to compute the attainment of COs, POs and PSOs and
present them in a format that is required by NBA criteria 3.2 and 3.3. Now, in this unit, we will
try to understand how to measure the performance and professional activities of students using
metrics provided by NBA.
Criterion 4 is related to the performance and professional activities of students including

enrolment, success ratio, performance in second and third years, placement, higher studies and
entrepreneurship and professional activities. Here, you need to note that most of the sub-criteria
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of criterion 4 are data or records based and there is not much evaluation that is subjective. There
are one or two items that are subjective, but most of the information is in the form of data or
records.
Now, there is some small difference between tier 1 and tier 2 institutions. We will start with tier
2 institution. The sub-criteria of tier 2 of criterion 4, they are 4.1 that is enrolment ratio - carries
20 marks out of 150; 4.2 success rate in the stipulated period of the program - carries 40;
academic performance in third year - carries 15; academic performance in second year - carries
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15; placement, higher education and entrepreneurship – carries 40; and 4.6 is professional
activities - carries 20.
In some strange way, the tier 1 sub-criteria are somewhat different, we consider it is a bit of
oversight; otherwise the criteria are somewhat similar. But the number of marks allocated to
student performance is 100 compared to 150 in the tier 2 institutions. Here enrolment ratio is 20;
success rate in the stipulated period of the degree program is 20; Academic performance in
second year 10; (unfortunately, academic performance in third year was not included in that);
placement, higher studies and entrepreneurship 30; professional activities is 20.
Wherever they are common the method of measurement, the evaluation guidelines are roughly
the same between tier 1 and tier 2 institutions.
Let us look at enrolment ratio, 20 marks for tier 2. Here, it is completely data based, that is if the
enrolment is more than 90% sanction strength are enrolled, that means you have admission 90
percent admission is there at the first year level on an average basis using the previous three
academic years, starting from the current academic year.
So you take average over the last three years and compute what percentage of admissions are
there are here we are calling what percentage of students enrolled in the first year. If that is more
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than 90%, you get 20 marks. If it is between 80 and 90, the tier 2 institute will get 18 marks and
if it is between 70 and 80 then you get 16 marks.
If it is between 60 and 70, you get 14; if it is between 50 and 60 you get 12; anything less than
that, means if it is less than 50%, you get 0. That is you have to get minimum 12, you cannot go
below that. Whereas it is slightly different for tier 1 institution.
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Here also enrolment ratio carries 20 marks, but more than 90% the marks are 20; between 80 and
90 you have 18; between 70 and 80, you have 16 and between 60 and 70, you get 14; anything
less than 60 (unlike 50 percent in the tier 2 institution) you get 0. That is what the difference
between tier 1 and tier 2 institutions.
How actually it is assessed? The data is to be verified for each of the assessment years for both
tier 2 and tier 1 institution. The data is collected in exact form in which it has to be presented is
given in the SAR document. You present the data and the visiting committee verifies the data
presented by the department. They will ask for the records and based on that, the marks awarded;
it is kind of fixed as given in the earlier slide.
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The sub-criterion 4.2 is related to success rate in the stipulated period of the program. Here, there
are two sub-sub-criteria I can say 4.2.1 and 4.2.2. So, the marks awarded for tier 2 institution for
4.2 is 40 and for tier 1 institution it is 20. What does the 4.2.1 say? Success rate without backlog
in any semester or year of study without backlog means no compartment or failures in any
semester year of study.
That means, first time a person passes in all the semesters fully without any failure whatsoever
that is what we consider success rate without backlog. These are 25 marks for tier 2 and 15
marks for tier 1.
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How is it computed? You call it SI (success index) is equal to the number of students who
graduated from the program without backlog. First compute - for entire batch you compute the
number of students who graduated from the program without backlog; divided by number of
students admitted in the first year of that batch, and actually admitted in second year via lateral
entry and separate division if there is any.
So you compute the total number of students as given here. The ratio of these two number of
successful students and number of students admitted, if you take that - that is success index. So,
average SI means you take the mean of success index for the past three batches. Here success
rate without backlog in any year of study means 25 multiplied by average SI that is for tier 2 and
15 multiplied by average SI is for tier 1. So, that is the way the number of marks computed for
success rate without backlog.
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Once again data to be verified for each of the assessment years and visiting committee verifies
the data present by the department. They will just look at the records and if they are okay the
marks are automatically awarded. That means the college itself or the department itself can
compute all these data and practically give itself the marks that they get.
There is another part of the success rate. The success rate in stipulated period that is actual
duration of the program - it is a four year program, in four years that is without taking any extra
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time beyond four years, if somebody has passed without backlog or with backlog, that is,
somebody might have failed one or two subjects in the earlier semesters, but he is able to take
care of that in the following years, but he has completed the program in the stipulated period of
four years. This success rate is 15 marks for tier 2 and 5 marks for tier 1.
How do you compute this? The success index, as we call it, number of students who graduated
from one from the program in the stipulated period of course duration and the number of students
admitted the way we have defined earlier. You take the average success index - mean of success
index for the past three batches, and you compute success rate as 15 into average SI for tier 2,
and 5 into average SI for tier 1.
This is how you compute the success index in the stipulated period. So, these two are different
4.2.1 and 4.2.2 are different.
Sometimes, (which is very rare actually) if both the number that you get 4.2.1 and 4.2.2 are the
same, that means all students have passed without any backlog, even if it is so, the number of
marks that you would get will be 40 for tier 2 institution and number of marks will be 20 for tier
1 institution, whether you combine it together or show it as a single index does not matter, which
is very rare really speaking, it is very difficult to have in an a institute 100 percent of the students
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passing without any backlog at any point. Visiting committee will verify the data presented by
the department and award marks.
Coming to sub-criterion 4.3 it is the academic performance in third year. This is only valid for
tier 2 institution. What is the evaluation guideline? Academic performance is equal to 1.5
multiplied by average API (average academic performance index). How do we compute the API?
It is the mean of third year grade point average of all successful students on a 10 point scale.
If somebody is giving a kind of a grading system as per the current UGC norms on a 10 point
scale, you compute the grade point average in third year or if people are still giving marks -
mean of the percentage of marks of all successful students in third year divided by 10; you will
get similar numbers multiplied by successful students divided by number of students appeared in
the examination.
Now who are successful students? Successful students are those who are permitted to proceed to
the final year as per the regulations in force. These regulations may change from one institute to
the other, but whatever regulations are in force, if they are permitted to go into the final year,
they are considered successful students. If somebody is not permitted under the existing rules,
then they will not be considered successful students.
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What are the exhibits that you will see? The computation that you made, that is mean of the third
year grade point average, multiplied by the ratio of successful students is the API and that you
multiply it by 1.5. Whereas in the case of tier 1 institution unfortunately, equivalent of this third
year performance does not exist.
We move on to 4.4 academic performance in second year. It is very similar to the third year one,
that is academic performance equal to 1.5 into average API, it is computed in the same way,
except that the successful students are those who are permitted to proceed to the third year as per
the existing regulations. You multiply that by 1.5 and that gives you the academic performance
in the second year.
Again the data will be verified by the visiting committee for at least one of the assessment years
and based on that the marks will be awarded.
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Whereas it is slightly different for the tier 1 institution because you have only 10 marks for this.
Academic performance, you are not multiplying it by 1.5 you are directly taking average API,
that is mean of second year grade point average of all successful students on a 10 point scale
multiplied by the ratio of successful students to the number of students appeared in the
examination.
See there is a difference between the actual number of students in the second year and the
number of students appeared in the examination. The number of students appeared in the exam
maybe less than that the actual number because of either they are absent for some health reasons
or some number of students do not have the required attendance - in that case they would not be
permitted. So, what we are interested in the number of students actually appeared in the
examination is imparted.
Once again visiting committee will verify data for at least one of the assessment years and award
marks for that.
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Now come the 4.5, sub-criterion - placement, higher studies and entrepreneurship. All students
who are graduating from the program will generally fall under one of these three categories
‘generally’. You compute all that.
Assessment points that is 40 multiplied by average of 3 years of x plus y plus z by n, where ‘n’ is
the total number of final year students, we are not talking about the first year students admitted
but the total number of final year students; ‘x’ the number of students placed in the companies or
government sector through on our off campus recruitment, because in many tier 2 colleges there
may not be much of campus recruitment or even in other institutions where there is campus
recruitment all students do not get recruited through campus.
Some of them will explore on their own and give interviews outside the campus and also get
placement. So, the department has to collect information about both on or off campus
recruitment details and that is a feedback. Yes, all students may not properly report but the
department should make an effort to get this particular piece of information.
‘y' is the number of students admitted to higher studies with valid qualifying scores? Once again
this is to be noted. The qualifying score is in the GATE or equivalent state or national tests,
GRE, GMAT, etc. Some people can get into postgraduate studies without going through any of
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these qualifying scores, they are not counted. We are only counting the number of students who
have gone into higher studies based on valid qualifying scores.
‘z’ is the number of students turned entrepreneur in engineering or technology, not any family
business type of entrepreneurs. Even if it is family activity, it should be in engineering or
technology. So, ‘z’ is the number of student entrepreneurs. So, x plus y plus z divided by n
multiplied by 40 and that you take average over three years. That is the particular 4.5 index.
The data to be verified for at least one of the assessment years by the visiting committee before
they award the marks. This actually if the department puts in the right kind of effort, they
themselves can compute. How do you convince the visiting committee? You you have to have
proof of against all these three x, y, z.
In the case of tier 1 institution, you are only talking of 30 marks instead of 40 the other one, but
otherwise, the computation is the same average over three years of x plus y plus z by n.
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Let us see what kind of proof they are looking for. Proof of placement is not in terms of offer
letters, because many companies do offer through campus recruitment, give offer letters, but
actually they do not employ them. So evidence of students joining the organization must be
available with the institute. Either as joining report, or some proof that student has to produce
that he has actually joined an organization and the department should make effort to get that kind
of proof.
The department should have evidence of students joining the higher education programs and
keep copies of the GATE or GRE score. If somebody says that I got admitted to such and such
masters program; then along with that you must have the GATE or corresponding GRE scores,
proof of that with the department.
Similarly, the department should have also evidence of students becoming entrepreneurs. How
do you have? Either some visiting cards of course, somebody can just print a visiting card for the
sake of this, but I do not think for one visiting card any student will do that. But visiting cards or
communication from the companies letterhead need to be obtained from the individual to show
the proof of somebody becoming an entrepreneur.
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Now come to the sub-criterion 4.6 that is professional activity. It is 20 marks for tier 2 and also
20 marks for tier 1, except that that will be labelled as 4.5. The evaluation guidelines include
availability and activities of professional societies and chapters - 3, number of quality of
engineering events organized at institute, either institute level, state level national or international
level - 2, these are the 3 marks for that and 2 marks for this.
Department can actually have all the documentation prepared for this (there should not be any
difficulty), but a file should be maintained for both A and B separately.
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4.6.2 - publication of technical magazines and newsletters that is 5 marks. Evaluation guidelines:
quality and relevance of the content and print material that is publication of technical magazines
or newsletters or participation of students from the program - 2 marks for that. Once again, you
have to have documentary evidence for this, which should not be difficult to produce before the
visiting committee.
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4.6.3 is related to participation in inter-institute events by students of the program of study at
other institutions (not in your own institution which is covered in the earlier one) and that carries
10 marks which becomes 4.5.3 for tier 1. Here even in this, events within state - 2 marks, events
outside the state - 3 marks and any prizes/awards received in such events - 5 marks. As you can
see, by the number of marks that are given to this, the NBA considers that the students get
greatly benefited by participating in such inter-institution events.
The documentary evidence for all these three should be collected and put together and to be
presented to the committee. We have noted - sometimes while these events actually have taken
place, possibly some students got some awards, but the department or the institute may fail to
show the exhibit. So, you will unnecessarily lose the marks for this kind of thing. So, please take
care ensure that your department keeps track of all this and maintains files on this, these days
everything can also be done electronically.
Now, let us look at all these professional activities. What are the good practices? The institute
should facilitate creation of student chapters of professional societies and the department or the
institute should administratively and financially support the activities of such student chapters. It
could be IETE or it could be IEEE chapter or ASME, whatever you call that, the local chapter
can be created by the department by the institute as well.
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The Institute and the department should take extra initiative to administratively support creation
of such chapters. What are the type of activities you can have under these? They can include
expert lectures, quizzes, project competitions and depending on the imagination of this group of
students and the department, you can have a variety of professional activities organized under the
student chapter. If a particular student chapter is performing very well, the professional society
itself may recognize that and provide some additional support for conducting these activities.
The department should also encourage the students to bring out a technical newsletter different
from the annual magazine normally brought out at the institute level. These two are completely
different ones. Technical newsletter should be designed and created and made available with the
effort of the students. To that extent the editorial team of the newsletter must consist of students
only.
A faculty member can act as a mentor and it should not be just once a rare item kind of thing.
Periodicity at least should be twice a semester. It need not be very big newsletter, you can have 4
pages 6 pages on it need not be even printed; it could be electronic form and made available but
something is available on the website for all the stakeholders to take a look at.
Institute must administratively and financially support student participation in inter-institute

activities like conferences, workshops and competitions. Institute also must encourage through
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appropriate policy measures students to publish papers. If there is some small expenses involved
in publishing a paper the institute should encourage that. Because these actually add a lot of
value to the both the learning of the student and also it will help in placement and not only that
strictly from NBA, you can score more marks.
In the unit 16, we try to understand the indicators for faculty information and contributions, as
per criterion 5 of SAR. Thank you very much.
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Professor N.J. Rao
Lecture 56
Faculty Information and Contributions
(Refer Slide Time: 0:28)2
Greetings and welcome to NATE module 3 unit 16 on NBA criterion 5 related to faculty
information and contributions. In the previous unit we understood how to measure the
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performance and professional activities of students using metrics provided by NBA as per
criterion 4.
Now in this unit, our goal is to understand the indicators for faculty information contributions,
which constitutes criterion 5.
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There are a very large number of sub-criteria of criterion 5 and these slightly differ from tier 2 to
tier 1. So, let us take a look at the sub-criteria related to tier 2 institutions. Here, you have nine of
them. These include student-faculty ratio - 20 marks; faculty cadre proportion - 25 marks; faculty
qualifications - 25 marks; faculty retention - 25 marks; innovations by the faculty in teaching and
learning - 20 marks; faculty as participants in faculty development and training activities or
STTPs - 15 marks; research and development - 30 marks; faculty performance appraisal and
development system - 30 marks; visiting, adjunct or Emeritus faculty etc - 10 marks. They will
all add up to 200 marks for the faculty.
Whereas, when you look at tier 1 institution, many of them are the same or similar to what were
offered in tier 2. But you have one extra criterion now you have 10 sub-criteria. Once again,
student-faculty ratio - 20 marks; faculty cadre proportion - 20 marks; faculty qualification - 20;
faculty retention - 10.
Faculty competence in correlation to programs specific outcomes - 10; this particular one is
specific to tier 1 institution, which does not exist in the case of tier 2 institution.
Innovations by the faculty in teaching and learning - 10 marks; faculty as participants in faculty
development and training activities - 15 marks. The major difference between the tier 1 and tier 2
institution is research and development which has 75 marks for tier 1 institution, whereas it is 30
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marks in the case of tier 2 institution. So what it means is, the NBA expects tier 1 institutions to
have their faculty get involved more in research and development.
5.9 is faculty performance appraisal and development system - 10 marks and visiting, adjunct
and Emeritus faculty - 10 marks. So the major difference between tier 1 and tier 2 institution is
the weightage that is given to research and development and an additional sub-criterion related to
the competencies in correlation to PSOs. But in both the cases the number of marks for criterion
5 are 200.
Now, let us look at the specificity of criterion 5. Out of 1000 marks 200 marks are allocated to
the faculty information and their activities. Why is it so? NBA recognizes the key role of faculty
in facilitating learning. They consider good faculty are required and they have to perform well
for the students to learn better. To that extent, faculty are treated as key change agents and they
do play a key role.
Here, there are several dimensions to an effective teacher as recognized by NBA, We are calling
it effective teacher or instead of merely calling good teacher. Effective teacher is one who
facilitates better learning by the students. What are the dimensions of an effective teacher?
Qualification, relationship with the institution, continuing concern with the teaching learning
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processes, engaging in knowledge production, (which is another way of saying R and D) and
continuous learning.
So, let us take a look at it, obviously the teachers should have right qualification. If you have a
PhD, it is still better. Relationship with the institution is really, really key issue. If the teacher
does not feel comfortable on any aspect, whether it is related to the kind of decision making or
the salary structure or any of that, once the relationship is not that very satisfactory, it has a great
influence on the quality of teaching and learning.
The other dimension is - an effective teacher has a continuous concern with the teaching-learning
processes. That means, you should keep a watch on what is happening, whatever procedures that
is following whether the students are learning, what kind of minor corrections that needs to
make, what kind of improvements to make. That means, there is a certain amount of time and
thought process that should go into understanding and improving the teaching-learning
processes.
R and D is a must unless you deal, you engage with the knowledge, you cannot help your
students to also engage with the knowledge, engagement with the knowledge corresponding to
your subjects what it would mean is you are utilizing the knowledge for something or you are
producing your knowledge by way of research or engaging with it in terms of development.
Let us say you are doing certain product development and so on, or even you are producing some
new, interesting instructional material, but something that you are constantly engaging with the
knowledge production and then you are willing to learn continuously, then only you can expect
your students also to learn continuously. You cannot freeze yourself in time and just repeat
whatever that you have been doing over the years.
Good instructional situation is needed for teachers to be effective on students to learn well. we
have elaborated on instructional situation, that means, how decisions are made, who makes the
decisions, and what kind of infrastructure that you have and do the teachers and students do they
feel comfortable with what is happening? If the instructional situation is not really good, the
attention goes on to these factors rather than on learning.
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So, good instructional situation is needed. And it is besides the college or the management needs
to create this; it is teachers also who can contribute a great deal to improving the instructional
situation. How do they do it? By making students comfortable to ask questions. We have
elaborated on this particular point, students should not feel threatened in a classroom or should
never be belittled in a classroom. A teacher can also greatly contribute to the improving
instructional situation.
Now, there are some norms that are specified by NBA itself. Academic Year is considered from
July to June. If SAR is submitted before 30th of September, then CAY (current academic year)
shall be the previous academic year and if a SAR is submitted after 30th September, then the
CAY shall be the running academic year for the purpose of data consideration and calculations.
CAY means current academic year, CAY m1 means current academic year minus 1 which
happens to be current assessment year and CAY m2 means current academic year minus 2
current assessment year minus 1.
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Let us start with criterion 5.1 it is student-faculty ratio and it is the same number of marks that
are given for both tier 1 and tier 2 and the evaluation guidelines are fairly simple. That is, you
have to compute the total number of students that you have. How do you compute that? That we
have talked about in criterion 4 and also it will be explained in detail when you look at the actual
SAR document.
What we are now looking for the ratio of students to faculty. It needs to vary between or it can be
more than 15:1 to 25:1. For example, if the SFR is higher than 25 the department gets zero
marks, in fact that will be one of the methods by which they will screen. Before you submit
SAR, there are pre qualification criteria, it will come under that.
Earlier required student faculty ratio was 15 but now that has been reduced to 20. If you have
15:1 ratio, then you get full 20 marks and if you have 17:1 you get 18 marks. So, to that extent, if
it is 16:1 you get 19 marks, so it is a pro rata basis until 25:1 ratio. Anything more than, 25 ratio
you get zero marks. There is a one rider for this. If you have 25:1, let us say if the 25:1 to
anywhere up to 17 or 16:1, then the accreditation is given only for three years.
However, well you perform on other counts, the accreditation is for three years. If you want
accreditation for six years, you need to have 15:1 ratio of ratio of our SFR that needs to be
remembered.
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What are the exhibits that will be looked at by the visiting committee? The SFR is to be verified
considering the faculty of the entire department. They may have multiple programs in that, but
the entire department faculty will be counted. Number of regular faculty calculation considering
faculty appointment letters, timetable, subject allocation file, salary statements, these are all the
documents that will be looked at by the visiting committee to determine the number of regular
faculty.
The number of students’ calculation is also mentioned in a SAR. There is a table and you just
have to fill in the numbers as they exist. As far as who is considered regular faculty, faculty
qualification as per AICTE guidelines shall only be counted. If anyone deviates from that,
AICTE guideline he or she will not be counted as faculty member. An additional thing here
minimum 75% of the faculty should be regular faculty and the remaining can be contractual
faculty as per AICTE and standards. They need not be on a on a longer term appointment, but
they can be contractual faculty. Once again there is also definition for contractual faculty.
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See the contractual faculty whether you use the word visiting/adjunct and so on at least who have
taught for two consecutive semesters in the corresponding academic year on full time basis shall
be considered for the purpose of calculation in the student-faculty ratio. If they are taught for two
consecutive semesters in the corresponding academic year on full time basis they shall be
considered as contract faculty.
The faculty to be counted as regular faculty in the respective year if the faculty has joined before
or on 31st August of the same year and continued till 30th April of this subsequent year. So, this
is also a requirement and this documentation will be verified by the visiting committee.
The PhD faculty count requirement shall be calculated on the pro-rata basis with at least 75% to
be part of regular faculty and the remaining being part of contractual faculty, if any. The PhD
faculty count will be calculated based on this pro-rata basis depending on the actual number of
faculty that you have.
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The available and required number of PhDs in the department would be calculated on the
average basis for the previous two academic years, including the current academic year. Why we
need to do all this a little detailed one is, you may have faculty joining and leaving and so on. So
on what basis will you count whether you are satisfying the requirements of number of PhDs that
you require? Small concession the available and required number of PhDs in the department
shall be truncated to its nearest lower integer. So you do not have to give a fractional number, but
lower integer will be adequate.
If a member of a regular or contractual faculty is designated as a lecturer, even though holding an

M.Tech degree, the same will not be counted against the faculty requirements. So you cannot call
somebody as a lecturer and count him as a regular faculty member, so one needs to keep that in
mind.
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There is faculty cadre proportion - by and large you have available faculty and you have required
faculty. Cadre proportion marks: the number of available faculty at the professor level that is
AF1 and RF1 is required number of professors. So AF1 plus by RF1.
Similarly AF2 is related to associate professors. Number of available associate professors

divided by number of required associate professors multiplied by six. Similarly, you have 0.4
multiplied by AF3, AF3 is available assistant professors and RF3 is required assistant professors;
using this formula and multiplying it by 12.5. Obviously, you get only a maximum of 25 marks.
That means, if you have excess number of faculty for some reason or the other, which may be
desirable from other points of view, but you will get only maximum 25 marks for this. But if
AF1 and AF2 are equal to 0, that is you do not have professors or associate professors you may
designate some assistant professor as the head of the department, but that will not count for this;
then you get 0 marks for this.
Tier 1, the only difference is the multiplying factor namely instead of 12.5 now you multiply it
by 10. That means maximum number of marks that a tier 1 institution can get for this sub-
criterion 5.2 is only 20.
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Once again, faculty qualification and experience required for cadre posts shall only be
considered as per AICTE norms and guidelines. Cadre wise number of faculty available faculty
qualification experience and eligibility and the appointments and promotion orders; the visiting
committee will inspect all this documentation. So, the department has to make the files of all
these available to the visiting committee. Also cadre wise number of faculty required as per
AICTE guidelines.
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Now coming to sub-criterion 5.3, faculty qualification. Once again except marks are different for
both tier 1 and tier 2 institution the method of calculation is the same. Like you have faculty
qualification is equal to 2.5 multiplied by 10X plus 4Y. That is X is the number of faculty with
PhDs and Y is the number of faculty with M.Techs and 10X plus 4Y divided by F is the number
of faculty required to comply 1 is to 20 faculty student ratio.
So you compute the F the number of faculty required and 10X plus 4Y divided by F multiplied
by 2.5 will give you a maximum of 25 marks. Whereas, for tier 1 institution, instead of 2.5 you
multiply the same ratio by 2. Once again, the documentary evidence will be looked at by the
visiting committee with regard to faculty qualifications.
Now, we come to another aspect which can be considered as important is the faculty retention. If
faculty are coming and going regularly as it happens in some of the colleges, there is no
continuity at all. If a faculty member stays for one semester and leaves and then the department
has to make some temporary arrangements and ask some faculty member to teach a course with
which he has no experience and so on. So, faculty retention has dimension of continuity of
learning and good quality learning. If you keep making temporary arrangements, then obviously
the learning by the students suffers. So, here there are 25 marks given for tier 2 and only 10
marks for tier 1.
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By and large what happens is, there is a lot more movement in the case of tier 2 institutions than
in tier 1 institution. So, what is considered if 90% of required faculty retained during the period
of assessment, keeping CAY m2 current academic year minus 2 as a base year; if you calculate
from that, if 90% of the faculty are retained then you get 25 marks; in the case of tier 1
institution, you get 10 marks.
Similarly, 75 percent of required faculty retained during the period of assessment, you get 20
marks in tier 2, 8 marks in tier 1. If 60% of required faculty are retained, then you get 15 marks
for tier 2 and 6 marks for tier 1. 50% of required faculty are retain, then you get 10 marks for tier
2 and only 4 for tier 1, that means anything less than 50% of the faculty are getting retained. That
means, you have a continuous inflow and outflow of faculty, then you get 0 marks.
The documentation that will be seen by the visiting committee will be the faculty date of joining
and also at least three months salary statement for each of the assessment year. Unfortunately,
these are required to be inspected because some colleges will try to make adjustments or the
documentation may not be accurate.
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Here we come to sub-criterion 5.5 - it includes innovations by the faculty in teaching and
learning but now the same topic namely innovations by the faculty -in tier 1, it is a criterion 5.6.
Though criterion sub-criterion is different, but the evaluation guidelines and exhibits they happen
to remain the same.
First thing is any innovation that you do, you cannot merely declare, say that I have
experimented something during the current year and my students have learnt well, you cannot
make such a declaration. Any work that you do must be made available on the institute website.
If it is available on the website, you get 4 marks for tier 2 and 2 marks for tier 1. Also the work
must be available for peer review and critique. Like when you make your material available on
the website, there must be provision for any outsider to peer review.
Somebody can comment on that and also critique, whatever that has been done. For example,
any assumptions that are made or it could be in the form of some suggestions as well. When you
create on the website there should be provision made for peer review and critique if you do that,
you get 4 marks in tier 2 and 2 marks for tier 1. The work must be reproducible and developed
further by other scholars. That is, one cannot put kind of a combination of circumstances that are
not reproducible. Something that can be reproducible by others and others can take on from
there. So, if it is reproducible, then you get 2 marks for tier 2 and 2 marks for tier 1.
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How should we make this material available on the website? Statement of clear goals, use of
appropriate methods, significance of results, and effective presentation and reflective critique
that is you critique your own thing that means at the end of it, what do you think that has
happened? So the teacher should be able to reflect on that. It may be a few sentences, but this
document should be made available in this format on the website, you can add more elements to
that, but at least these elements should be there.
For example, in addition to following these guidelines, the faculty should find a method of
determining the impact of their innovation and record the same. You have experimented with
something, some results have come but really did it have an impact? And how are you counting
that impact? Can you record the impact in some way or the other?
So if one can add that, you are adding a lot of value to whatever innovation that is being done by
the faculty. Especially in tier 2 institution, the major activity of a teacher, let us say we call it 80-
20, 80% of the time spent by the faculty member is related to teaching and learning. Your
laboratory is really your classroom, and you have a chance to keep innovating there and this is
what is called also scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL).
Every teacher in my opinion, should be interested in SOTL because you have laboratory access
to you. You do not require any other resource other than your classroom. And you are constantly
interacting with your subjects or let us say your equipment or laboratory and to the extent you
can keep innovating in that.
993
Now what are the exhibits that visiting committee will look at? Availability and institute website;
awareness among faculty and students of the department (that means, are the people aware of
that such a web website exists); then there is some material on that. And the rest of them are
fairly self explanatory. And innovations that contribute to the improvement of student learning;
typically include use of ICT (somewhere), instruction delivery, instructional methods,
assessment, evaluation. In any of these things are in all of them also, use of ICT, instruction
delivery, the choice of instructional method. The innovation can be in an assessment and also in
evaluation.
994
Whereas, in the case of tier 1, the sub-criterion 5.5 is related to faculty competencies in
correlation to programs specific criteria or programs specific outcomes you can say. The
evaluation guidelines are, that means all the specializations that are required by the faculty to run
your program, are they covered?
And are there any research publications in the area of the program specific criteria or any course
developments that have taken place or any other relevant points if you are putting all of them
together, and also we recruitment department should create or can create a matrix of
competencies of its faculty members in a format selected by the institute.
What you do? You are you are preparing a kind of a picture of your own department faculty in
terms of whether all the required competencies are covered or not adequately by your faculty.
This will also become a good feedback to the management as well, when they want to hire new
faculty or sometimes they may have to go to l contract faculty.
This will be subjective evaluation by the visiting team. And this carries only 10 marks for tier 1
institution. This sub-criterion does not exist for tier 2 institution.
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Now 5.6 - faculty as participants in faculty development and training activities and STTPs.
Because more than anything else, faculty have to continuously learn themselves as the subjects
are evolving and instruction methods are growing then one needs to spend some time recharging
oneself. To the extent, there is some weightage given to teachers participating in this kind of
faculty development programs - 15 marks for tier 2 and similarly 15 marks for tier 1, This
particular criterion becomes 5.7 in the case of tier 1 institution.
Evaluation guidelines: there is obviously an upper limit for each year assessment is equal to 3
multiplied by sum of number of days you can say that the teachers have participated (in some of
the programs could be two days, some of them could be five days So, you add the total number
of faculty days that training activity has taken place) divided by point 5 multiplied by RF
required faculty. So, if you count that for each year, this is the number that you do.
As you can see, the maximum can be only 3 and average assessment over last three years,
starting from CAY m1 - the marks limited to is only 15. Even if your faculty have participated in
a very large number of FDPs, maximum number of marks you get is 15 in this.
Exhibits include relevance of the training development program, number of days and number of
faculty. It is also good idea for the institute to seek a report from the faculty who participated in
the FDP or training programs on what is it that they have learnt? In what way do they propose to
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use anything that they have learnt? The report can be decided by the institute level it need not be
very elaborate one, it can be one page, but at least there is a record, the management can take a
look at atleast the utility or something, the faculty member has really benefited by that.
Now, this is really major one -5.7 this is 30 marks for tier 2 and 75 marks for tier 1 institution,
but it becomes criterion 5.8 for tier 1. Now, you have academic research, sponsored research,
development activities, consultancy from industry. So, you have four categories under the R and
D. The marks distribution is like that; as you can see, in case of tier 1, these carry lot more
marks.
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Academic research is measured in number of quality publication in refereed journals, citations

books and book chapters and so on. There is no formula that is followed by looking at the list of
publications and books or book chapters then you either mark it against 6 marks in tier 2 or 15
marks in tier 1.
Similarly, PhDs guided or PhDs awarded during the assessment period while working in the
institute. Then it is 4 marks for tier 2 and 5 marks for tier 1. So, the visiting committee will look
at quality of publications and/or documentary evidence with regard to PhDs guided and PhDs
awarded to the faculty themselves.
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Sponsored research that is you are seeking funding from outside sources. It could be any of the
government agencies or any other private agencies who are willing to support you financially for
some research over three years (cumulative) the amount if it crosses 20 lakhs, then you get 5
marks in tier 2. Similarly, all the way if it is less than 4 lakhs you get 0 marks. Otherwise you get
marks as pro rata basis as given in this particular list.
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Whereas, in terms of tier 1, you get 20 marks and that is given like this - if it is 50 lakhs you get
20 marks, 40-50 lakhs - 15 marks and so on. If it is less than 15 lakhs over three years, then it
does not get counted.
What is the documentary evidence one is seeking with this? The funding agency, the amount,
duration, research progress (research progress possibly every project will have a project review
committee, their reports and so on). What are the final outcomes of this research? By way of
publications reports are the results that have been obtained and so on.
1000
Similarly, development activities: these include product development, research laboratories,

instructional materials, working models, charts and monograms. These are counted as
development activities. In tier 2, you get 10 marks and tier 1 you get 15 marks.
We also recommend that anything under this, department should make a list of the things
developed and preferably create some kind of posters which can be exhibited to the visitors as
well as to the visiting committee. Otherwise it is self explanatory and I think every department
should make some effort to do something and it is possible to get some marks out of this activity.
1001
Consultancy from industry 5 marks for tier 2, once again over three year period, if the amount
exceeds 10 lakhs, you get 5 marks and if it is less than 2 lakhs you get 0 marks, otherwise on pro
rata basis.
Similarly for tier 1 institution, they expect tier 1 institution to do little more of consultancy with
the industry. If it exceeds 10 lakhs, you get 20 marks and if it is less than 2 lakhs, you get 0
marks.
1002
Once again, how do you verify this? The funding agency, the amount received, duration,
research progress and what are the outcomes and so on.
Now come the faculty performance and appraisal and development system. Every institute
should have FPADS as we call it. That means the performance of the teacher should be
periodically appraised. Also there should be a process in place for continuous development of the
teacher. In Tier 2 - 30 marks and tier 1 only 10 marks right now.
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Evaluation guidelines: that means you have well defined performance appraisal and development
system instituted for all the assessment years. Is it operating, is there a system that has been a
document that actually describes how performance of a teacher is appraised. Also, its
implementation the effectiveness there can be a document but in in practice, you do not really
implement it then you do not get marks. For its implementation and effectiveness you carry 20
marks in case of tier 2 institutions.
Departments should also include steps it has taken to develop the competencies of the faculty
because it is not only just appraisal but development also. Is there a mechanism that you have?
by looking at what the teacher is doing, somebody may be doing very well but then you
encourage him to further grow by make making certain opportunities available to him.
The exhibits are notified performance appraisal and development system and appraisal
parameters, awareness, and its implementation, transparency and effectiveness. So, all these will
be inspected by the visiting committee before they award the marks.
5.9 is related to Visiting, Adjunct and Emeritus faculty. See, they are different from contract
faculty. That means you are getting some experts to spend some time with you, who can come
and either give a course or can interact with the faculty or can interact with the students. But who
will be considered these faculty.
1004
First of all there should be provision of visiting, Adjunct and Emeritus faculty - there should be
provision for it. A document under what conditions they have to fulfill to qualify under this just 1
mark presence of such a document and these people should give 50 hours per year interaction.
So per year to obtain 3 marks, and over three years, you can have maximum 9 marks. Even if
you have large number of these visiting faculty, still the maximum you will get is 9 marks for
this. So it becomes 10 for 5.9.
Department should prepare a report on the activities and contributions made by these faculty.
They do not necessarily have to give a course. Let us say when the students are doing project as
per well defined schedule, they can interact with the students to improve the quality of projects
as well. But you have to create documentary evidence of what has happened.
That covers the 10 sub-criteria for tier 1 institution and 9 sub-criteria of tier 2 institution. As you
can see, this particular criterion is the most crucial in any engineering college because it is a
faculty who plays a key role in facilitating good learning.
In the next unit, we will try to understand the indicators for facilities and technical support
offered, which constitutes criterion 6. Thank you very much.
1005
Retired Principle-MSRIT
Lecture 57 – NBA Criterion 6
Greetings, welcome to module 3, unit 17 on Facilities and Technical Support.
In the earlier unit, we understood SAR criterion 5 that deals with faculty information and
contributions.
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In this unit we will look at criterion 6 of SAR. The outcome for this unit is - understand the
SAR requirements related to facilities and technical support.
Criterion 6 is concerned with laboratories to run the program specific curriculum and
technical support staff. The sub-criteria, the allocation of marks, and the required exhibits
differ marginally between Tier 1 and Tier 2 Institutes. However, the total marks are 80 in
both the cases. Most of the exhibits required are quite similar for both Tier 1 and Tier 2
institutes. We will also see that several sub-criteria are quite similar for both types of
institute.
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The sub-criteria and allocation of marks for a Tier 1 Institute are as follows. There are 4 sub-
criteria and the total marks come to 80. The first sub-criterion is adequate and well equipped
laboratories and technical manpower - 40 marks; the second sub-criterion is laboratories,
maintenance and overall ambience - 10 marks; 6.3 is safety measures in laboratories again -
10 marks; 6.4 is project laboratory, project facilities - 20 marks, the total is 80 marks.
For Tier 2 Institute there are 5 sub-criteria. The first sub-criterion deals with again adequate
and well equipped laboratories and technical manpower but the marks are 30; 6.2 is
additional facilities created for improving the quality of learning experience in laboratories -
25 marks; 6.3 is laboratories maintenance and overall ambience - 10 marks; 6.4 project
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laboratory facilities - 5 marks; 6.5 is safety measures in laboratories - 10 marks. The total
again comes to 80 marks.
Thus if we compare sub-criteria under 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 and 6.5 for Tier 2 and Tier 1, we note
that there are many similarities also. Total of 80 marks in both the cases; Marks for sub-
criteria are different. Tier 1 Institute, 4 sub-criteria; Tier 2 institute 5 sub-criteria; Sub-
Criterion 6.1 is same for both types of institutes.
The sub-criterion 6.2 which is additional facilities created for improving the quality of
learning experience in laboratories is only for Tier 2 Institute. It is not present for Tier 1
Institute. Thus this criterion is unique for Tier 2 Institutes only.
The other sub-criteria, though numbered differently are same for both types of institute, they
are laboratories, maintenance and overall ambience, safety measures in laboratories, project
laboratory and facilities.
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So, let us look at sub-criterion 6.1, which is adequate and well-equipped laboratories and
technical manpower. Requirements are common to both Tier 1 and Tier 2 institutes though
evaluation guidelines and allocation of marks are different. Evaluation guidelines for Tier 1
institute are adequate well equipped laboratories to run all the program specific curriculum
carries 25 marks. The second guideline is the availability of adequate and qualified technical
supporting staff, this carries 15 marks.
The evaluation guidelines for Tier 2 institute are 3 in number. The first one is same as for
Tier 1 Institute; adequate well equipped laboratories to run all the program specific
curriculum, marks are 20. The second guideline is the availability of adequate technical
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supporting staff, marks are 5. The third guideline is the availability of qualified technical
supporting staff again for 5 marks.
If you notice, the guidelines B and C of Tier 2 institute together appear as guideline B of Tier
1 institute. For a Tier 1 Institute, we say availability of adequate and qualified technical
supporting staff. For a Tier 2 Institute, these two aspects are separated. The guideline B
becomes adequate technical supporting staff. Guideline C becomes qualified technical
supporting staff. Thus though the guidelines look different they are essentially the same.
The data required is same in both the cases and evaluation guidelines are effectively the
same. The data provided is evaluated by the visiting team based on their subjective
perception.
Data to be provided for both Tier 1 and Tier 2 Institutes is given in the particular format as
mentioned in the SAR. We state the laboratory; the number of students per setup batch; name
of important equipment in the laboratory; weekly utilization status (all the courses for which
the lab is utilized); then we state the technical manpower support, name of the technical staff,
designation and qualification.
These details need to be provided for all the labs concerned with the particular program for
which accreditation is being sought.
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Sub-criterion 6.1 will be evaluated better by the visiting team if the department can follow
certain good practices. A chart showing the utilization can be maintained in each lab. The
schedule of different batches of students who come into this lab can be shown in the form of
a chart. And this chart can be made available in the laboratory itself.
When the lab is being shared by different departments, certain additional considerations come
into picture. Authority for allocation of lab resources and support staff must be shown clearly.
It must be ensured that students of all the programs who are using the lab are happy with the
services provided in the lab. The reason for this consideration is that sometimes students of
one department are not happy with the kind of support that they get when they visit the lab
belonging to another department.
While all the labs are essentially, the facilities provided by the Institute in some cases, it does
appear that the students do have some difficulties when they work in the laboratories
belonging to other departments. The department must ensure that such an unfortunate
scenario does not occur. It may be necessary to get feedback from the students to ensure this.
While the visiting team interacts with the students, they would certainly be asking the
students if they are happy with the laboratory facilities available to them. So, we must ensure
that students of all the programs who are using a particular laboratory are happy with the
services available in that laboratory. Clear policy must be established for providing additional
slots when required.
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Then there is one sub-criterion, which is unique to Tier 2 Institutes. Additional facilities
created for improving the quality of learning experience in laboratories. This is listed as sub-
criterion 6.2 for Tier 2 institutes; this sub-criterion does not exist for Tier 1 institute. The
department must provide the data as shown in the format: the name of the faculty, the details,
reasons for creating the facility, utilization, area in which students are expected to have
enhanced learning relevance to POs and PSOs.
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The evaluation guidelines for this sub-criterion are 3. Availability and relevance of additional
facilities for 10 marks; Utilization of facilities and effectiveness 10 marks again; Relevance
to POs and PSOs, 5 marks. Supporting documents must be available.
The documents must clearly show - what are the additional facilities established; what are the
motivations for establishing those additional facilities; which are the POs and PSOs that get
related to these additional facilities and what is the extent to which these additional facilities
are getting utilized. Avoid listing routine equipments like projectors as additional facilities.
We are talking of additional facilities for improving the quality of learning experience in the
laboratories.
It is a good practice to do impact analysis. Action must be taken based on such analysis and
the department must maintain supporting documents. How do the students react to the
additional facilities? Are they happy with the quality of learning experiences that they get in
these additional facilities? Do they find that the additional facilities are relevant to the POs
and PSOs?
We must get data about all these aspects, how the students perceive these additional facilities.
Records of sharing these facilities must be maintained if relevant. If the additional facilities
created in one department are being utilized by students of other programs also, then records
must show such utilization also.
1014
Then we come to the sub-criterion, the maintenance and overall ambience in the laboratories.
This is listed as sub-criterion 6.2 for Tier 1 Institute, and as sub-criterion 6.3 for Tier 2
Institute. Evaluation is based on the perception of the visiting team when they inspect the
facilities.
Again some good practices that a department can follow are provided here. Implement
preventive maintenance where required. Have policy documents and implementation records.
Some of the equipments would need a preventive maintenance. So in such cases have an
appropriate preventive maintenance schedule and demonstrate that you are implementing
such a preventive maintenance schedule.
Calibrate the equipment where necessary. Periodic calibration of some equipments would be
essential to ensure that the students are able to conduct the experiments effectively. In all
such cases, ensure that calibration is done at appropriate times. Have documents indicating
the policy for calibration, and also maintain records showing the implementation of such
calibrations.
Maintenance records must be up-to-date. Implement the necessary inventory policies for the
components and materials. Most of the institutes do maintain adequate stocks of components
and materials and follow some methodology for replenishing components and materials. But
these processes are most often quite informal. But it is a good practice to establish a
methodical way of dealing with such issues and ensure that the established procedure is
followed by the department.
1015
Another Sub-Criterion is safety measures in laboratories. This is listed as sub-criterion 6.3 for
Tier 1 Institute and as sub-criterion 6.5 for Tier 2 Institute. The sub-criterion is same but it is
numbered differently for Tier 1 Institute and Tier 2 Institute. Evaluation is based again on the
perception of the visiting team when they inspect the facilities.
Some good practices that can be followed are as follows. Ensure that proper safety
instructions are prominently displayed at appropriate places in the laboratory. Laboratories
like high voltage laboratory need special safety measures. Ensure that relevant safety
standards are followed. Maintain the necessary records, the records must show the standards
which are relevant to that particular laboratory and the records must also show the
implementation of all those standards.
1016
Ensure proper maintenance of safety equipment like fire extinguishers, have necessary
records. Ensure that proper standards are followed while handling or storing hazardous
chemicals, explosive substances etc. Ensure that first aid kits are in proper condition.
These look like very trivial aspects of the laboratory safety measures. But often, departments
tend to forget these small matters only. It is important that all the safety measures are
properly implemented in all the laboratories.
Have a standard operating procedure for emergencies. Based on specific local context,
implement any other safety measures in the laboratories as required. There can be many other
safety measures which are required in a specific context. The institute must analyze these
requirements carefully and implement appropriate safety measures.
1017
Project laboratory/facilities, this is listed as sub-criterion 6.4 for both Tier 1 and Tier 2
institutes, again evaluation is based on the perception of the visiting team when they inspect
the facilities. Some of the possible good practices are as follows. Ensure that a separate
laboratory is provided for project work. Do not combine it with any regular laboratory or any
special laboratory like a research laboratory.
Let the laboratory for project work be a dedicated one. Provide a separate laboratory even if it
is small, dedicated to project work only. Maintain logbook of utilization of the facility. If it is
feasible, provide flexible access timings. If the students can work beyond the scheduled
college hours, make it possible for them to work in the project laboratory. The access controls
for the project laboratory should be more liberal when compared with the access controls for
regular laboratories. The motivation for this is that the students must be able to work in the
project laboratory beyond the scheduled college timings.
Allocate necessary budget for the maintenance and upgradation of the project laboratory. The
project laboratory may not be treated as on par with other regular laboratories required for the
program curriculum. The project laboratory is generally a unique additional facility created to
help the students practice the project ideas in a more conducive environment.
1018
In the next unit we will understand the SAR requirements related to continuous
improvement. That is criterion 7 of SAR. Thank you.
1019
Lecture 58 NBA Criterion 7 Continuous Improvement
Greetings, welcome to module 3, unit 18 on Continuous Improvement.
In the last unit, we understood the SAR requirements related to facilities and technical
support that was criterion 6 of SAR.
1020
In this unit we will look at criterion 7 of SAR. The outcome for this unit is - understand the
SAR requirements related to Continuous Improvement.
The sub-criteria under criterion 7 are same for both Tier 1 and Tier 2 Institutes. This criterion
is concerned with Continuous Improvement. The sub-criteria are same for both Tier 1 and
Tier 2 institutes. However, the allocation of marks is different. There are 4 sub-criteria - total
marks are 75 for Tier 1 Institute, while it is only 50 for Tier 2 Institute.
1021
The sub-criteria are as follows: 7.1 actions taken based on the results of evaluation of each
PO and PSO - the marks for a Tier 1 institute are 30 while a Tier 2 Institute has only 20
marks. 7.2 academic audit and actions taken during the period of assessment, 15 marks for
Tier 1 Institute, and 10 marks for Tier 2 Institute are allocated.
7.3 is improvement in placement, higher studies and entrepreneurship - 10 marks for both
Tier 1 as well as Tier 2 Institute. 7.4 is improvement in the quality of students admitted to the
program, 20 marks for Tier 1 Institute and 10 marks for Tier 2 Institute. A total of 75 marks
for Tier 1 Institute and a total of 50 marks for Tier 2 Institute are allocated.
1022
Sub-Criterion 7.1 deals with the actions taken based on the results of evaluation of each of
the POs and PSOs. Evaluation guidelines are as follows: Documentary evidences of POs and
PSOs attainment levels - 15 marks for Tier 1 Institute and 5 marks for Tier 2 Institute.
Identification of gaps, shortfalls - 5 marks for both Tier 1 and Tier 2 Institutes; Plan of action
to bridge the gap and its implementation - 10 marks for both Tier 1 and Tier 2 Institutes.
Documentary evidences of POs and PSOs attainment levels: Target levels and attainment
levels of POs and PSOs are already recorded under criterion 3. Criterion 3, if we recall, deals
with course outcomes and program outcomes, the attainment levels of POs and PSOs are
already available under criterion 3. We reproduce the information from that particular
criterion.
Identification of gaps and shortfalls: Gaps must be identified and analyze to determine plans
for improvements in the attainment levels. We need to analyze the attainment gaps of COs
also for this purpose. The general process through which the gaps are analyzed and
improvement action plans are initiated have already been discussed earlier in module 1. The
gaps may be positive or negative. If the attainment level exceeds the target level, the
department may revise the target upwards; if the attainment level falls short of the target
level, the department needs to initiate appropriate action plans to improve the attainment
levels for the next batch.
The action plans must be clearly listed. The action plans must help to bridge the gap between
the attainment level and the target level. The evidence that these action plans have been
1023
implemented also must be available. Improvement plans must be documented for each PO
and PSO separately. These guidelines are same for both Tier 1 and Tier 2 institutes.
For each PO and PSO we need to initiate the following activities and maintain the records.
State the PO/PSO: PO is stated as given by the NBA; PSO is stated as formulated by the
department. Indicate the target level and the attainment level. This data is obtained from the
data provided under criterion 3. Record your observations about the attainment gaps. As
noted, just now the gaps could be positive or negative.
Include observations on why the gaps could have occurred; include analysis as to the reasons
for the attainment levels, not reaching the target levels. This analysis must be objective and
logical. Do not include reasons like poor quality students. The reasons for not attaining the
set target levels must be related to the teaching-learning processes.
Record the action plans. Guidelines regarding the action plans have already been discussed in
module 1. Like the action plan can never be a vague statement like ‘motivate the students
better’; such statement should not be included in the action plans. The action plans must be
very specific, doable action items, and the indicated plan must show the resources required to
implement those plans. The above information is to be provided in the format specified in
the SAR.
1024
Sub-criterion 7.2 deals with academic audit: Academic audit and actions taken during the
period of assessment. The visiting team awards marks based on the assessment and
evaluation of the academic audit assessment criteria, frequency, conduct mechanism, action
plan based on audit, implementation, and effectiveness.
IQAC must develop an academic audit process document in consultation with all
stakeholders. If the institute does not have an IQAC, it is high time that it establishes an
IQAC. The process must include the objectives of the audit, unit of audit, assessment criteria,
frequency of audit, composition of the audit teams, guidelines for the conduct of the audit,
format for reporting the audit results, and so on. The unit of the audit can be the department
or a specific program.
1025
Records of the academic audit must be maintained. Departments must analyze the audit
reports; plan actions based on the analysis and implement the actions. Records of all these
activities must be maintained. Frequency of audit is typically once every semester. However,
the institute is free to do the audit more often or less often. The audit team is generally
composed of internal faculty only.
However, external members are included in some Institutes in an annual audit. These
Institutes conduct the academic audit twice in a year and once in a year, the audit team would
include external members. They hope to get more objective results probably when the
external faculty are included in the audit teams.
Audit must be conducted in the spirit of mutual respect and trust. For audit to be really
successful, it must be conducted in a very cordial atmosphere. Audit must be seen as the
process to improve the quality not as a mechanism for just finding faults.
1026
Assessments during the audit typically address the following academic issues. The list
provided is only a sample; there are many other academic activities that need to be audited.
COs of all the courses, their target levels, attainment levels and action plans based on the gap
analysis, CO – PO/PSO mappings, Target levels, attainment levels, gap analysis, and
consequent action plans with respect to POs and PSOs.
Quality of all assessment instruments, including internal tests, quizzes, assignments, and end
semester examinations for Tier 1 Institutes. The departments are supposed to have a question
paper validation committee, which scrutinizes the question papers for the quality and
suggests modifications when the quality is not satisfactory. Even though such a process
exists, the audit team must check that the process is implemented in its true spirit and the
final assessment instruments are of good quality.
1027
Process for validation of assessment instrument itself can be checked during the audit.
Rubrics for seminars, mini projects and main project; Conduct of laboratories; Actions
implemented by the department based on the report of the previous academic audit. This is an
extremely important aspect of the audit process. Once the academic audit is completed, and
report is submitted to the institute, and a copy is sent to the department, the department must
analyze the report and initiate actions in response to the concerns raised in the report.
These actions must be recorded. Evidence of their implementation must be available for
inspection by the next audit team. This ensures that the quality cycle is completed. This is
only an illustrative list. There are many other academic activities that need to be audited.
The audit team can verify the instruction plans or lesson plans; the audit team can examine
the implementation records or what are also called as teaching dairies; the audit team can
look at any specific pedagogical initiatives launched by the department. In fact, all the
academic activities come under the purview of an academic audit.
Thus the process document must be fairly elaborate, clearly spelling out all the criteria to be
assessed. It must list all the areas to be audited by the audit team. The specific details of the
process may vary from institute to institute.
1028
Improvements in placement, higher studies and entrepreneurship: There are three evaluation
guidelines - improvements in placements number, quality, core hiring industry and pay
packages, 5 marks common to both types of institutes; Improvements in higher studies
admissions for pursuing PhD in premier institutions - 3 marks common to both types of
institutes; Improvement in the number of entrepreneurs - 2 marks, common to both types of
institutes.
The required data is already provided under sub-criterion 4.5. Marks are given
proportionately considering the numbers in the base year current assessment year minus 3. So
that is taken as the reference and marks are awarded based on the data, taking the data in
CAY minus 3 as the base data.
It is to be carefully noted that if the placement numbers or the number of students getting
admitted into institutes of reputation, or the number of students becoming entrepreneurs is
actually coming down instead of going up, then the department must have adequate valid
reasoning to explain this dip in the performance. Institutes are supposed to improve year-on-
year. However, if there is an occasional dip, the department must have valid reasons to
explain the dip.
1029
The sub-criterion 7.4 deals with improvement in the quality of students admitted to the
program. The evaluation guidelines would be assessment is based on improvement in terms
of rank/score in qualifying state level or national level entrance test; percentage marks in
physics, chemistry and mathematics in the 12th standard and percentage marks of the lateral
entry students.
The required data is to be provided in the format specified in the SAR. The number of
students admitted under each category; the ranks and scores in appropriate eligibility
examinations; the marks scored by the students in their 12th standard and percentage of marks
for lateral entry students. All these data must be provided in a specified format.
Documentary evidence to support the data provided must be maintained. Admission records
must be clearly available. Student information must be available. The visiting team can check
any part of these details. Based on the quality of the students admitted to the program year-
on-year, the visiting team would award marks.
1030
So that completes our criterion 7. In the next unit we will look at criterion 8 of SAR. We will
understand the SAR requirements related to first year academics.
Thank you.
1031
Professor N J Rao
Lecture 59
Criterion 8
Greetings and welcome to NATE module 3 unit 19 related to the Criterion 8 of NBA.
In the earlier unit we understood the process and methods of presenting continuous
improvement in teaching-learning which constitutes the criterion 7 of SAR.
1032
Now in this unit we will try to understand the indicators for first-year academics, which is
criterion 8.
First-year academics, they constitute mostly the common courses across all departments. If
you take a course like problem solving through programming through C, it is taken by
students of all departments. Similarly a course like physics, chemistry, mathematics 1 and 2
and so on. They're all taken by students of all branches.
So many colleges have come to the state where they create one department (whatever name
they give), which coordinates all the courses, let us say physics, chemistry, maths, and for
1033
that matter all first-year courses. This particular department is responsible for organizing the
courses, identifying the faculty, scheduling them, as well as conducting the internal tests and
so on and on. The department very rarely gets involved in the conduct of these courses.
So to that extent, the first-year academics are made separate from the remaining 3 years’
academics in any program. Here some of the processes are likely to be different from those of
the departments. As first-year courses will have multiple sections - very large number of
sections. Depending on the college you may have as many as 12 sections for a course let us
say on problem solving through programming and that is the reason why a separate criterion
is identified in SAR.
But the department needs to be concerned with the performance of its own students who are
in the first-year. So, to that extent, their academic performance will also constitute part of
their own SAR. So, the department which conducts the courses does not get accredited at all
by NBA.
It is the department which has to gather the information from this particular department
which is conducting first-year courses and then put it in a format and make it part of the SAR.
So, it should be remembered it is the department that is getting accredited, not the department
which conducts the first-year courses.
Here there are 5 sub-criteria under this. In both the cases, (Tier 1 and Tier 2 institutions) the
marks allocated for criterion 8 is 50. The first sub-criterion is first-year students do you have
the right faculty ratio? First-year Student Faculty Ratio - 5 marks; Qualification of faculty
1034
teaching first-year common courses - 5 marks; First-year academic performance - 10 marks;
Attainment of course outcomes of first-year courses - 10 marks; Attainment of Program
Outcomes of all first-year courses - 10 marks.
Coming to the Sub-Criterion in 8.1, you have to compute the First-year Student-Faculty
Ratio. how do we compute this? This is a simple formula. The student-faculty ratio is
computed in the same way that we have been calculating - how many first-year students are
there in the college? And then, how many faculty are there who belong to this particular
department, which is conducting first-year courses, that ratio should be better than 20.
If it is greater than 25, then the assessment is equal to 0 that means you get 0 marks.
Otherwise it gets adjusted to 5 x 20 divided by FYSFR. And this you have to compute the
data over 3 academic years and take an average. Even if you have more faculties with you,
the maximum number of marks you can get is only 5.
Now, what are the exhibits that the visiting committee will look at? Number of regular
faculty calculation considering regular faculty definition and fractional load, faculty
appointment letters, salary statements and so on. Using all that it will try to make sure that the
number of faculty present is calculated appropriately. And the number of students calculation
is already presented in the earlier criterion as a part of SAR.
1035
As far as qualification of faculty are concerned this again 5 marks for both types of institution
and it is fairly straightforward 5x plus 3y divided by RF, ‘RF’ is required faculty in the ratio
of 20. ‘x’ is the number of PhD holders and ‘y’ is the number of master's degree holders.
Again maximum marks that you can get will be only 5. Once again, the documentary
evidence on faculty qualifications, these will have to be kept ready in appropriate form for the
visiting committee to take a look at.
8.3 is related to first-year academic performance. This is somewhat similar to second and
third year academic performance. That is, the academic performance is mean of first-year
grade point average of all successful students on a 10 point scale. But if college is using
1036
percentage marks, then mean or the percentage of marks in first-year of all successful
students divided by 10. Then you are converting into a 10 point scale multiplied by successful
students, divided by number of students appeared in the examination.
By multiplying the fraction of successful students with the mean first-year grade point
average, you get a number for academic performance. Successful students are those who are
permitted to proceed to the second year as per the rules of the institution. So, this data will
also be verified by the visiting committee based on the documentation provided by the
college.
8.4 is the attainment of course outcomes of the first-year courses. These are 5 marks for this
8.4.1. In this you have the list of assessment processes if you put you will get 1 mark and
justification of the relevance of assessment tools used you get 4 marks. By and large the
processes used and the relevance of these tools will be somewhat similar to the attainment of
Course Outcomes at second year or third year level and by and large these also will be kind
of common across all departments. If you have done well in the other one, it should not be
difficult to get these 5 marks.
The documentary evidence will also identify whether it is direct and indirect assessment and
the tools processes, effective compliance, direct assessment methodology, indirect assessment
formats, collection-analysis decision making all that the way it has been done for second and
third year in a similar format, they have to do it for the first-year as well.
1037
8.4.2 is the continuation of attainment of Course Outcomes. You have to record the
attainment of course outcomes of all first-year courses. This we have explained there can be
several methods and we have presented one particular method of how to compute the course
attainment or the CO attainments of a course.
That is you have several Course Outcomes each Course Outcome can be at a particular
cognitive level and there is a particular weight age that is given based on which you identify
your internal evaluation processes and semester end examinations. Using all similar methods
here, you compute the attainment of course outcomes. This particular process should be
arrived with the consent of the entire institute. And that data will be verified and evaluated by
the visiting committee.
1038
8.5 is attainment of Program Outcomes of all first-year courses and this carries 20 marks. If
you look at the statement of 8.5.1 - indicate results of evaluation of each relevant PO/PSO.
Strictly speaking, if all courses of first-year are compulsory for all branches, the word PSO
need not be mentioned in this context.
As we can see, sub-criterion 8.5 does not mention PSO, but 8.5.1 does include the word PSO.
Why is it so? In some colleges all courses that are offered in the first-year are not compulsory
for all departments. Sometimes some courses which are specific to a department in that case,
for that particular course, PSOs becomes relevant. But by and large, or at least most of the
courses in first-year, they are only concerned with POs.
So, the process of computing the attainment level from the COs (we have mentioned that in
with respect to the earlier criteria, how do you relate COs to POs and PSOs) once again it is
not a unique process, but we have explained one particular method of computing it. And if
you are following that, yes, you can also follow the same method here or otherwise, the
college if it redefines that process of correlating COs with POs and PSOs you need to follow
that.
Here there are two parts. One is what is the process of computing that has to be explained that
carries 5 marks and verification of documents validating the above processes and where you
are actually computing the attainment of POs and PSOs. This documentation will be verified
subjectively by the visiting committee.
1039
In 8.5.2 - what are the actions you are taking based on the results of evaluation of relevant
POs/PSOs. That is, having computed the PO attainments and then having set some targets for
PO attainment then depending on the attainment gap, you plan to take appropriate corrective
action. That corrective action also needs to be presented here and this carries 5 marks.
Once again you for each PO, you try to record the corrective actions you propose to take to
improve the attainment of Program Outcomes. This evaluation will also be subjective by the
visiting committee.
1040
In the following unit, we will try to understand the indicators for student support systems,
which constitutes Criterion 9.
1041
Greetings welcome to Module 3 Unit 20 on Student Support Systems.
In the earlier unit we understood the SAR requirements of the first year academics that is
Criterion 8 of SAR.
1042
In this unit, we will understand the SAR requirements related to Student Support Systems this is
Criterion 9 of SAR. So this is also an institutional level criterion.
This criterion is concern with student support systems. The sub-criteria, the required processes
the allocation of marks and the required exhibits are all same for both Tier 1 and Tier 2 institutes.
And as I mentioned this is again an institute level criterion.
(Refer Slide Time: 01: 34)
There are 7 sub-criteria; the sub-criteria and the allocation of marks are as follows. 9.1 mentoring
system to help at individual level, 5 marks; Feedback analysis and reward corrective measure
1043
taken, if any 10 marks; Feedback on facilities, 5 marks; self-learning, 5 marks; career guidance,
training, placements, 10 marks; entrepreneurship cell, 5 marks; co-curricular and extracurricular
activities, 10 marks.
The total is 50 marks and the sub-criteria, the allocation of marks and the total marks are same
for both Tier 1 and Tier 2 institutes.
Let us look at the first sub-criterion 9.1 which is concerned with mentoring system. The
mentoring system is to help individual students.
The evaluation guidelines are as follows: details of the mentoring system that has been
developed for students for various purposes and also state the efficacy of such system.
The exhibits to be observed - mentoring system terms of reference, implementation,

effectiveness. The visiting team will assess the effectiveness of the mentoring system when they
interact with the students also.
1044
Many institutes do have a mentoring system in place. However, some of them implement the
system either informally or semi-formally. But it is a good practice to implement the system in a
formal fashion. A written document describing the details of the mentoring system process must
be available. IQAC can develop this document in consultation with stakeholders.
The process document may include the following details. The details listed here are
representative only, the actual details in a process documents would vary from institute to
institute. The internal quality assurance cell has to develop a document that is suited best for
their specific context. Some of the details that may be included in the process document are as
follows.
Number of students per mentor - Typically, this number would be between 15 and 20. If a
mentor is allocated a very large number of students the mentoring system will not be very
effective. So the number of students allocated per mentor is typically between 15 and 20.
Frequency of mentoring sessions, again this can vary from institute to institute. But typically
atleast once in a month the mentor needs her mentees.
Scope of mentoring: the mentoring can include professional guidance, career advancement,
course work specific issues, laboratory specific issues, or it can be even personal issues. Most of
the institutes include all of these aspects in the scope of mentoring. Some institutes may have
more than one mentoring system to accommodate these issues.
1045
The most common scenario is that there is a single mentoring system and the scope of such a
system includes all these issues. Identifying weak and bright students is also generally included
in the scope of the mentoring system.
Further details in the process documents can be as follows. Problem escalation procedure, there
may be occasions where the faculty has to take up the problem with higher authorities. What
should be the procedure for escalating a problem in such situations? This must be clearly spelt
out in the process documents.
The need may arise when the mentor the unable to resolve the problem of the student or when
several students report the same problem or similar problems. Probably it is something that needs
to be resolved at the institute level. The individual faculty may not be able to help the student
with regard to this specific problem. Then the faculty must know what is the procedure by which
the problem can be escalated to higher authorities.
Format of the record of mentoring sessions also may be included in the process document. It is
desirable to maintain a record of specific case studies, which illustrate the efficacy of the
mentoring system. If there are specific cases where students benefited from the mentoring system
it is worthwhile recording such cases in full detail. They will serve to illustrate the efficacy of the
mentoring system.
1046
It is good practice to explain the scope and purpose of the mentoring system to the new students
as well as new faculty. Often faculty pick up the elements of the mentoring system from their
collogues. But it is a good practice to introduce faculty to the mentoring system in a formal
induction program. Similarly, new students also must be made aware of the features of the
mentoring system. These steps would ensure that the mentoring system becomes effective and
efficient.
Sub-criterion 9.2 details with feedback analysis and reward/corrective measures taken, if any.
The evaluation guidelines include 2 aspects, methodology being followed for analysis of
feedback and its effectiveness that carries 5 marks. Record of corrective measures taken and this
carries 5 marks. This sub-criterion has a sub total of 10 marks.
The exhibits to be observed and assessed - feedback questions, feedback collection process,
analysis of the feedback data, actions taken and the effectiveness of the actions taken.
1047
We discussed the collection of student feedback, analysis and corrective actions in module 2. We
also discussed the tricky problem of getting valid survey data in module 2. Feedback must be
collected for all courses. The process document must include details of feedback format,
questions in the feedback form, computation of faculty evaluation indices, etcetera.
In module 2 we discussed the details of feedback format and the questions in the feedback form.
When the feedback is used to evaluate the faculty institutes generally have a procedure for
computing a single metric from the feedback data. This metric is a measure of the teachers’
effectiveness. It is also possible for the institutes to come out with a composite metric.
For example, some institutes compute the metric along 3 dimensions. The first dimension can be
the academic competence of the faculty member. The second dimension can be the supportive
nature of the faculty member. The third dimension can be the discipline being maintained in the
classroom. So there will be 3 numbers indicating the quality of the faculty member.
Usually the number is a real number between 0 and 1 or it is recorded as a percentage. The
department must maintain records of number of students participating in the surveys. The
department can also compute average percentage of number of the students participating in the
surveys. Corrective measures taken and their effectiveness must also be recorded. In module 2,
we discussed that unless corrective measures are taken the students will not have faith in the
process of providing the feedback.
1048
Values of all faculty evaluation indices over the years must be maintained in the department.
Visiting team often would look at the variations in the evaluation indices of the faculty over the
years. That would be a measure of any corrective actions taken. The effectiveness of the
corrective actions taken can be seen in the changes in the evaluation indices.
The sub-criterion 9.3 is concerned with feedback on facilities. Most of the institutes have a
mechanism of collecting feedback data from the students regarding the faculty and sometimes
regarding the courses. But, this sub-criterion talks of feedback on facilities.
The evaluation guidelines include feedback collection, analysis and corrective action. Institutes
must collect student feedback regarding all the facilities. Facilities include not only laboratories,
but also on campus facilities like drinking water system, parking facilities, canteen etcetera.
Feedback may be obtained regarding facilities to support sports and/or cultural activities also.
IQAC may design a suitable form for collecting the feedback. As mentioned earlier feedback
must be collected electronically. The periodicity of feedback on facilities is typically once every
year.
1049
Some institutes ask students to rate the satisfaction with a facility and also the importance of that
facility in their perception. The difference between perceived importance and satisfaction can be
used to prioritize the action plan for improvement regarding that facility.
For example, student may be quite unhappy with a particular facility. However, they rate it as not
really important then the institute can consider this aspect as a low priority item. On the other
hand, if students rate a particular facility as highly important and also indicate that they are not
happy with that facility that means that the difference between importance and satisfaction is a
high positive number. The institute must initiate corrective actions on a priority basis. This can
be one method of prioritizing the improvement plans because of the limited budgets.
Institutes must analyze the feedback data, initiate appropriate actions and measure the
effectiveness of the actions taken. Records of all these activities must be maintained. For
example if the institute has made efforts to improve the quality of a particular facility that must
get reflected in the survey that is carried out the next year. It will show that the actions initiated
have been effective.
1050
Sub-criterion 9.4 deals with self-learning. We already have seen earlier that self-learning is
considered as an extremely important attributes of the graduating engineers. It is there in one of
their program outcomes also. The evaluation guidelines include, scope for self-learning this is for
2 marks; the institution needs to specify the facilities, materials for learning beyond syllabus,
webinars, podcasts, MOOCs etcetera and demonstrate its effective utilizations, this aspect carries
3 marks.
1051
Some of the good practices in support of sub-criterion 9.4 can be as follows. Establish an e-
Learning center with adequate number of computer systems and internet with good bandwidth.
Of course what is good will depend upon the specific context in which the institute is operating.
Procure, upgrade, and maintain learning resources including material from NPTEL, Swayam
etcetera. The institute can maintain this material either as hard copies or as soft copies or
available as both hard and soft copies. This material must be beyond those required as per the
curriculum. So the learning material is beyond what is required as per the curriculum.
Implement suitable mechanisms for disseminating widely and periodically information regarding
learning resources available. Often the students may not be aware of the new learning resources
that have been added to the e-learning center. The institute must initiate appropriate measures to
ensure that the information is disseminated among all the students at appropriate times. So the
institute must have measures which will ensure that the students are aware of the learning
resources available in the e-learning center.
Encourage the students to use these e-learning resources. Maintain records of utilization. And it
is evident that the schedule of the activities planned for the students must have some time
available for the students to engage in the self-learning activities. If the entire weekly time table
is totally packed with schedule activities, the students may not be able to make use of the
facilities available in such an e-learning center.
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Sub-Criterion 9.5 deals with career guidance, training and placement. The evaluation guidelines
look at four different aspects regarding this sub-criterion. Availability of career guidance
facilities for 2 marks; Counseling for higher studies including GATE, GRE, GMAT, etcetera 2
marks; Pre-placement training 3 marks; Placement process and support, 3 marks.
The exhibits to be observed and assessed include the availability of this facility, implementation,
effectiveness. The visiting team would also verify the material provided by the department under
this criterion when they interact with the students. The claims made for a particular program are
verified when the visiting team interact with the students.
Almost all institutes have a Placement and Training Department or an equivalent department or
cell. Institute must provide adequate financial resources and human resources for effective and
efficient functioning of this department. Often placement departments work beyond the regular
college hours. So the institute must provide appropriate infrastructure support for the placement
department to work efficiently.
Plan, schedule, implement and record career guidance sessions, counseling sessions for higher
studies. Adequate information must be easily available regarding career opportunities and
opportunities for higher studies. The placement department can maintain a good stock of
information brochures regarding different career opportunities and information brochures
regarding the opportunities for higher studies.
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Information booklets of different repeated universities and institutions in India and abroad can be
maintained in the placement department. Students must be able to refer to these booklets easily.
It is also desirable for the department to make information available regarding different career
opportunities. For example, career opportunities in defense sector, in public industries sector, in
core industries sector, abroad. These all can be made easily available and accessible to the
students.
Plan, schedule, implement and record pre-placement training including training and group
discussions, facing interviews, etcetera. Most of the placement departments do conduct regular
training program for students in these transferable skills. Group discussions, facing the interview,
personality development, these are some of the topics on which regular training sessions are
held. But ensure that the department does these activities as per a prepared plan and as per a well
laid out schedule.
Records must show the implementation of such pre-placement training activities. How many
students participated in those training programs? How many students are happy with the training
programs provided? How many students require certain additional training? This kind of data
must be maintained by the placement department.
The department must have a written policy regarding the placement process. If a student gets
multiple job offers, is the student allowed to participate in the recruitment drive of one more
company? How many recruitment drives are allowed per student? Is there something like a
dream company option provided to the students? In other words, even if the student has already
an offer in hand, can she be allowed to appear for the interviews of one specific company which
she has listed as her dream company?
The placement options are many. The policy diversions possible are also many. Institutes must
have a policy that is best suited for its specific context. Such a policy must exist as a written
document and must be known to all the students. So it is good practice to have a written policy
regarding the options available to the students. And make this policy a transparent one. Let the
students know the policy of the institute regarding these placement options.
All the records must be maintained properly. This will include the companies in which the
placements are provided to the students, the pay package offered to the students, the department
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can maintain records of the maximum pay package, the minimum pay package, the mean pay
package. All these details must be maintained thoroughly.
Sub-Criterion 9.6 deals with Entrepreneurship Cell. Evaluation guidelines look at 2 aspects of
entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship initiatives, 3 marks and Data on students who benefited from
the entrepreneurship initiatives, 2 marks. Exhibits to be observed and assessed include the
availability of such a cell, the implementation, and effectiveness of such a cell.
Again the visiting team will verify the data provided under this sub-criterion when they interact
with the students. So the data provided must be authentic and verifiable from the students.
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Some of the good practices which are possible under this sub-criterion would be as follows.
Many institutes do have an Entrepreneurship Cell, but many of them lack a clear written policy
regarding the activities of such a cell. So it is a good practice to have a clear written policy
regarding promoting entrepreneurship activities. And this process document can be developed by
the Internal Quality Assurance Cell. IQAC can develop such a process document in consultation
with the stake holders.
Adequate budgets must be provided to support the activities of the EDC that is Entrepreneurship
Development Cell. EDC must plan and implement programs to promote entrepreneurship
awareness and encourage aspiring students.
The programs could include special lectures by experts from industry, special lectures by experts
from finance sector like banks or other funding agencies. If it is possible to get some of the
alumni who have become entrepreneurs to visit the campus and talk to the students that would be
a very good initiative.
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Written procedures must be available describing the process involved in providing assistance to
the students who wish to become entrepreneurs. If a student has a business idea and wants to
become an entrepreneur, what is the procedure to be followed by him in order to seek assistance
from the institute? This must be clearly written in the process document.
Details to be provided by aspiring student and the format in which she has to submit the
proposal. What is the business case? What are the finances involved? What are the technologies
involved? What are the other issues related to the business idea that the student has? Must all be
included in the proposal. The department must have a formal format available for the students to
work with such business cases.
Preliminary scrutiny and guidance in refining the proposal. Evidently the initial proposal of the
student would go through some kind of a scrutiny committee and the scrutiny committee may
help the students in refining their proposals if they are not in good shape. Extent and type of
assistance provided to the student. The assistance can be financial assistance or it can be
provision of laboratory facilities, it can also include providing technical advice.
Occasionally the institute may be able to engage a technical consultant in the domain concern to
help the students. Sometimes faculty members who are experts in the specific domain may also
help the students with technical issues. Clear guidelines must exist on the policy regarding the
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assistance to be provided to the students. It must also spell out what will be the extent of such
assistance. Duration for which the assistance will be provided must also be clear.
What are the mechanisms available for periodic review of the progress of the student? This must
be clearly documented in the process manual. What are the expectations from successful
students? If the students become successful entrepreneurs, what does the institute expect from
those students? The expectation need not be financial. Does the institute expect the students to
acknowledge the contribution of the institute in their propaganda, publicity?
What are the policies regarding the sharing of IPR, or the policy for sharing any remuneration
that one can get from royalties? There are many issues that are related to entrepreneurship. The
policy document must clearly spell out all these issues. They may look like too many details, but
the entrepreneurship involves finance. So the institute must have a clear policy document for the
operation of the EDC.
Sub-Criterion 9.6 further discussing this sub-criterion. Records of full details of success stories
must be maintained. If some of the students become successful entrepreneurs with the assistance
of EDC, then the EDC must maintain detailed records of such success stories. The records could
include the original proposal by the students as well as the success achieved by her
entrepreneurship, any press coverage provided to such students. All such data must be
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maintained with the EDC. They show the effectiveness of the functioning of the EDC. So EDC
must maintain good records of the success stories.
Periodic review of the functioning and effectiveness of EDC must be conducted. It is essential
that there is a periodic review regarding the function of the EDC. And the periodic review can
also throw up suggestions for improving the function of the EDC. EDC must record such
suggestions, analyze them carefully and implement feasible suggestions in a planned way. All
implementation records must be maintained well.
Now let us look at the last sub-criterion that is Sub-Criterion 9.7, which is concerned with Co-
curricular and Extracurricular Activities. The evaluation guidelines would include availability of
sports and cultural facilities for 3 marks; NCC, NSS, and other clubs - 3 marks; Annual student’s
activities - 4 marks.
The exhibits to be observed and assessed include the availability of the facilities, the
implementation of policies, and the effectiveness of the facilities and policies provided. Once
again the visiting team would verify the data provided under this sub-criterion when they interact
with the students.
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Some of the good practices in support of this sub-criterion would be as follows. Adequate budget
must be allocated to ensure that the sports facilities are adequate in quantity and quality and also
that these facilities are maintained well. Establish and maintain facilities for cultural activities.
Facilities may include good quality auditoriums both indoor and outdoor. Spaces for clubs like
film club, dramatics club, etcetera.
The institute must promote NCC and/or NSS activities. It must provide adequate budgetary
support. Institute must conduct annual sports events and cultural events. It must encourage
students to assume leadership roles during these events. Faculty can act as mentors. However the
primary responsibility for coordinating the events must be entrusted to the students. This would
be a great opportunity for the students to acquire these important skills. Maintain proper records
of all the activities.
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An exercise for you, describe the mentoring system implemented in your institution. Thank you
for sharing the results of the exercises at nate.iiscta@gmail.com.
In the next unit we will look at the SAR requirements related to governance, institutional support
and financial resources. That is the Criterion 10 of SAR which is also the last criterion of SAR.
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Thank you.
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Professor N J Rao
Greetings and welcome to NATE Module 3 Unit 21 related to Criterion 10 of NBA.
In the previous unit we understood the indicators for student support systems that are addressed
in the criterion 9.
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In this unit we will attempt to understand the indicators for Governance, Institutional Support
and Financial Resources.
These three that is Governance, Institutional Support and Financial Resources - they really
determine the quality of Instructional Situation. We have elaborated on this issue of instructional
situation in module 2 unit 16 where we said the quality of instructional situation in an institute
determines how comfortable and motivated the students feel about learning, and the faculty feel
about facilitating learning.
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This is what you would find major difference when you compare institutions. The reasons for
variations can be different but it is the level of comfort both faculty and students feel about the
instructional situation that determines the quality of learning.
The responsiveness of the needs and expectation of all stakeholders is either reflector or
determined by these three dimensions. But the challenge to the management, especially of self-
financing institutions which are let us say are still to be properly established is to offer a good
instructional situation under financial constraints. This is where the management has to pay lot of
attention and say under the given financial constraints what is the best they can do to create a
good instructional situation.
Here if you look at the marks allocated to different sub-criteria of criterion 10. First of all there
are 120 marks for both Tier 1 and Tier 2 institutions. 10.1 is related to organization, governance
and transparency - Tier 2 carries 40 marks and Tier 1 carries 55 marks. 10.2 is related to budget
allocation, utilization and public accounting at institute level - Tier 2 is 30 marks and Tier 1 has
15 marks. Further program specific budget allocation and utilization that is 10.3 - Tier 2 has 30
marks, Tier 1 has 30 marks. Library and internet which constitute 10.4 carries 20 marks and 20
marks.
Well criterion 10 is dominantly is at the level of institution; 10.3 is program specific budget
allocation and utilization. It was in here because this 10.3 becomes part of overall budgeting and
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utilization and keeping track of it. But 10.3 is really the program specific budget allocation. If
you have a B-Tech or B.E. in Mechanical Engineering how much budget do you have for
running the program effectively from year to year? As you can see the marks given for this are
fairly heavy - 30 marks at this level.
Now coming to sub-criterion 10.1 - organization, governance and transparency. Here the first
one, 10.1.1 if you look at ‘sate the vision and the mission of the institute’, 5 marks for Tier 2 and
Tier 1. This is something that you have already done as a part of criterion 1 but here we are
talking about vision and mission statements of the institute. Unless these are written as per
criterion 1 you cannot write vision and mission statements at the department level.
So here availability of the vision and mission statement of the institute - 2 marks and
appropriateness and relevance of statements - 3 marks. One needs to make this vision and
mission statements available to all the stakeholders and everyone should be familiar with this and
approximately though may not exactly reproduce verbatim but they should broadly now what are
the vision and the mission of the institute all stakeholders including newly admitted students
should be familiar with this.
To that extend the availability of statements at the institute website that is the first requirement;
availability at central facility such as library, computer centers, principle chamber and so on and
availability of one set of statements in each of the departments and availability in institute level
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documents any document that you prepare at the institute level it should start with the vision and
mission statement of the institute.
So you have 2 marks for this statements being available and the other one is appropriateness or
relevance of the statement. That means the visiting committee will take a look at that and see
whether they are relevant and appropriate to the institute that you have. Once again we
recommend that the institute does not use the words that are inappropriate to its contexts and the
level at which it is operating.
10.1.2 is related to governing body administrative setup, functions of various bodies, service
rules, procedures, recruitment and promotional policies. This carries 10 marks for both Tier 2
and Tier 1. This is where many institutions we find they are not fully transparent. So the
requirement is - list the governing body composition which generally everybody does senate and
all other academic and administrative bodies; their memberships, functions and responsibilities,
frequency of meetings participation details of external member and attendance there in.
So first thing that the college will have to do - a formal document that shows the composition of
the governing body and all the other academic and administrative bodies, roles and
responsibilities how frequently they need to meet should be made available against which the
visiting committee can review.
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When visiting committee visits if he say, ‘yes you have only list of governing body members and
not much other documentation’ they will not be able to review by making this document
transparent one can straight away get 4 marks for this.
The published service rules, policies and procedures with the year of publication. First of all
every institution will have to have service rules and policies and procedures. These may get
changed or may get altered from time to time. What should be done is this particular document
should be made available tagged with year of publication. It should be made available on the
website clearly indicating the year of publication.
Also the minutes of meetings of all the committees that are constituted and the action taken
thereof. Normally when you write minutes you start with actions taken based on the previous
minute and then write the minutes of that particular meeting. So if you prepare your minutes
appropriately according to that, just record of the minutes of these meetings itself will be an
exhibit.
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10.1.2 is the availability of the institutional strategic plan and its effective implementation and
monitoring. As we can see a lot of value is given especially at Tier 1 institution that is it carries
25 marks.
Availability of 5 years strategic plan, what should the strategic plan include? It should set goals
for improvement of instructional situation, goals for interacting with the industry, goals for
embedding itself into its context, plans for improving the infrastructure and motivating the
faculty and improving their competencies.
As you can see we have given an indicative list and the strategic plan obviously should be in the
context of the vision and mission of the institute itself. The strategic plan should really put some
kind of specific targets for each one of these activities and make it known to all the stakeholders.
Yes when we actually implement it may not be possible to exactly meet these targets. But that
will also provide a means of reviewing the situation from time to time that is stating what are the
targets we have set, to what extent we have met, and why did not we meet or can we meet still
higher level targets. That is a kind of quality loop that you can have. So a strategic plan at the
institute level is a very-very valuable thing. Everybody knows in what context they are working,
towards what specific goal they are working.
But who writes this plan? The process document giving the details of how the plan is to be
prepared and should be made available. Each institute can have its own process to prepare the
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document. You can invite outside experts, individual departments can prepare their own strategic
plans and they can all be pooled by central group and vetted by some outside committee and so
on. You can have your own method of preparing such a document but once the document is
formalized, that is approved by the governing body and it should be stated so in a minutes of one
of the meetings of the governing body.
The strategic plan should be prepared following a well-defined process and should address all the
issues and it should be formally approved by the governing body and that should be made known
and owned by all the stakeholders.
Now let us look at 10.1.3 which becomes 10.1.4 in the case of Tier 1. It is related to
decentralization in working and grievance redressal mechanism. The institute should have a
grievance redressal mechanism. Why we want to call it decentralized? Decentralization is the
best way to make faculty and staff develop ownership. That means there are so many small
groups are looking at detailed issues and to that extent certain amount of decentralization is
always desirable.
Here, what do you have for this? List the names of the faculty members who have been delegated
powers for taking administrative decisions. First you must have that, make a list of faculty
members who have been delegated powers for taking administration decisions - 1 mark. Specify
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the mechanism and composition of grievance redressal cell and action taken report as per B
above that is 7 marks.
How do you prepare the action taken report? While listing all the cases that have been addressed,
but some case study should be included and to demonstrate the actual implementation of the
grievance redressal. So it is good to include a few case studies when you prepare for as you can
see ‘C action taken report’ because it carries 7 marks. Exhibits are essentially documentary
evidence.
Now coming to 10.1.4 delegation of financial powers whereas it becomes 10.1.5 which carries 5
marks for Tier 1, in case of 10.1.4 it carries 10 marks for Tier 2. Evaluation guidelines include
financial powers delegated to the principal, heads of departments and relevant in-charges,
whoever is relevant in-charge. It could be sports, it could be other infrastructures, library
whatever it is.
The circular from the appropriate authority clearly indicating the delegation of powers is to be
made available. Just by making the circular available one can get 3 marks in Tier 2 institution. It
must be formal circular dated signed by the appropriate authority. Also demonstrate utilization of
financial powers for each of the assessment years as we can see it carries 7 marks for Tier 2 and
3 marks for Tier 1.
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What do we mean by financial powers? Financial powers are not recommendatory in nature, they
are the final authority. For example, financial power would mean the ability to make payments
directly to the vendor through cheques. That means it does not go through the management or
somebody else. A cheque can be directly given by the authority to whom delegation has been
given.
Some colleges follow this, whereas some in some cases direct instruction to the accounts officer
to make the payment without additional endorsements. Once the concerned authority not
recommends finally instructs the accounts officer, accounts officer will have to make the
payment.
Not again get it endorsed by somebody else. That is what we really mean by delegating financial
authority. It does not matter however small the budget is but that particular authority that
delegation should take place. As we can see that carries 10 marks. The department should be able
to demonstrate this through documentary evidence, that you really have at the department level
certain financial authority.
What are the exhibits that we require? The circular notifying the financial powers and
documentary evidence to exhibit utilization at each level during the assessment years.
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Coming to 10.1.5 - transparency and availability of correct and ambiguous information in public
domain. What does it mean? Information on policies, rules, processes is to be made available on
the website and the dissemination of this information about student faculty and staff should also
be put on the website. Dissemination of this information to students, faculty and staff that carries
3 marks.
The exhibit will be website and documentary evidence by the visiting committee. Once it looks
at the website it should be able to ascertain this.
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Now we come to 10.2 which is related to budget allocation, utilization and public accounting at
institute level - 30 marks for Tier 2, 15 mark for Tier 1. 10.2.1 is related to adequacy of budget
allocation - 10 marks for Tier 2, 5 marks for Tier 1.
The quantum of budget allocation for 3 years: So there should be budget document that is
prepared for 3 years and justification of budget allocated for 3 years also should be written.
These are the two and that are required. That means year to year budget allocations should be
made available over a period of 3 years and then justification also needs to be given.
Here what to do we look at in terms of exhibits? Budget formulation, finalization and approval
process. First of all how is budget formulated and how it is finalized and who approves this? A
document indicating the budget proposal made by first HODs to the principal and the document
indicating the final allocation of budget by the principal to the departments. You must have these
documents available.
Requirement, allocation, adequacy, justification thereof. Some kind of adequacy – of course if

the college does not have the finances it is a different situation; in that case you are operating
under inadequate budget provisions. Here the budget should not include inappropriate provisions
for some items. One cannot put some vague items and say put a large amount of money under
that. Any large items for example even you say building or you are buying expensive equipment
- large item should have justifications, why such large items come into picture?
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10.2.2 is utilization of allocated funds. Providing budget is different and utilization of the budget
is different because you have to utilize following certain rules. The utilization record over 3
years generally all colleges will have the accounts prepared according this. But this is presented
through a balance sheet - effective utilization - random verification for at least two of the three
assessment years will have to done by the visiting committee.
It is preferable to have a document presenting an analysis of the deviations in allocation and

utilization, if any should be presented. For example you may make some provisions but may be
not be utilizing that for some reason or the other. If there are deviation in allocation and
utilization and an explanation or an analysis of why it is happen should also be presented to
ensure that the institute gets the required marks for that.
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10.2.3 is availability of the audited statements on the institute website, again 5 marks for Tier 1
and Tier 2 institution. Just availability of audited statements; because the format is decided by
the auditor and whatever audited statement is there it is actually a public document and that
should be made available on the website.
10.3 is related to program specific budget allocation I have mentioned. This is the only item is
related a specific department when you are looking at the criterion 10. It carries 10 marks. That
means each program should have certain budget for it to run. It can be very small budget - does
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not matter; but it must have a budget to meet its requirement of either components, materials
equipment repair, whatever that you have each department should have some budget allocation
for every year. For over 3 years one has to present. You need to write a justification for this.
See the HOD should formally prepare the program specific budget proposal to the principal or
the management; a formal response from the management on the actual sanction of the budget to
the program should be recorded. That means these two documents HOD makes a proposal and
there is a sanction that is given by the management or principle -these two documents should be
part of the formal records.
You need to write further its adequacy and all that will be evaluated in consultation with the
program experts. Generally when you are looking at this criterion 10 there is one common group
of faculty generally two persons from the visiting committee will be looking at these documents.
or will be verifying many of these. But in this particular case the adequacy of budget allocation
will be evaluated in consultation with the program expert who will be specifically requested to
comment on this in relation to 10.3.1.
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10.3.2 is again utilization of allocated funds - to what extent it has been utilized once again there
is a balance sheet, effective utilization and random verification for at least 2 of the 3 years
assessments years. Once again they should also present a document presenting an analysis of the
deviations in allocation and utilization, if any should be presented.
No department should ask for a large budget and not utilize it. If you are very much short of the
budget and you still have to spend in some way so the analysis of this should be presented which
will form the basis for let us say activities for the next year. This also to be evaluated in
consultation with the program experts.
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Now we come to 10.4 which is related to library and internet which are common facilities of any
institute. 10.4.1 is quality of learning resources hard and soft. Things have changed with regard
to library. Earlier in each library we used to have a large number of books and sometimes
multiple copies of the textbooks and then people have to keep track of how many people are
visiting, how much time they are spending.
Now things have changed with many of the learning resources becoming e-resources or digital
library and many people can somehow get access to on the internet to the textbooks as well. But
the institute should make sure they are available to the both faculty and students.
How they are available, one has to justify that. Are they accessible to students? Either to do your
survey and find out what books are not available and what kind of arrangements can be made so
on. This can only be verified during interactions with the faculty and students.
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(Refer Slide Time: 28.39)
Now coming to the library and the internet part that is 10.4.2. As you can see internet places a
very dominant role these days with all activities, teaching and learning activities, administrative
activities and so on in any institute. So first thing is the available bandwidth adequate that carries
4 marks and what is the extent of availability of Wi-Fi on the campus -2 marks.
Internet access in lab, classrooms and library and offices for all departments. Are they available
on all these places? Then you have security mechanism, so the marks are distributed among these
four. But here the document on security mechanism should clearly indicate the hierarchy of
decision making and responding to the needs of users.
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For example, if there is an issue who attends to that? When will it get escalated to higher levels?
If somebody is not able to access something, who is deciding that, who corrects that? The kind of
firewalls that you have established and sometime in any educational institution you will block a
large variety of websites which are not conducive for academic activities; the websites that are
blocked.
The periodic and contingency review: You have to review the whole mechanism periodically
because one is technology is changing continuously and also to the same extent the number of
viruses that come also keeps changing. So one has to periodically review the situation and make
sure the internet stays healthy and meets the academic requirements of the institute. So this
document is the one that visiting committee will look at.
That is the end of criterion 10 and in the next unit we will summarize all the 3 modules till now
that we have handled; and the role and importance of NBA accreditation process and how
designing and conducting the programs in engineering can be done in the framework of OBE and
NBA. It is actually summary review of what we have done. That will be our goal of unit 22.
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(NATE)
Professor N J Rao
Lecture 62 - Summary
Greetings and welcome to NATE module 3 unit 22.
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In the earlier unit we understood the indicators for governance, institutional support and financial
resources which come under the criterion 10 of NBA.
Having come to the end of the course we will try to have a summary over view of what we have
done regarding accreditation, outcome based education, course design, instruction in engineering
programs in India. So it is a kind of a summary overview.
Starting with accreditation - National Board of Accreditation recognizes the key role of faculty in
facilitating good learning by students. That is the reason why they have assigned maximum
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number of marks for the faculty related information. It also recognizes the need to conduct
engineering programs to meet the expectations of stakeholders. So stakeholders are not only
students and faculty but there are also several outsiders including the industry and let say at
national level regulatory bodies and so on.
The NATE was design mainly to facilitate the teachers of institutions offering engineering
programs this is mainly to facilitate the teachers but they in turn will facilitate their students to
become good engineers to understand their role in getting their programs accredited by NBA. So
these are two main things; a program will have to prepare students to become good engineers and
also their programs have to be accredited by NBA. So the NATE was designed to facilitate the
teachers to perform these two activities.
Now accreditation is something that we have already stated; it is a process of quality assurance
and improvement whereby a program in an approved institution is critically appraised to verify
that the institution or program continues to meet and are exceed the norms and standard
prescribed by the regulator from time to time. Remember that some these regulations will keep
changing from time to time.
It is kind of recognition which indicates that a program or institution fulfills certain standards
and it is role as a responsible social institution. As we said in engineering college is a social
institution.
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NBA accreditation process provides a framework for designing and conducting engineering
programs. The way we conduct engineering programs in the manner that we consider appropriate
or relevant and then some regulatory body kind of measures our performance.
But here the moment the regulatory body comes then they have to some criteria according to
which they measure and those criteria now become the framework within which engineering
programs have to be designed and conducted. That is what it is. Every teacher needs to
participate in the accreditation process. So that is every ones duty in fact.
Who is a good engineer? Our first primary goal is to train our students as good engineers. So the
characteristics of a good engineer considered important by the industries (you can change the
order depending on a particular organization); the engineer should have sound knowledge of
engineering sciences and technologies; they should have the ability to solve well defined and ill-
defined problems; they should have awareness of customers’ needs and market trends.
Have an interest in awareness in all assets of engineering activities and they should be able to
work in a team. And a good engineer should have the ability to document, plan and communicate
effectively. Also he should be willing to learn all the time on the job. So these are the
characteristic of good engineers as identified by the industry.
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What is the role of regulator? As the goal of engineering program is to educate students to
become good engineers, NBA has identified 12 Program Outcomes that need to be attained.
These 12 Program Outcomes approximately or roughly captured all the characteristic of a good
engineer. That means your program should be designed to ensure that all these program
outcomes are attained by all the students. But it should also be noted that some of the POs are not
addressed at all by many of the existing programs or even if you have addressed some of them
they are inadequately addressed.
It should be realized good attainments of all POs leads to good placements because placement is
the goal any institution or any program. So to that extend a good attainment of these POs leads to
good placements. So to that extent an analysis of the levels of PO attainments and target should
lead to an action plan to improve the attainment of POs. That is what we have stated when we are
talking of the closing the quality loop. That means the teachers need to focus on POs and
correspondingly on PSOs as well.
1087
Now coming to course outcomes, courses constitute the dominant elements through which the
POs and PSOs are attained. Though there are a few projects, mini projects and major projects but
the major activity in a program is to attain these POs and PSOs through courses. Courses are
described in terms of course outcomes and what we said well written course outcomes lead to
good learning.
Good COs can be written in the framework of revised Bloom-Vincenti taxonomy of learning,
and Pierce-Gray taxonomy of affective and psychomotor domains, if you care to address the
effective and psychomotor domains.
1088
How does the course design take place? As course design as we mentioned plays a crucial role in
teaching and learning. If you can design your course well following a specified process, then
many other limitations can be overcome.
A course can be conveniently deigned in an in the framework of ADDIE, and there are many
other frameworks which are more or less minor variants of ADDIE. ADDIE as we said is
Analysis, Design, Development, Implement and Evaluate. In the analysis phase the COs are
written using the 4 elements Action, Knowledge, Conditions and Criteria in which conditions
and criteria are optional.
If needed some of the COs are elaborated into competencies. Depending on the scope associated
with that particular CO. In the Design phase of ADDIE, assessment plans are made and, if
possible, test item banks are created.
1089
In development phase instruction material is prepared for each instructional unit and learning
material is selected or generated. Implement phase requires careful documentation of the specific
instance of course delivery. Remember that each time you offer the course there are some minor
variations, so you are capturing in the implement phase through proper documentation specific
instance of course delivery.
Evaluate phase is used to close the quality loop at the course level, which we have elaborated. So
if you design and conduct the course in the framework of ADDIE we will be able to ensure that
we can fulfill the requirements of whatever attainment of corresponding COs and through COs
the POs and PSOs.
1090
Having identified course outcomes you actually have to instruct. Instruction should be planned
and conducted to facilitate the students perform well in assessment. Our goal becomes students
doing well in the assessment. Our instructions should be planned and conducted to facilitate the
students to perform well in the assessment.
There are many instructional methods that facilitate good learning; direct method of instruction
is still the dominant method at present. Better learning can take place if the direct method is
practiced using Merrill’s Principles of Learning which we have elaborated. Use of technology
can greatly enhance the engagement of the students with the knowledge they are expected to
acquire. So we appeal to the faculty to use the technology as much as possible, as today’s
students are very comfortable using internet devices, so use of technology from students’
perspective will not be a major issue.
Teachers need not constrain themselves only to direct instruction, they can also use other
instructional methods like project based learning, problem based learning and simulation and
many other things that are possible. But they can selectively use them in some instructional units.
It depends on the available infrastructure as well.
You do not have to use the same instructional method for every instructional unit. Some
instructional unit can be done using these methods like simulation. Some can be done by direct
instruction method.
1091
Now coming back to Accreditation, the main goal of an engineering program is to train students
as good engineers. The teachers, through their activities need to facilitate the students become
good engineers. Many things beside teaching courses need to be addressed by the teachers.
Instructional situation plays a dominant role in facilitating good learning. I keep repeating that
instructional situation as we observe in many of the colleges is the major limiting factor. So to
that extent, improving and protecting the instructional situation also becomes the responsibility
of teachers. They have to guard that the instructional situation is kind of maintained and is not
kind of keeps getting deteriorate.
How does it get deteriorated? By unnecessarily adding more and more rules for various activities
just because some minor deviation has taken place. So protecting the instructional situation is
also the responsibility of the (in fact) all the stake holders. The criteria of accreditation - they
provide the framework to which all teachers can and should relate to.
Instead of seeing them as some additional things that need to be done, in my opinion all teachers
should start looking accreditation as the framework to which every stake holder in the institute
can relate to. Everybody talks in the same language, same priorities and so on.
1092
And these are all the criteria that we have mentioned. There are 10 criteria, there are 7
department level criteria and there are 3 which are institute level criteria. The marks for Tier 1
and Tier 2 institution slightly differ but the overall marks are the same, 1000 marks.
if you look at criteria 1, 2, 3, 7, and 8 are dominantly assessed qualitatively by the visiting team.
The remaining criteria are mainly data based and hence proper documentary evidence needs to
be generated. So one should be careful or pay extra attention to create the proper documentary
evidence to ensure that you perform well with respect to these criteria.
1093
Every criterion has several sub-criteria; for each sub-criterion, certain exhibits/contexts are also
to be observed assessed by the visiting team. So, the visiting team will assess all these exhibits
that you prepare. Department must have the required exhibits ready for assessment by the
visiting team.
The required exhibits must be properly indexed for easy retrieval. Today ofcourse if we use any
learning management system, they can all be indexed properly and just by click of the mouse the
visiting team should be able to have access to any of the material.
We appeal to the teachers in summary, please write good course outcomes. Not because they
need to be written but write good course outcomes. Preferably design your courses
collaboratively in the ADDIE framework. We find that designing or doing anything
collaboratively in teaching and learning really enhances the quality of learning.
Design good assessments and keep building item banks of your courses. Good assessment is the
best way to improve the quality of learning. Try to implement as many Merrill’s principles of
learning as possible. It may or may not be easy to implement all the 5 principles but at least as
many Merrill’s principles as you can implement them. Always remember your goal is to train
your students as good engineers and ensure good placement. That is our appeal to the teachers.
1094
Thank you very much for participation and wish you happy learning.
1095
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(044) 2257 5905/08

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swayam.gov.in

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INDEX

S.NO TOPICS PAGE.NO

3 Outcome Based Education 37

4 Self Assessment Report 54

5 Education, Teaching, Learning, Instruction, and Assessment 71

7 A) POs 6-9) 116

8 B) POs 10-12) 129

10 Taxonomy of Learning 150

12 Cognitive Processes 2 186

13 Categories of Knowledge 1 204

14 Categories of Knowledge 2 220

15 Taxonomy Table 235

16 Affective and Psychomotor Domains 248

18 Course Outcomes 2 276

19 Tagging Course Outcomes 291

20 Computing Attainment of COs 305

21 Computing PO and PSO Attainment 331

22 ‚ÄúCourse Design‚Äù Component of Teaching as per Fink‚Äôs Model 353

23 ISD and ADDIE Models 369

24 ADDIE - Analysis Phase 1 386

25 ADDIE - Analysis Phase 2 401

27 Technology for Assessment; Setting Targets 434

28 Assessment Plan and Assessment Instruments 452

29 Item Banks 470

30 ADDIE- Development Phase 492

32 ADDIE - Implement Phase 2 527

33 Exit Surveys 1 542

34 Exit Surveys 2 559

35 ADDIE - Evaluate Phase 577

37 Instructional Situations 604

38 How Brains Learn 621

39 Instructional Components 643

40 Principles of Instruction Design 664

42 Direct Instruction ‚Äì 2 699

43 Project Based Approach to Instruction 718

44 Problem Based Approach to Instruction 741

45 Instruction for Design thinking 760

46 Simulation Approach to Instruction 779

47 Instruction for Metacognitive Learning 797

48 So, What Should the teacher do? 820

49 NBA Criterion 1 Vision, Mission, PEOs -1 836

50 NBA Criterion 1 Vision, Mission, PEOs -2 854

52 NBA Criterion 2 Teaching-Learning Processes-2 889

53 NBA Criterion 3 -1 COs and POs 914

54 NBA Criterion 3 -2 COs and POs 936

55 NBA Criterion 4 Students' Performance 957

56 NBA Criterion 5 Faculty Information and Contributions 978

58 NBA Criterion 7 Continuous Improvement 1020

59 NBA Criterion 8 First Year Academics 1032

60 NBA Criterion 9 Student Support Systems 1042

NBA Criterion 10 Governance, Institutional Support and Financial

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Module 2 presents a systematic method of designing and conducting an engineering course as

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Thank you very much for your attention.

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