Outcomes-Based Education

MISHEIL R. GUIANG
Summary of topics

 Definition of Outcomes-Based Education (OBE)

 History of OBE
 Four Principles of OBE
Definition of OBE
 Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) is a process that involves the restructuring of
curriculum, assessment, and reporting practices in education to reflect the
achievement of higher order learning and mastery rather than accumulation of
course credits.
 The primary aim of OBE is to facilitate desired changes within the learners by
increasing knowledge, developing skills, and/or positively influencing attitudes,
values, and judgment.
Definition of OBE
 Guiding principle: The best way to learn is to first determine what needs to be
achieved.
 Once the end goal (learning outcomes) has been determined, the strategies,
processes, techniques, and other way and means necessary to achieve the end goal
can be decided.
 The curriculum is only a means to an end. It may be restructured if the learning
outcomes are not achieved.
History of OBE
 Middle Ages, apprenticeship
 Tyler’s educational objectives, 1950
 Bloom’s Taxonomy, 1958
 Competence-based education, 1960s
 Glaser’s criterion-referenced learning, 1963
 Spady’s OBE approach, 1994
Four Principles of OBE
 Clarity of focus
 Design down
 High expectations
 Expanded opportunities
Clarity of focus
 This principle means that curriculum development, implementation, and
evaluation should be determined by the intended learning outcomes.
 Under this principle, curriculum designers must identify a clear focus on what
they want learners to be able to demonstrate at the end of a significant learning
time.
 Once these outcomes are identified, the curriculum is constructed by backward
mapping of knowledge and skills.
Design down
 This principle means that all curricular and educational activities should be
designed back from the point where the exit outcomes are expected to happen.
 Under this principle, curriculum designers must clearly define the significant
learning that learners are to achieve at the end of their formal education.
 Thus, curriculum designers develop systematic education curricula, trace back
from desired end results, identify learning building blocks, and link planning,
teaching, and assessment decisions to significant learning outcomes.
High Expectations
 This principle means that high and challenging performance standards must be set
to produce learning.
 Under this principle, curriculum designers must engage deeply with issues
confronting learning, and must push beyond the existing standards in order to
improve the learning process.
Expanded opportunities
 This principle means that learners do not learn the same thing in the same way.
 Under this principle, curriculum designers must provide flexibility to learners and
create more than one opportunity for learning to occur.
 Multiple learning opportunities must be provided to match the learner’s needs
with teaching techniques.
Summary
 OBE is an approach in learning that espouses the idea that the best way to learn is
by determining first the learning outcomes that one desires.
 Thus, in order to achieve learning, the desired learning outcomes must be
identified (clarity of focus), the process of achieving these desired learning
outcomes must be broken down into smaller components (design down), high
standards to measure learning must be established (high expectations), and
learners must be afforded flexibility and given different opportunities to learn
(expanded opportunities).
 Identify, operationalize, measure, expand.
Thank you for listening!