Outcome-Based Education: Response To Quality Learning: What Is OBE?

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Laoag City, Ilocos Norte

OUTCOME-BASED EDUCATION: RESPONSE TO QUALITY LEARNING

The shift from the traditional input-based education (IBE) to Outcome-


based Education (OBE) is being energized by the increasing demand for
vigilant enforcement and accountability in all sectors of education.
Stakeholders consider this student-centered and constructivist platform as a
timely response to quality learning.

What is OBE?
OBE is a process of curriculum design, teaching, learning and assessment that
focuses on what students can actually do after ther are taught. The basic tenets of OBE
were advanced by the American Sociologist, William Spady, who defines OBE as … a
comprehensive approach to organizing and operating an education system that is
focused on and defined by the successful demonstrations of learning sought from each
student (Spady, 1994:2)

Spady underscores Outcome as … clear learning results that we want students to


demonstrate at the end of significant learning expeeiences… and are actions and
performances that embody and reflect leraners’competence in using content information,
ideas, and tool successfully. In his own words, the paradigm shift’s goal was “to have a
way for more learners to become more capable, empowered, and successful than what
traditional conditions were allowing.”

The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) defined Outcome-based Education


as “an approach that focuses and organizes the educational system around what is
essential for all learners to know, value and do to achieve a desired level of competence
at the time of graduation (CHED Implementation Handbook, 2013).

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Laoag City, Ilocos Norte

Spady (1993) Identified Four Basic Principles of OBE:

1. Clarity of focus about outcomes – Learners are certain about their goals and
are always given significant, culminating exit outcomes.
2. Designing backwards – Using the major learning outcomes as the focus and
linking all planning, teaching and assessment decision directly to these outcomes.
3. Consistent, high expectations of success – Helping students to succeed by
providing the encouragement to engage deeply with the issues they are learning
and to achieve the set of high challenging standard.
4. Expanded opportunity – Developing curriculum that allows every learner to
progress in his/her own pace and that caters to individual needs and differences.

Why Shift to OBE?


OBE is distinguished from other reforms by its focus on outcomes, thereby
enabling it to address the pressing world-widr concerns on accountability, and effectively
pairs legislative control with institutional autonomy (Evans, 1991). OBE makes it
imperative to lay down what are the intended learning outcomes of an institution, and
commit its educational resources until the goals are achieved.
In its transformational phase, OBE is the benchmarking concept trending in higher
education. It aims to organize a work-integrated education (WIE) at the program level to
link students and faculty with the industry and eventually engage leaders of the
profession and industry to enrich the teaching and learning activities. As diverse
countries are synergizing towards connectivity propelled by technology, OBE is preparing
young leaders for global living.

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Laoag City, Ilocos Norte

How to Adopt OBE?


In OBE, learning outcomes are constructively aligned in a learning ptogram
that fits this framework:

a. Institutional Intended Learning Outcomes – what the graduates of the


university/college are supposed to be able to do
b. Program Intended Learning Outcomes – what graduates from a particular degree
program should be able to do
c. Course Intended Learning Outcomes – what students should be able to do at the
completion of a given course; and
d. Intended Learning Outcomes – what students should be able to do at the completion
of a unit of study of a course.
In the Outcome-Based Teaching Learning (OBTL) Instructional Program, the learners
take the center stage, as traced back to Tyler’s (1949) basic principle of curriculum and

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instruction: It is what the students do as evidence of their learning. OBTL has a three-
pronged implication: for learners/students, it prootes a deep and lifeling learning skills;
for the teachers, it promotes reflective teaching practices, and for the Institution, it
addresses continuous program improvement.
The OBE curriculum is driven by Assessments that focus on well-defined learning
outcomes and not primarily by factors such as what is taught, how long the students take
to chieve the outcomes or which path the students take to achieve their target (Kissane,
1995). The learning outcomes are projected on a gradation of increasing complexity tat
students are expected to master sequentially.
The full implementation an success of OBE demands a concerted effort, as in the
old aphorism: It takes a village to educate a child. There is an urgent call for all
concerned to keep the rhythm in the steady march of humanity’s progress: for educators,
strategizing educational planning that is results oriented; for learners, assuming greater
responsibility and actively participating in the learning process; and for parents and the
community at large, exercising their right to ensure that the quality of education for the
next generation is not compromised by social, political and economic concerns.

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