Outcome-Based Education
Well-developed models of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) have yielded an impressive array of results over the years. These gains and improvements can be attributed to the convergence of four major factors:
- When educators develop a clearly defined framework of learner Outcomes on which they Base everything else that they do;
- When educators espouse and implement OBE’s ‘Success for All Learners’ Philosophy and its four synergistic Pillars of Power;
- When educators significantly shift their Paradigm thinking, Priorities, and operations from being Time-Based to being Outcome-Based; and
- When educators align and integrate these three factors with OBE’s substance-based, criterion-defined Foundation of learning and performance Standards.
When all four of these factors are implemented Consistently, Systematically, Creatively, and Simultaneously, there is an enormous expansion of what OBE advocates call ‘The Conditions of Success’ for learners of all ages, and remarkable gains in learning and performance occur.
Tangible Actions
Demonstrations are tangible actions defined by words; not scores, points, and averages
Lasting Benefits
Each of these implications, when implemented well, magnifies an Outcome’s lasting benefits
OBE’s ‘Success for All Learners’ Philosophy
OBE’s ‘Success for All Learners’ Philosophy
The strength, credibility, and impact of OBE’s ‘Success for All Learners’ Philosophy rest on the integrity of its four tightly integrated, synergistic Pillars of Power and:
- Its Paradigm Priority
- Its Two Empowering Purposes
- Its Three Underlying Premises
- Its Four Operational Principles
Here’s how they work together to transform education’s limiting “Conditions of Success.”
OBE’s Paradigm Priority makes:
What and Whether students learn successfully more important than When and How.
OBE’s Two Empowering Purposes commit educators to:
- Maximize the ‘Conditions of Success’ for all learners (so as to)
- Send fully equipped and empowered graduates into the world.
OBE’s Three Underlying Premises express educators’ beliefs that:
- All students can learn and succeed (but not on the same day in the same way);
- Success breeds success (just like failure breeds failure); and
- Schools control the ‘Conditions of Success’ (and can expand them if they choose).
OBE’s Four Operational Principles maximize the Conditions of Success when educators integrate them with the other three Pillars Consistently, Systematically, Creatively, and Simultaneously in how and when they teach, assess, and credential students. They are:
- Clarity of Focus on Outcomes of Significance (before, during, and after instruction);
- Expanded Opportunity for All to Succeed (through diagnostic formative assessments and initial grading in pencil);
- High Expectations for All to Succeed (by only accepting and commensurately grading high quality work); and
- Designing (their curriculum) Down (from where they want their students to ultimately end up – with the abilities and attributes of successful ‘Total Professionals’).
Shift from Time-Based Education
When the word ‘Based’ is understood to mean Defined by, Focused on, Designed around, and Organized around, OBE exposes the CBO Syndrome, which is universally misunderstood to be OBE. No part of CBO is OBE! Six of the Syndrome’s many non-OBE elements are:
OBE’s Foundation of Criterion-Defined Standards
OBE’s substance-based, criterion-defined Foundation of learning Standards differs in kind, intent, and results from education’s conventional selection-oriented, numbers-driven system of assessment, grading, and credit – thereby opening the door to ‘Success for All Learners.’
OBE’s Foundation of Criterion-Defined Standards
OBE’s substance-based, criterion-defined Foundation of learning Standards differs in kind, intent, and results from education’s conventional selection-oriented, numbers-driven system of assessment, grading, and credit – thereby opening the door to ‘Success for All Learners.’
