An internal workshop among faculty colleagues at Sharda University. Simplifying the jargons to myths or wrong notions about it...Tyler to Bloom to Spady...measurements and Christensen...to trying to have a regression model on outcome as a function of curricula, pedagogy and evaluation - but all factoring in admission quality as enrollment in HE increases (dumbing down criticism of Spady). Some learning for myself as well...

1. OUTCOME-BASED EDUCATION (OBE)
Prof. Ranjit Goswami
Director, IQAC

2. Background of this FDP…capacity building
• Internal
thinking…deliberations…attendance…outcomes…GATE/GPAT/Others
to employment…student satisfaction…accreditation…NAAC
• What to do about it?
• Choice of internal vs external?
• Limitations…not as puritans…but to get things done, OBE, Bloom’s
Mastery of Learning, or by any other name.
• Context is king…not as PhDs in OBE…but as realistic academicians

3. Why the Big Picture matters…
But devil lies in details

4. Outcome of education to HE: Not easily tangible/specifiable

5. Blind men and elephant story…
The blindest of the resource persons setting the tone…

6. Two versions of same story…
From existing curricula/evaluation/practices…right or wrong
From market forces…more difficult…what jobs our alumni doing…and what
skills/knowledge they need to do that better…integrating it backward
But future is uncertain

7. OUTCOME…YOUR TAKE?

8. <1>
WHAT IS
OUTCOME in OBE???
& WHAT IS EDUCATION?

9. DEFINITION OF TERMS…WHY CRITICAL?
‘the’

10. HITTING GOOGLE SCHOLAR…

11. GETTING BACK TO ESTABLISHED LITERATURE…
PRECURSOR² TO OBE¹
1: KING &
EVANS,
EDUCATIONAL
LEADERSHIP.
1991
2: TYLER,
1949/50?

12. LITERATURE REVIEW…’OUTCOME’ IN OBE?
•TYLER – OBJECTIVE, &
DEFIING THAT AS: For
systematically planning
educational experiences,
should identify both the
behavior to be developed
in the student and ‘the
area of content or of life
in which behavior is to be
applied’.
• WILLIAM SPADY – OUTCOMES (&
GOALS
INTERCHANGEABLY)…SYNONYMOUS
– PURPOSE, END
• Series of works from 1978 by Spady
& other authors/co-authors.
• NETWORK for OUTCOME-BASED
EDUCATION…with practitioners…
• ‘Dewey, Piaget, Bloom,
Vygotsky…they are just names’
(Killen, Univ of Newcastle)

13. What is the objective
(outcome) of life?
Can education help us understand that better?
By following Tyler’s broader definition of application?
Clayton M Christensen, Video

14. A conversation with Bill Spady³
3: Brandt, 1992/93.

15. Best possible, quick search result@. Subsequent definition addresses
that…great teachers ask by probing questions, merciless teasing…not offering
answers…the journey is the answer…in the end.
Acknowledging age-old proverb: A little learning is a
dangerous thing.

16. Internal dilemma…
‘An outcome is a culminating
demonstration of learning’#
Need not be on the same line of the same page…or even on the same page…
But broadly on the same book…
#Does the use of ‘culminating’ word here not violate life-long learning
objective of education? (PEOs & POs?)…clarified subsequently
Culminating outcomes, as per Spady, is different…like research skills…and then
extending it to new area…enabling outcomes: Source Killen

17. Spady kept on improving¹…(2009)
‘(1) clarity of focus,
(2) designing
down, (3) high
expectations, and
(4) expanded
opportunity…’
leading to dumbing
down criticism,
Source Killen
1: Source:
Major James
J Smith

18. OBE, Learning for Mastery (Bloom),
Competence-based Learning…
•A blog that helps, or another paper here
•OBE is competency to meta-
competency…(many of you know about meta-
physics, meta-data…)¹
•Competence is common in all
•Self-paced competence in CBL
•Why proficiency matters in OBE
AMEE Guide No. 14: Outcome-based education: Part 5-From competency to meta-competency: a model for the
specification of learning outcomes, Harden, Crosby, Davis, Friedman (2009)

19. The three similar models…and where different
Source:
Christopher
D Sessums.
And his blog

20. Simply put…integrated with market
forces…outward view

21. Not on the same page, but on the same book:
Outcomes to definitions of other related terms…
• Objectives?
• Purpose?
• Goals/End-goals
• Results
• Vision?
• Mission?
• Effectiveness?
• Efficiency?
• Productivity
• PLF
• Capacity utilization rate
• Occupancy – as in hospital
bed/hotels/airlines/classrooms…
• Academic program
• Course/subject - Modular
• Curriculum/curricula
• Syllabus
• Session – modular again
• And a process…why it becomes
important.

22. For-profit organizations…
Dilemma as corporate leader, and that of B-School professors.
Profit is not a bad word, loss is; so is profiteering motive.

23. Ending with definition of education – massive
disruption
• Why memorize when information available at fingertips
• Ubiquitous nature.
• Fundamental changes in definition of literacy & education:
• "ability to read for knowledge, write coherently, and think
critically about the written word“ (accepted in
medical/healthcare as well)
• ‘ability to process and use information’ – Lawrence
Summers (Ex-President of Harvard)
• Exams – article from Drucker…before printing press
• PISA test scores…anybody remembers…?

25. Why admission quality needs to be factored
in…

26. Purposefully left blank…
<2>

27. <2> Understanding Programs,
Courses & Sessions
Leader, Manager, & Processes…

28. Why both critical for success, still, relatively, leadership is more
important.
Effective vs efficient…

29. My baggage: As a management consultant, and a process management expert…why difficult to be on same page

30. Understanding a process…
Cybernetics: the
science of
communications
and automatic
control systems
in both
machines and
living things.

31. Common-sensical interpretation…outcome
• The monk whom I met last
Saturday…to Naga-Sanyasis…in
Gangasagar a decade back.$
• Or take the most common
example of ‘Outcome-based
cooking’…and apply what we
have been doing here…@
• The fundamental inward-vs-
outward looking view
• Let’s have couple of deeper
probing…two volunteers…but
before that…outcome of what?#
@Prof. Mehra’s deeper observation of RE…not exactly that, but something similar
#Please remind…time
constraint/forgetfulness $Aghoris
/cults

32. Don’t pave the cow path…do OBE…start from
the end…
Replace
technology with
terminology
here…& some
documentation…
same old results
to remain.
Analogy of ‘OBC’
Facing same
outcome
ourselves

33. Trekking experience in not so common routes…&
lost routes…and suddenly a cow emerges…

34. Old beliefs in new age…geocentric to solar-
centric world…
It lasted for
nearly 2000
years…from
Aristotle &
(Bible) to
Copernicus,
Galileo

35. Academic programs…why it matters in
outcomes in OBE?
• With the help of any company we are familiar with…Maruti Suzuki
• Range is similar to our programs…LX/DX…or whatever…
• Each end-product has a name (& a price), divided in four categories
(13 for us, or four for us if we think diploma, UG, PG (Masters) & PhD
• Each has to meet certain performance measures
• Coming back to parts…CKDs or SKDs
• Same for our courses…modular courses…to sessions…again modular
• Video
• Jargon of modular approach emerging in academics…cafeteria
approach in HE.

36. Smaller parts assembled as SKDs…SKDs to…

37. Not sure…but more likely not as SKDs…

38. Outcomes to academic
programs…through
courses/sessions…for us 216(?±)
programs…1500+ courses…60K+
hrs of teaching/yr (assuming L &
not T/P)@
That was to explain outcomes of what? POs/PEOs at the program
levels…
And each course of 40 hrs running for
only one batch/section

39. Two volunteers now…
Common-sensical interpretation.
To PISA Test…

40. Blind men and elephant
story…again…graduate attributes…PISA ones…
The blindest of the resource persons setting the tone…

41. Purposefully left blank…
<3>

42. <3> Some more
jargons…PEOs/POs/PSOs/COs
& Indian standards…NBA where POs broadly frozen for
a few.
Prof. Shashank Mehra to cover.
But makes sense…leave aside the jargon part
But before that…how many do we have?

43. Purposefully left blank…
<4>

44. <4> The six fundamental
questions…on OBE
What, why, when, how, where & who…

45. Final Outcome: Employability
(POs)/Later year success stories
(PEOs)
Lead-lag indicators
To mathematical ones
Y = mx + c
To…
3 skills told to me by reputed employers after employers – Communication skills, how to use spreadsheet
(collaborative ones?) & how to use Google (on Smartphones)…Walmart/Flipkart deal.

46. Internal discussion among
resource persons…
OBE is not same as participatory learning (or pedagogy)@; rather
participatory learning (pedagogy) helps us understand better how to
achieve OBE…one of the many components. OBE is superset,
participatory learning & others are subsets there-in.
Observation from Prof. Shashank
Mehra/others during meeting of resource
persons.

47. Understanding the
relationship…variables…regression of otherwise
• Outcome – dependent variable.
• Independent variables (multicollienarity?):
• What we teach (syllabus/curricula)
• How we teach (rote learning/application/critical
thinking/skills/knowledge)…active/passive/
participatory
• How we evaluate (Rote/application/critical)
And where
does input
quality affect
such a model /
admission part

48. Y (Outcome*) = f (what we
teach, how we teach, how we
evaluate) + error/noise
However…should it also be
What we teach = f(input quality from admission)
How we teach = f(input quality from admission)
How we evaluate = f(input quality from admission) –
correlation in weakening order.
Our admission team has been kinder…less missing
pieces in eco-system too
*As per OBE
– at what
stage
defined?
Capstone
and such
tools/Market
place

49. What we control…and
beyond our control
Market forces part…
What we teach, how we teach, how we evaluate: These are the
variables where as a university, we have full autonomy.
Not aligned, even now. In OBE – policy-making as well.
But quality of students coming through admission: Beyond our
control, decided by market.

50. Admission
quality must be
factored in
what we teach,
how we teach
& in our
evaluation
Teaching and Learning:
Outcome

51. Outcome
What We Teach How We Teach How We Evaluate
Teaching and Learning
Students
Quality
/ Admission
Input
Market
Forces
/ Admission
Policy

52. The paradigms…to me critical thinking & soft-
skills…communication/empathy/depth/bredth
I am teaching…are the students
learning?
• Bloom’s Taxonomy to
Competency based
models…how deep is the
learning?
• But learning for what…learning’s
sake? Not exactly…but not like
OBE…
Are the students learning what they
should be learning?
• Curricula reform to evaluation
ones
• No one knows what job-skills
will be in demand 10/20 years
down the line.
• Life long learning with above
skills will be useful always…

53. ‘You take care of the classroom, I
take care of the system’
William Spady
why the eco-system matters…Spady introduced Jim Block to Bloom…like Jean
Drèze & Amartya Sen
And my former colleague…Sarat Chandra to Tagore…

54. Academic disruption…ubiquitous books/info…do
we need teaching-learning with
Google/smartphones?
Faculty members in the 21st century…with Google,
Smartphones…can we apply it here? Video

55. To be truly OBE, break the
rules…
More on that later…
Hans Zimmer…musician (& teacher) in iPhone era
Trend is your friend…don’t resist Google/Smartphones in exams…use
them…but set papers accordingly.

56. And use your common
sense…
Whatever uncommon it may be…
Within the broader framework.

57. Thank you very much for your
time…

58. Paucity of time…and time to
evade your tough questions 
Q&As