The document outlines an outcome-based curriculum development model that emphasizes defining clear intended learning outcomes, aligning curriculum and assessment to those outcomes, and using data to enhance student learning. It highlights the importance of developing key competencies and skills necessary for students to succeed in their future roles, alongside the need for continuous improvement in educational practices. The author discusses challenges in adapting teaching and assessment methods to foster deeper understanding and the transformation of traditional learning outcomes.

1. OUTCOME BASED CURRICULUM
DEVELOPMENT
DR. PEEYUSH VERMA
NITTTR, BHOPAL
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

2. A new model of curriculum
implementation
What do we want our students to be?
Teaching through knowledge FOR
capabilities (i.e. key competencies)
Knowledge and its organisation
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

3. ADOPTING OUTCOME BASED APPROACH
Adopting outcome-based approaches to student learning involves
four important areas of work for the purpose of enhancing quality
of student learning in our programmes:
•as the starting point define clearly what students should be able
to do on completing their course of study (intended learning
outcomes)
•design the curriculum, teaching, learning and assessment to
enable students to achieve the intended learning outcomes
(alignment)
•collect data on students’ achievement of learning outcomes
(outcomes assessment)
•use outcome assessment data to inform further development
and enhancement of the programme/subject continuous
improvement
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

4. THREE BASIC PREMISE OF OBE
All students can learn and
succeed, but not all in the same time
or in the same way. We need to
nurture and develop ”learning to learn
skills” in them.
Successful learning promotes even
more successful learning.
“Schools” (and teachers) control the
conditions that determine whether or
not students are successful at school
learning.
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

5. INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES
 Distinguish some important differences between
the outcome-based approach and common
'traditional' approaches.
 The Distinction between Learning Outcomes and
Syllabus/Content.
 To elaborate, what are the desirable qualities of
the graduates from your programme(s) and
subject(s)?
 What knowledge and skills you want and expect
your students to demonstrate?
 What level of performance should they
demonstrate to be able to excel in their
prospective role of entry-level professionals?
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

6. BENCHMARK STATEMENT OF HEALTH STUDIES
• the ability to make comparisons between a range of health
contexts, such as individual and institutional and national and
international contexts;
• the ability to analyse health and health issues, and health
information and data that may be drawn from a wide range of
disciplines;
• the ability to synthesise coherent arguments from a range of
contesting theories relating to health and health issues;
• the ability to draw upon the personal and lived experience of
health and illness through the skill of reflection and to make
links between individual experience of health and health
issues and the wider structural elements relevant to health;
• the ability to articulate central theoretical arguments within a
variety of health studies contexts;
• the ability to draw on research and research methodologies
to locate, review and evaluate
(Source: Health Studies, QAA, 2004) NITTTR, BHOPAL
PEEYUSH VERMA,

7. BENCHMARK STATEMENT OF HEALTH STUDIES
The Health Studies graduates will demonstrate
knowledge and understanding of:
1. health as a contested concept;
2. the multidisciplinary nature of health studies;
3. the central place of research activity in the
development of the subject;
4. the diverse determinants of health;
5. the contemporary issues at the forefront of the
subject;
6. the range of realist and constructionist theories of
causality relating to health;
(Source: Health Studies, QAA, 2004)
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

8. We could read the science learning area like this
New ‘nature of science’ integrating strand
(based on generic Key Competencies)
Understanding about science
Communicating in science
Investigating in science
Participating and contributing
Content included through integration
Living
World
Material
World
Physical
World
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL
Planet
Earth and
Beyond

9. PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

10. Representing ideas …
• What is different about
this way of showing the
water cycle?
• What do the pictures on
the “game” represent?
• What do the pathways
represent? Why are
they different colours?
• What do the arrows
represent?
• What is not represented
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL
here?

11. The disciplinary potential in NZ based Model
• Provides the language, including
„meta‟ language, to help students
think;
• awareness that texts are structured
differently for different purposes;
• multiple representations of ideas;
• unpacking conventions and thinking
about how different disciplines work;
• valuing systems level thinking and
complexity;
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

12. Teaching for ‘deeper understanding’
• Experts know their area deeply – the
theories, the unanswered
questions, the research
methods, the practical challenges of
deploying these, the work of their
peers, the reputable journals, the
professional rivalries and so on…
• They may not know other related
areas as deeply – but they will know
the right questions to ask – that
is, they’ll draw on their expertise to
identify what it might be that they
don’t know (and now need to find
out), assuming they are disposed to
do this…
Source: www.mfe.govt.nz
Students from Papakura South School
Can students become experts so they too can experience these powerful
capabilities? What are the implications for teaching?
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

13. USING BROAD OUTCOME STATEMENT
Outcomes refer to the desirable qualities of our graduates:
1. learning contributes to the development of some essential
qualities, such as problem
solving, communication, decision making.;
2. it is important to get the key areas of learning and
developmental outcomes right so as to develop ”learning
to learn skill”;
EXAMPLE
The learning about the various domains in an MBA
programme is expected to lead to the development of the
abilities to identify and diagnose problems:
Identify/Diagnose problems) Ability to identify and diagnose
business problems accurately and effectively across a wide
range of business domains, including management
practices, accounting and financial
management, operations, marketing, and strategic
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL
management.“

14. USING APPROPRIATE ACTION VERBS
Outcomes imply what the student should be able to
know and do and therefore outcome statements
should be about how such achievement can be
demonstrated - by action verbs:
Such that:
• It goes beyond simple knowledge or
comprehension such as
interpret, draw, reflect, apply.
• It uses novel situation or “real world” context.
• involves multiple concepts.
• It requires recognition of concepts involved
(analysis), their roles here (application), and how
several ideas come together (synthesis).
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

15. Some key verbs
Analyse, Apply, Articulate, Compare, Contra
st, Criticise, Describe, Differentiate, Discuss
, Distinguish, Elaborate, Evaluate, Identify, I
ntegrate, Interpret, Justify, Label, List, Matc
h, Outline, Summarise, Synthesise, Theoris
e, Create, Decide, Design, Organise, Plan,
Predict, Prepare, Present, Prioritise, Produc
e.
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

16. Connecting questions students could ask
• Relating more general conceptual ideas to
specific contexts
• Making coherent links between topics and
ideas within a discipline area
• Developing multi-disciplinary links across
learning areas
• Building bridges between powerful
conceptual learning and everyday life
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

17. Challenges for alignment in any education system!
Knowledge era: new views of
knowledge, ICTs, globalization, diversity, rapid
change, etc.
Curriculum review (lifelong
learning, key
competencies, content
reduction)
New types of assessment
(e.g. assessment for
learning)
By implication...
Deep changes in teaching and learning - both in practice and
in [tacit] beliefs about their nature
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

18. What about assessment of “progress”?
What do these outcomes look like?
Capabilities
Teaching through knowledge FOR
capabilities (i.e. key competencies)
Knowledge and its organisation
Disciplinary knowledge is the basis through
which we teach for capabilities (as outcomes
in their own right) BHOPAL
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR,

19. Should we assess Key Competencies?
• If key competencies can transform
learning outcomes, then asking how
we might assess them per se seems
to be the wrong question.
• Is this a better exploratory question:
What can changed outcomes look
like when key competencies are
used to transform disciplinary
learning?
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

20. More questions than answers
•
•
•
Can competency be reported from
single tasks or should evidence be
accumulated across a range of tasks
and learning contexts? (Sufficiency of
evidence)
What role (if any) should
extracurricular activities play in making
judgments about a student‟s
capabilities?
What does making progress in
developing capabilities look like?
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

21. How might progress be described?
More certain outcomes
Standardised tests
measure traditional
academic outcomes
Making rich connections
across ideas and contexts
Zooming in
Zooming out
Using new skills and
knowledge in unfamiliar
and more demanding
contexts
Key competencies transform
learning outcomes
After Carr, 2008
Outcomes more uncertain
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

22. New assessment questions
• We already know how to assess basic literacy and numeracy
well. Why would we change?
• If they are “necessary but not sufficient” to meet the multiliteracies demands of the 21st century, what other aspects of
these learning foundations should we be looking to grow?
• How will we know if our teaching has been successful?
NZCER currently has a research project directly
exploring this question – “Lifelong Literacy”, funded by
the Cognition Trust. ARBs research is contributing too.
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

23. What could count as evidence?
More certain outcomes
Standardised tests
measure traditional
academic outcomes
Perhaps some inquiry outcomes
would sit here?
What else?
Zooming in
Zooming out
How much do we know about
“making progress” in all the
curriculum learning areas?
Do we even know what we are
looking for?
How could we look for and
document growth that transforms
our children’s “being”?
After Carr, 2008
Outcomes more uncertain
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

24. Purposes for inquiry: what might evidence of
learning look like in each case?
• Developing inquiry skills
• Learning to learn/fostering lifelong learning
dispositions
• Developing deeper understanding of a
topic/ issue/ context/ concept/ system or
etc
• Learning about research as a process of
knowledge building (the constructed and
contested nature of knowledge)
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

25. • We‟re all on a learning journey. It‟s
important to take it slowly and think
carefully about the way ahead.
• But this is not an excuse for
inaction…
• The assessment questions I‟ve posed
here seem to be “on the edge of our
knowing” – but have we even got the
right questions?
• We can only answer questions like
these if we work together
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

26. THE OUTCOME BASED CURRICULUM FOCUS
“The learning outcomes comprise the
knowledge, understanding, skills and
attitudes that students should acquire to
enable them to reach their full potential
and lead successful and fulfilling lives
as individuals, as of the community and
at work”.
HOW TO DEVELOP LEARNING TO
LEARN ATTITUDE AMONG
STUDENTS?
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL

27. References
• Carr, M. (2008, 13 March ). Zooming in and Zooming Out: Challenges and
choices in discussions about making progress. Paper presented at the
NZCER Conference: Making Progress - Measuring
Progress, Wellington, March 2008.
• Gilbert, J. (2005). Catching the Knowledge Wave? The Knowledge Society
and the future of education. Wellington: NZCER Press.
• Hipkins, R. (2007). Assessing key competencies: why would we? How
could we? Wellington: Ministry of Education.
• Reid (2007) Key competencies: a new way forward or more of the same?
Curriculum Matters, 2, 43-62. (Journal available on subscription from
NZCER)
PEEYUSH VERMA, NITTTR, BHOPAL