OBE will help our students (if we do it right)

The curricula of our ASEAN neighbors’ medical schools are designed and implemented following the principles of Outcome-Based Education (OBE). With the 2015 regional integration fast approaching, we have to play major catch-up these days. The effort we will need to exert to implement the four basic principles of OBE in our higher education programs in the health sciences will pay off for our students because:

1. OBE provides clarity of focus. Explicitly defining the endpoints of learning makes it clear to our learners what they are working for. They can spend their learning effort and time more efficiently when they see how the knowledge, skills and attitudes that they are learning are connected to future professional tasks, functions, and responsibilities, along with how their professional practice is expected to influence societal outcomes.

Designing an outcome-based health sciences curriculum therefore starts with a clear definition of the intended outcomes that the students are expected to achieve by the end of the program. These culminating exit outcomes serve as the focus of what the students are aiming for.

2. Designing the curriculum backwards à la OBE ensures that planning and implementation of teaching and testing are truly connected to the learning outcomes. After setting the exit outcomes, all planning, teaching and assessment decisions are then made to ensure that the students will achieve the desired end results. Content is selected based on the extent that they directly contribute to accomplishing the outcomes. Learning experiences that will engage the learners in actively processing knowledge, practicing skills, and internalizing valued professional traits are chosen. Assessment activities that provide useful feedback to the learners are regularly conducted to guarantee successful achievement of the expected learning.

  

      3. Setting high expectations and helping students to achieve them enhances our learners’ self-efficacy. In the OBE framework, we clearly expect students to meet particular standards. At the same time, we also have to motivate them in a positive way to engage actively with their learning tasks so that they can achieve the challenging standards that have been set. By helping them succeed in their learning, we are setting the stage for future successful learning.

 4. Providing expanded opportunities for all students to achieve the high standards addresses the unique learner characteristics each of them brings into the learning situation. Not all learners can learn the same thing in the same way and in the same time. This is addressed in an OBE context by employing assorted learning activities and frequent assessments with genuine, helpful feedback. It is not necessarily a matter of exactly matching our teaching styles to our students’ learning preferences, but more of tapping into their multiple intelligences: allowing them to go about their learning tasks using their more developed learning mannerisms, but at the same time helping augment their less developed learning approaches.

If we really put our hearts to it (and not just for the sake of complying with the Commission of Higher Education’s Memorandum Order No. 46 of 2012) in applying these four principles of OBE, we can achieve our goal of providing genuinely world-class learning experiences for our university and college students.