Outcome-based Education (OBE) has come as a ray of hope for all the educational institutions that believe in providing quality education. This program is laid under the foundation of Curriculum design and effective teaching-learning process so that graduate students attain targeted skills at the end of the program. The blocks of the curriculum are the courses that are applied with proper design, delivery, assessment, evaluation and strengthening of the teaching-learning process. The basic principles of Outcome-based education can be defined as:
-> Students – Centric: A learner is always expected to learn, acquire proficiency over a specified set of skills and apply them in real life for the benefit of the society & the self.
-> Focus-oriented: A set of scientifically designed outcomes enable the learners to focus on what is required to be done and how to apply whatever has been learnt.
-> Design & Deliver: The curriculum has to be designed keeping the stated points into consideration like clear definition, outlining the expected outcomes etc. that can pave a way to achieve expanded opportunities in the student’s performance.
-> Fulfilling the expectations: The implementation of OBE can be considered as successful only when students practice the designed mode of learning and deliver the highest level of performance.
-> Extending opportunities: Sensible and well-planned designing of teaching and learning model give countless chances to the students to showcase their abilities and potential so that they can get their desired jobs and reach the acme of success.
It is opined that the success of OBE is measured by analysing the success of the students on the parameters of their involvement in the learning process, acquisition of required skills followed by theoretical and practical assessment and evaluation. In OBE, the teachers become efficient and trained facilitators who guide their students to achieve the desired and expected outcomes. Since it is necessary to carefully track the learning attitude and graph of the students’ learning and motivate them proactively and predictively in time, technology-based OBE can improve students’ achievements. Therefore, software with artificial intelligence along with data analytics like iCloudEMS can contribute a lot in this Teaching-Learning Program.
Role of iCloudEMS in maintaining Step By Step Process of Outcome Based Education
In the OBE implementation course planning is a major milestone since it enables the attainment of several course outcomes at the course level through which program outcomes are achieved.
Taking descriptive structure of a Course File into consideration, it can be represented as follows:
-> Course Overview/Module Overview/Lecture Summary contains the information about the Program/Module/Specific lecture depicting the process/duration/use of tools etc. to cover entire course/module/lecture along with a paragraph which answers the question that how will a teacher motivate the students to study this course and devote themselves to it completely. The teacher needs to explain how this Course/Module/Specific fits into the curriculum and how this is important in solving problems related to real and everyday life.
-> Before writing Course Learning Outcomes/Module Level Learning Outcomes/Lecture Level learning outcomes, teachers need to identify and select the essential, distinct, measurable and demonstrable learning teachers want students to achieve in this course/module/lecture in the department. So, teachers need to ask themselves and their faculty colleagues what teachers want students to learn in this course/module/lecture; the essential, distinctive, measurable and demonstrable learning in this course/module/lecture that will support or advance the learning outcomes of the department and college/university. Appropriate Course Learning Outcomes/Module Level Learning Outcomes/Lecture Level learning outcomes use action verbs to specify the demonstrable and measurable knowledge, skills or dispositions possessed by students completing this course. (Instead of using verbs or phrases like, know, understand, appreciate, be aware of, learn comprehend, or become familiar with, which are vague and not easily observed or measured, good CLOs/MLOs/LLOs employ verbs like, compile, identify, create, plan, revise, analyze, design, select, utilize, apply, demonstrate, prepare, use, compute, discuss, explain, predict, assess, compare, rate, critique, outline, or evaluate.)
-> Course Level practice problems/ Module Level practice problems/Lecture Level practice problems: Teachers are required to become design thinkers to show a strategic approach for analysing and finding solutions to real-world problems. By thinking as a critical designer, teachers formulate course level questions which cover the entire subject and module level questions which cover every single module of that specific course in order to check how students are actually experiencing the curriculum, classroom activities, assignments, and other aspects of life in the institution, much as an industrial designer might look at how consumers actually use products — they can better analyse problems and identify promising ways to move forward.
iCloudEMS makes it easier for the faculty members to create their course files keeping all the points in mind and store the data for further use. It includes everything, may it be writing the Learning Outcomes and developing study materials, using effective learning resources, assessing the performance and understanding level on a regular basis and mapping the results with the expected Program and Course Outcomes. Institutions that have always focused on the attainment of success and satisfaction of all the stakeholders, can get immensely benefited by collaborating with this unified web-based education management system which offers its digital products and managed services to University ERP / College ERP without any technical issues and complications. The faculty members can easily register their course which would be accessible to all the stakeholders.
Then all the information including Vision, Mission, PEOs, PSOs, POs & Cos can be uploaded and shared with everyone who has access to it and they can add comments if required. Teachers can upload questions for practice along with solutions so that students can refer to them in case they are facing difficulty in solving the provided questions. New learning resources and reference materials can be easily added and updated. iCloudEMS with its managed services helps in organizing online brainstorming sessions with experienced and trained faculty members of various departments, several sessions with industry experts and alumni batches can be organised on its digital platform, numerous effective and scientific plans can be easily made on the basis of collected & stored data for further improvement.
iCloudEMS offers its unified web-based assistance to all the experienced faculty members and Head of the respective Departments in storing various drafts and share them across the departments for reference which helps everyone to analyse the PEOs and finalise the points for the implementation, PEOs of every department can be shared with the Advisory Board, Board of Studies and Academic Council for final approval and all these happen so smoothly without any chances of manual errors.
iCloudEMS’s Education Management System maps all the levels of outcomes. The mapping encompasses PO with the course, Course outcomes with Program Outcomes, Assessment, Syllabus & Questions with Course Outcomes respectively. Its high-tech and enhanced automated system offers configurable assignment tracking system, regular notifications to students, online & offline assessment process along with its mapping with the question papers, customizing assessment rules as per the Bloom’s Taxonomy and results generation management, etc. It also offers user-friendly evaluation methods for both direct & indirect assessment as in direct assessment a professional makes a decision regarding what a student learned and how well it was learned like faculty evaluated papers, tests, or performances while in indirect assessment the student decides what they learned and how well it was learned through exit survey, alumni feedback, parents’ feedback, employer survey etc. In addition to that, it provides digital assistance to the teachers and students to understand whether attainment of Course Outcome and Program Outcome is achieved or not and further data based improvement is suggested.
Source from: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/role-icloudems-designing-maintaining-course-work-evidence-obe-/