Promoting High-Quality Learning through Outcomes-based Approaches

1. Promoting High-QualityLearningthrough Outcomes-based Approaches

2. Guidelines from Research andGood Practice

3. Prof Tom AngeloPro Vice Chancellor (Curriculum & Academic Programs)Director—Curriculum, Teaching & Learning Centre Professor of Higher Education La Trobe UniversityMelbourne, Australia

4. My sincere thanks to our gracious hosts –and to my wise colleagues

5. And to all of you who planned, organized, and are running this Symposium

6. Outcome-Based Approaches(OBAs) Ends? or Means?

7. OBAs are Means High-Quality Deep Learning is the End

8. Directed Paraphrasing Exercise In 1 or 2 concise sentences, define/describe what high-quality or deep learning means to you. High-Quality/Deep Learning is . . . _______________________________ _______________________________

9. Given that Outcome-Based Approaches are more than 25 years old . . . Why haven’t OBAs made more demonstrable postive impact on student learning quality? • Lack of leadership? • Lack of followership? • Poor implementation? • Weak follow through? • Flawed design . . . Or no design? • Lack of a systems approach? • Weak foundation in learning research?

10. Which single factor most hinders your OBA learning improvement efforts? • Choose only one factor, please. • Lack of leadership? • Lack of followership? • Poor implementation? • Weak follow through? • Flawed design . . . Or no design? • Lack of a systems approach ? • Weak foundation in learning research? • Another factor: _______________?

11. If this were easy . . . We would not all be here today

12. Raise your hand, please, if you are familiar with . . . The ancient Greek Myth of Sisyphus

13. Do you sometimes feel like Sisyphus? 13

14. Or more like Assess-yphus? 14

15. Do you ever feel that your OBA efforts are undervalued? 15

16. Do you worry what might happen if you stop pushing the outcomes agenda? 16

17. If you answered “Yes” to any of those questions, don’t despair. You are in very good company.

18. Don’t panic! It may not be easy, but it is possible— as many of you have demonstrated.

19. 7 Research-based Guidelines for Promoting High-Quality Learning through OBAs • Build shared trust • Build shared language and concepts • Build shared motivation • Design backward and plan forward • Think and act systematically • Take a scholarly, research-based approach • Don’t assume: Ask, assess, evaluate, research

20. 1. Build Shared Trust . . . • Improvement requires learning • Learning requires change • Change requires risk taking • Risk taking requires trust • What have you done or can you do to build and enhance trust among teaching staff and students?

21. Under stress, we regress.

22. 2. Build Shared Language . . . Directed Paraphrasing Exercise In 1 or 2 concise sentences, define/describe what high-quality or deep learning means to you. High-Quality/Deep Learning is . . . ____________________________________ ____________________________________

23. 2. Build Shared Concepts Five Key Concepts Learning Outcomes Backward Design Constructive Alignment Triangulation Gap Analysis

24. 3. Build Shared Motivation . . . What are your . . . • Learning Goals for this Symposium? • Professional/Career-related Goals? • Personal/Social Goals? What have you done or can you do to improve the odds of achieving these?

25. Motivation, while necessary, is not sufficient to ensure deep, high-quality learning. We need more . . .

26. To learn MORE and more deeply requires Motivation Organisation Rehearsal and Elaboration

27. “It’s not what we do, but what students do that’s the important thing.” Biggs, J. & Tang, C. (2007). Teaching for Quality Learning at University, 3rd Edition. Berkshire: McGraw-Hill, p. 19.

28. 4. Design backward, Plan forward Five Dimensions of Higher Learning % Then? % Now? ____ Declarative Learning _____ ____ Procedural Learning _____ ____ Conditional Learning _____ ____ Reflective Learning _____ ____ Metacognitive Learning _____

29. 7 Criteria for Curriculum Design Constructively Aligned  Conceptually Focused Clearly Structured Contextualised Current Cost Effective Consequential

30. “You can’t fix by analysis what you bungled by design.”Light, R., Singer, J. & Willett, J. (1990). By Design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. Press.

31. 5. Think and act systematically If the ways we assess and evaluate demonstrate our values Then what values do our teaching and course evaluations systems demonstrate? And what values do our marking and grading systems demonstrate?

32. “From the students’ point of view, the assessment is the curriculum.”

33. Here’s a question about our assessment – testing, marking, and grading – practices . . . .

34. Can you fatten a pig just by weighing it?

35. First-Year Piglets

36. Assessment [a pig scale]

37. First-Year Experience

38. More Assessment

39. Desired Outcomes?

40. Fattening a pig only requires quantitative (additive) change. But improving learning outcomes requires more complex qualitative (transformative) change.

41. 6. Take a research-based approach What Matters Most in Your Students’ Learning and Success? What do you suspect? What do you know? What have you done/can you do with that information?

42. To Use Feedback Well, Learners Need M.O.M. • Motivation – Compelling reasons to use it • Opportunities – For safe, guided practice • Means – Knowledge & skills for improvement

43. The Order in which We Give Feedback Matters Consider the Following five steps: 1st - Good News: What was done well 2nd - Bad News: What still needs improvement 3rd - Options: What can bedone to improve it 4th - Plans: What the learner intends to do 5th - Commitments: What both parties agree to do,how, to what standard, and by when

44. Critical Thinking appears to . . . • Require a great deal of time and effort • Cause discomfort and unhappiness • Generate conflicts and tension • Pose risks to relationships • Be relatively easy to avoid • Be strikingly rare in everyday life

45. Impeding Critical ThinkingApproaches Contraindicated by Research • Focus on rote learning • Information/work overload • One-shot assignments/assessments • Norm-referenced (curved) marking • Assessment fatigue • Incoherent curricula

46. Developing Critical ThinkingFactors Well-Supported by Research • Engagement in an interdisciplinary, integrated, coherent curriculum • Mastery of an inquiry/research method • Authentic problem-solving • Structured collaborative work • Standards-based assessment and feedback • Positive experiences of diversity • High levels of engagement and effort

47. 7. Don’t assume: Ask, assess, evaluate The Minute Paper • What were the 2-3 most useful or meaningful things you learned? • What “burning questions” remain?

48. Applications Card Ideas/Techniques Possible Applications?

49. An addendum to Biggs & TangO We learn most deeply not by thinking or doing, but by thinking about what we are doing. What learnersdoand think matters most. Teacherscan positively influence what learners do, think, and learn. But the curriculum, as a whole, can have a much greater, more lasting influence on learning.

50. Where Are We Now?O Just what have we accomplished in the past 25 or so years?