If you are considering going into teaching or even if you are already established please give some consideration to my thoughts and I welcome feedback. As an educational supervisor and being involved with education over the past 13 years I am still amazed at how misunderstood outcomes assessment is, which has no boundaries. Whether it be a rookie or seasoned teacher. It is always an issue every time we hear about an accreditation visit or during an evaluation cycle.
Then and only then does it become foremost on everyone's mind. We are taught how to develop curriculum and construct programs of learning by stacking curriculum together to fulfill the needs of that program without regard to what we are trying to truly achieve. Which in my mind should be a model for continuous improvement.The goals or objectives are not outcomes, simply stated. Goals and objectives may be and definitely should be directly tied into your outcomes but are not one in the same. Please remember outcomes must be able to be measured, remember we are trying to accumulate data. This data will aid us in improving our courses and delivery techniques to allow us to do a better job. I know we give students tests, but honestly what does this really tell us. The tests I give are solely for the purpose of establishing grading criteria and have absolutely nothing too very little to do with outcomes.
In today`s world we are being asked more and more to define outcomes, for reasons of funding, continuation of instruction and value of content. Agencies are asking for transparency and proof of purpose. I feel PTE programs have always had a edge in this arena because of advisory committee input and feedback. The shift recently has been toward academic reform especially in general education credits and for the first time academia has encountered this challenge. People are asking questions about what is an educated person, and how we define this will be criticized unless we have established well defined outcomes.
Interesting topic. How does one measure outcomes? I think first, you have to define what outcomes you desire and how they apply to what the end objective is. Those end objectives will be different, depending on any number of factors. If we break it down to simple things, elementary, junior, high school, college, workplace, then those objectives are going to be different, but interrelated.
ReplyDeleteI am not a full time educator. I periodically train police officers in the workplace, but my full time work is dealing with training issues. I have been teaching in one form or another since 1994. My objectives are going to be guided by case law, Federal, state, and local laws, policies, and national best practices. However, I can't teach anyone who cannot read and write (elementary-high school education), who can't articulate, and worse, who can't critically think (allegedly being taught in college).
When I prepare a class, I start with defining my end objectives. Then I build the class to meet those objectives. Since I cannot be with the students through their careers, then I can't monitor then for outcomes. However, as long as they are not getting themselves killed, sued, fired, or imprisoned, then I feel satisfied that some measure of outcome was reached.
Since you mentioned outcomes, what objectives are they measured against? Is this something handed down by a "higher authority?"
On a related note, I've seen many a discussion on performance evaluations in the workplace. They too cause some of the same problems you mention because what are the objectives and how do you measure those outcomes in a fair and equitable manner. I've seen some organizations dump evaluations because of those debates. I've also seen evaluation process stall and fail to be implemented for the same reasons.
There are so many traps on this issue, I think it could be debated till the end of time.
All outcomes should be able to be defined and identified before they practice or apply those skills on the outside. Example we want a student to be able to understand basic electrical concepts when dealing with a step down transformer. This becomes are goal or objective and we state the student will have basic knowledge of the step down transformer. Now in our career field we do the hands-on this becomes a measurable outcome, defined in many ways. When the student begins to troubleshoot the system and isolates the transformer as a possible faulty component this is where our intended outcomes become measurable. Did the student do a lock out tag procedure for safety before entering the system. Did the student isolate the component for testing. Did the student use the proper equipment while testing the component. Could the student explain the procedure for trouble shooting the component. Did the student reach the correct diagnosis. If so we have proven that the student has the knowledge based on our intended objective supported by the outcome of presentation and completion of the task.
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