Revised Taxonomy and Outcome based Education

                  Examples of Learning Outcomes

Good learning outcomes are focused on what the learner will know or be able to do by the end of a defined period of time and indicate how that knowledge or skill will be demonstrated.

• Upon completing this assignment, students will be able to provide accurate diagrams of cells and be able to classify cells from microscopic images.
• By the end of this course, students will be able to identify and develop data collection instruments and measures for planning and conducting sociological research.
• By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to identify and classify their spending habits and prepare a personal budget.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• predict the appearance and motion of visible celestial objects
• formulate scientific questions about the motion of visible celestial objects
• plan ways to model and/or simulate an answer to the questions chosen
• select and integrate information from various sources, including electronic and print resources, community resources, and personally collected data, to answer the questions chosen
• communicate scientific ideas, procedures, results, and conclusions using appropriate SI units, language, and formats
• describe, evaluate, and communicate the impact of research and other accomplishments in space technology on our understanding of scientific theories and principles and on other fields of endeavour

Learning outcomes can address content, skills, and long-term attitudes or values.

Content

• By the end of this course, students will be able to categorize macroeconomic policies according to the economic theories from which they emerge.
• By the end of this unit, students will be able to describe the characteristics of the three main types of geologic faults (dip-slip, transform, and oblique) and explain the different types of motion associated with each.

Skills

• By the end of this course, students will be able to ask questions concerning language usage with confidence and seek effective help from reference sources.
• By the end of this course, students will be able to analyze qualitative and quantitative data, and explain how evidence gathered supports or refutes an initial hypothesis.

Values

• By the end of this course, students will be able to work cooperatively in a small group environment.
• By the end of this course, students will be able to identify their own position on the political spectrum.

Learning outcomes should use specific language, and should clearly indicate expectations for student performance.

Examples of Goals, Objectives, and Outcomes

Goal	Objective	How this objective might be reformulated as a Learning Outcome
To become acquainted with topographic maps and their usage.	To use topographic maps and employ these maps to interpret the physiography and history of an area.	Students should be able to Locate and identify features on topographic maps by latitude and longitude and township and range. Contour a topographic map and construct a topographic profile. Identify major landform features on topographic maps and relate them to basic geologic processes of stream, groundwater, glacial or marine erosion and deposition. Interpret geologic maps and geologic cross-sections.

Bloom’s Taxonomy
Original (1956)	Revised (2001)
Evaluation                    Synthesis                    Analysis                    Application                    Comprehension                    Knowledge	Creating                    Evaluating                    Analyzing                    Applying                    Understanding                    Remembering
Noun	Verb
Thinking is an active process and verbs describe actions. Knowledge does not describe a category of thinking and was replaced with Remembering. Comprehension and synthesis were retitled to Understanding and Creating, respectively, to better reflect the nature of thinking for each category. One can be critical without being creative (i.e., judge and idea and justify choices) but creative production often requires critical thinking (i.e., accepting and rejecting ideas on the path to creating a new idea, product or way of looking at things).

http://www.uwsp.edu/education/lwilson/curric/newtaxonomy.htm

Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy
Remembering	Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from long-term memory
Understanding	Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining
Applying	Carrying out or using a procedure through executing or implementing
Analyzing	Breaking material into constituent parts, determining how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing, and attributing
Evaluating	Marking judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing
Creating	Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing

Source: Anderson & Krathwohl as cited in Forehand, 2008

Learning outcomes, aims and objectives

One unit of instruction – whether a course, assignment, or workshop – might have multiple learning outcomes that span a range level of learning as described by Bloom’s Taxonomy and indicated by relevant, active verbs.

 The difference between learning outcomes and aims is that aims are written in terms of teaching intention and indicate what it is that the teacher intends to cover in the block of learning (curriculum coverage). Learning outcomes are descriptions of what the learner is expected to learn in the period of learning defined. Aims are therefore more about teaching and the management of learning, and learning outcomes are more about the learning that is actually to be achieved by the learner.

 The word ‘objectives’ complicates the situation since objectives may be written in the terms of teaching intention or expected learning outcome.

Criticisms

In order to master all outcomes, children with a particular talent are required to forfeit time in their area of strength. Because no child moves ahead until all demonstrate mastery, the inevitable happens: the faster learners quickly learn to slow their pace in order to avoid extra work, and they just give the answers to the slower learners so the group can move forward. Incentive and motivation are reduced, and boredom and resentment increased. The result is that all students demonstrate "mastery" of mediocrity, and none can aspire to excellence. Every child loses under this system.

OBE raises the fundamental question of who should decide what values, attitudes, and beliefs a child should be taught. Should it be the parents or the U.S. Department of Education, which funded OBE? Should the public schools be allowed to teach values that may be controversial and sometimes even contradictory to values taught to children by their parents?

Behaviour modification is fundamental to achieving OBE-type results. OBE uses a "stimulus-response-stimulus" pattern, a rewards-and-punishment process based on Ivan Pavlov's and B.F. Skinner's programmed learning/behaviour modification techniques. Under OBE, students are recycled through the process until they meet the mandated outcomes.

The best test of an OBE-type system was Chicago's experiment in the 1970s with Professor Benjamin Bloom's Mastery Learning (ML), which is essentially the same as OBE. ML was a colossal failure and was abandoned in disgrace in 1982. The test scores proved to be appallingly low and the illiteracy rate became a national scandal. Bloom, the father of ML, is well known for his statement that "the purpose of education is to change the thoughts, feelings and actions of students."