Learning Outcomes, not just an academic exercise
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Transcript of Learning Outcomes, not just an academic exercise
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• The extent to which ‘codes of practice’ for the provision of education to international students relate to this:
• “all materials truthfully and accurately describe….nature of programs”
• Element of protection for the good name of the country
• Legislation covering advertising/false advertising – even when code is absent
• The ‘communication gap’ between the marketing department and academic programs
• Students who are not satisfied with the contents of the program
• High level of program switching in the Netherlands
• data
• All boils down to ‘transparency and clarity’
Motivation
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• Competence – a quality, ability, capacity, or skill that is developed by and belongs to the student:
• Represent a dynamic combination of cognitive and metacognitive skills, demonstration of knowledge and understanding, interpersonal, intellectual and practical skills, and (ethical) values
• Learning outcome – a measurable result of a learning experience that allows us to ascertain to which extent/level/standard a competence has been formed or enhanced; learning outcomes belong to the educational experience
Definitions
Adapted from Lokhoff et al., 2010
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• A proposed method for:
• organising learning outcomes
• constructing a set of learning outcomes
• An explicit link between learning outcomes and marketing
‘New’ ? - in this presentation
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• Guide to formulating degree program profiles (Tuning Project)
• A degree profile should contain 15 – 20 Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs)
• PLOs are intended outcomes until a student has successfully completed all relevant assessment; then they are achieved outcomes
• PLOs are made up of an accumulation of course or module LOs
Program Learning Outcomes
Adapted from Lokhoff et al., 2010
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• Play a crucial role in the process of validation and recognition of a qualification
• Offer insight into what a student knows, understands , and is able to demonstrate after successful completion of a period of assessed learning resulting in a qualification
• Are related to relevant cycle descriptors (Bachelor, Master, PhD)
• Together they should fully express the characteristic features of the program – include important common and distinguishing aspects
• Check consistency with (inter-)national standards, take into account international reference points for learning outcomes
PLOs
Adapted from Lokhoff et al., 2010
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• Moving from students who are advantaged by provided education to customers of a service organisation
• Competition amongst producers of complex products
• Cars: more (desirable) features than my competition
• Desirable: advanced, enhanced function, more options for the driving experience, higher quality, better performance, etc.
• So why are we offering products for the same cost (as a car – either in fees or as life investment) and are underselling the product?
• History of higher education: a privilege at society’s cost, no thought about a consumer relationship
• An ivory tower attitude, jobs for graduates was not a problem
Marketing 101!
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• Why leave it at 15 to 20?
• Would you not want to list all the features of your program?
• Or at least those which make sense to stakeholders?
• Does not make sense in an increased competitive environment
• Which PLOs should be provided to whom? (compare: technical repair manual with owner’s manual, or marketing brochure)
• Who is going to read what?
• Reverse engineering may be difficult
• If your program is described in competences, convert competences in PLOs?
• A bottom-up and top-down combination may just be easiest
How to get to 15-20 PLOs?
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PLO = MLO+…+MLO
MLO 1a MLO 2a MLO 3a MLO 4a
MLO 1b MLO 2b MLO 3b PLO 4
MLO 1c
MLO 2cMLO 1d
MLO 3b
PLO 3
PLO 2
PLO 1Time
Learning Lines1 2 3 4
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• This will follow:
• Established practice
• According to objectives and aims of modules or courses
• Depends on the need and interrelatedness of components (e.g. using Bloom’s taxonomy)
• Pragmatic approach may be to construct from existing program and select lines that end in presently established PLOs
• Gap identification, redundancy
• Discussion with other cognate programs
Assembly of learning lines
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Module
PLO 3MLO 2cMLO 1d
MLO 14bMLO 8a MLO 23c
MLO 5b
Module/Course
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Modules in a program
PLO 3MLOMLO
MLOMLO MLO
MLO
PLOMLOMLO
MLOMLO MLO
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Unique features
PLO 3MLOMLO
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PLO 3
=unique starting feature
=unique program feature
=unique outcome
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A superset of PLOs • Create a superset of PLOs (e.g. 40 – 60)
• Submit to stakeholder prioritisation
• Stakeholder groups:
• Students
• Staff of the program (contents experts) and staff outside the program (learned ‘general public’), national domain coordination teams, etc.
• Employers and alumni (knowledge of the employment field and the transition), relevant boards, etc.
• Institutional management and education support staff
• Marketing and communication staff (what does the market want, how can this be communicated)
• Mathematically assemble ranking list
• Re-submit to stakeholders, asking whether current ranking is OK, or comment
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Stakeholders issues • Be aware of limitations and power of stake holder groups
• E.g. employers – are they able to gauge relevancy across domains, new inter-disciplinarity, future of profession, do they understand these learning outcomes?, etc.
• E.g. legislatively installed boards that must approve a curriculum
• Weighting to be applied?
• Create steering group (mix of stakeholders), assess final outcome
• Consider the categories of PLOs (generic, sector-specific, unique features (global, regional, national, local)
• Create sets of PLOs for different purposes:
• Comprehensive collection for internal purposes
• Marketing collection for external purposes
• Employment collection for graduate career entry
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Finally, consider this • Increasingly HEIs are looking to offer students a more personalised
learning experience to match interests and talent
• For students to be able to create their own set of PLOs within the limits of the program offers significant advantage
• A comprehensive set of PLOs that an individual student has achieved can become part of their own record.
• The language used in the PLOs will assist a student to respond to selection criteria for a particular function
• If a national profile exists (e.g. in the NL) the national profile may be the superset (40-60), or even bigger, but set limits to minimal inclusion in the various categories of PLOs – this might be applied with more ‘force’ by legislatively installed professional boards (e.g. medical board, etc.)
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Marketing and PLOs • Marketing a degree is about attracting the right students
• Layering concept (program’s USP, HEI, environment, sequel)
• A degree is not about the program, but about the student
• Marketing a program is therefore ultimately about marketing its graduates:
• HEIs increasingly seek to market their programs through the success of graduates in finding employment or further study
• Assisting graduates in making the step into a career by providing a comprehensive set of learning outcomes, which they are taught how to match to selection criteria
• This way we put graduates into control of their own destiny
