Jay Doubleyou: behaviourism >>> and learning objectives >>> and the common european framework
These are some of the links used in that piece:
The unhappiness principle | Times Higher Education
Project MUSE - A Radical Critique of the Learning Outcomes Assessment Movement
College Quarterly - Articles - Blooming Idiots: Educational Objectives, Learning Taxonomies and the Pedagogy of Benjamin Bloom
Benjamin Bloom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
www.lh.umu.se/digitalAssets/40/40552_inquiry_mckernan.pdf
There are many more critiques out there;
Here are a couple in short form:
The Learning Outcome in Higher Education:
Time to think again?
Ian Scott University of Worcester (i.scott@worc.ac.uk)
As a head of an academic development and practice unit it is with some trepidation that I set out to write this critique of learning outcomes. For the learning outcome has become the bed-rock of the infra-structure that determines quality assurance processes in higher education in the UK and elsewhere. In theory, they should be used to design courses, determine appropriate learning opportunities, measure the level of courses and provide the standard against which students‟ achievement can be measured. In this article I will argue that the learning outcome is a false god, to whom too much attention is paid and probably by the wrong people. It is important to say, that I am not the first to make this case, but do so in the hope of raising a greater level of critical discourse on what has become a hegemony within higher education.
The learning outcome, purpose and origin
The learning outcome in higher education can be seen as a development from outcome based education within the vocational sector (e.g. National Vocational Qualifications a.k.a. NVQs). In the vocational sector learning outcomes based on competencies are used to underpin the assessment of job related skills. Once the notion of having to account for learning had been set in place the adoption of a system related to one already introduced into parts of the education system was relatively simple and as James (2005) notes, the learning outcome is a seductively simple concept, it seems to 'do what it says on the can' but does it?
Difficulties (or even problems) with learning outcomes
What are they again?
For a seemingly simple concept learning outcomes seem hard to really define. James and Brown (2005) produced a 3 x 7 matrix of learning outcome types based around Sfards (1998). Acquisition and Participation metaphors of learning and seven categories of outcome located by the Learning Outcomes Thematic Group of the UK wide Teaching and Learning Research Project (TLRP).
Words alone fail me and our students
To illustrate this issue I will take a relatively simple learning outcome from a hypothetical competency based carpentry course.
After the period of learning the student will be able to: bang a nail into a plank of wood without splitting the wood.
At first glance, this seems like a straightforward learning outcome, but the carpenter might well ask, “which type of wood" or "which type of nail”. So I would need to moderate the outcome so that it might become;
After the period of learning the student will be able to: bang the appropriate nail into a plank from a range of commonly used timbers without splitting the wood.
Of course, after speaking again with the carpenter, she thinks that accuracy is also important and of course safety. So, after embarking on defining the seeming obvious, I am confronted by the carpenter from the ship yard, who notes that what is a common wood for some is not common for him, how was he meant to know what I meant or what his student was meant to learn. The only defence from the carpenter's demands is to either write with more and more specificity or greater generality. The problem with the former being that increased specificity starts to exclude many practices and as Yorke (2003 p210) suggest leads to;
" the entangling and disorientating jungle of details as was experienced by those faced with the system of NVQs developed under the aegis of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications in the UK....”
Are learning outcomes really student centred?
For teaching to be student centred the student voice should be at the heart of both what is learnt and how it is learnt. In addition there should be a shift of power towards the students and away from the tutor. But can this be achieved if the 'authority' pre determines learning outcomes and objectives and the assessment methods? The original empowering feature of the learning outcome approach is that they provide transparency of the destination and that learners should then be free to plot their own course to their arrival point. To do this students would need to be able to choose their own learning opportunities, resources and time required to achieve their learning outcomes. To do this tutors may need to appreciate that they are „side-kicks‟ in the overall learning process; something which paradoxically seems difficult to achieve in a massified system of education. The use of learning outcomes to define courses and programmes removes power from students. They do this by failing to recognise that for many students the learning outcomes that emerge are not the ones that were intended by the designer (Megginson, 1994). Given that learning is inherently relational at the individual level this is no surprise. What I learn from a learning event will be different from what you learn because we relate to it differently, because of our differing abilities, motivations and past experiences. Thus to some extent the whole notion of pre-defined learning outcomes become spurious. If this is true, then the best that learning outcomes can hope for is that they are loose notions of what it is intended a student might learn.
The way forward
It is obviously a good idea for students and tutors to have a common understanding of what they are trying to achieve and having learning outcomes seems a reasonable starting point as a means to achieve this. Learning outcomes also form a good departure point when considering how to formulate learning opportunity and develop resources. As soon, however, as we start to believe that learning can be precisely defined and articulated and that these articulations should form the basis of the design, development, definition and assessment of courses then we are divorcing ourselves from the process and outcomes of real learning
A Radical Critique of the Learning Outcomes Assessment Movement
Abstract
The Learning Outcomes Assessment (LOA) movement seems rather innocuous. Teachers and administrators at colleges and universities are asked to articulate the goals, objectives, measures, and outcomes of the educational process at every level: from the classroom to the department to the institution as a whole. Educators engage in this process with the help of curriculum mapping or educational matrices or a host of other tools and templates provided by any number of readily available frameworks (see the website of the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment for many examples). The information gathered is then used to evaluate curricula, programs, instructors, and institutions for purposes of internal review and external evaluation.
A Radical Critique of the Learning Outcomes Assessment Movement | Bennett | Radical Teacher
A Radical Critique of the Learning Outcomes Assessment Movement on JSTOR
radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/radicalteacher/article/viewFile/171/105
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