STI HOLDS OUTCOME-BASED EDUCATION WORKSHOPS
The father of Outcome-Based Education (OBE), Dr. William Spady, visited the country for a series of workshops on OBE commencing in STI Education Services Group Inc. in collaboration with Spady and Uy Center for Transformational Learning and Leadership and Danda Buhain, VP of the Rex Group of Companies.
“As an academic institution, we recognize the significance of seeking new ways of designing our curriculum that will improve the educational system of the country and prepare students for the challenges of the 21st century,” STI AVPfor academics Aisa Q. Hipolito said.
The OBE is designed so that all students are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and qualities needed to be successful after they exit the educational system. By answering the question of “What kind of graduates do we want to develop?”, educators then work their way backwards to plan the best learning opportunities for students to achieve the right competencies or outcomes.
“To me, OBE is a success for all philosophy. It is a philosophy committed to maximizing the learning success of students as much as an institution can make possible,” Dr. Spady elaborated.
Held last Nov. 2 at the STI Academic Center Ortigas-Cainta, research heads and academic researchers attended the one-day workshop dubbed as Intensifying STI’s OBE.
Shifting to an OBE approach, STI started developing the educational framework since 2010. Referred to as the 4Cs - critical thinking, communication, changeadept, and character - STI is guided by these institutional outcomes to develop the attributes needed to keep up with the demands of globalization.
“These attributes are derived from STI’s vision-mission and the 21st century skills, which are also the same competencies that will make students succeed in their future careers,” Hipolito noted.
According to Dr. Spady, OBE is based on four principles. These are clarity of focus on outcomes of significance; expanded opportunity for students to succeed; high expectations for quality performance; and design down from where you want to end up.
Meanwhile, Dr. Francis Uy, the founder of Spady and Uy Center for Transformational Learning and Leadership talked about OBE Tools: Automated Assessment and Evaluation using EvalTools, a software that helps educators in managing their day-to-day teaching and assessment activities along with connecting with their students. Dr. Uy has published and presented papers on OBE including the book “Outcome-Based Education: Critical Issues and Answers” which he co-authored with Dr. Spady.