In the first article in this series I briefly described a framework for understanding learning outcomes that I have shared countless times across the world. Here it is in more detail:
Bricks
Some outcomes – demonstrations of learning – are like bricks. They’re the very small building blocks that are put together to make up the larger aim: the ultimate performance abilities that people depend on to make their lives work.
Walls
Other outcomes – much larger, more complex demonstrations – are more like the walls in the larger construction called ‘Life Performance”.
These walls may be made of many kinds of materials, including bricks; and, most importantly, they support and shape the overall structure that results in Life Performance.
I have suggested in earlier columns that most of South Africa’s 12 Critical Outcomes (COs) are like these walls. They are substantial and significant kinds of competences, but they lack an overall blueprint for configuring and combining them to form a coherent Life Performance design.
Castles
Still other outcomes, including five of the 12 COs, are like castles. They are potentially complex Life Role Performances themselves.
Such outcomes can be the grounding pillars and a design blueprint for all of the other kinds of learning an education system might want to foster.
I have identified five Life Performance outcomes that could serve as the fundamental ‘grounding” outcomes for South Africa. The five are:
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These five ‘castles” represent an inspiring vision for any South African school to pursue. And the Curriculum Design Matrix presented in the February edition of theTeacher is a tool designed to facilitate this very idea.
In 1999, I worked with two OBE initiatives in Port Elizabeth on how these 12 CO’s could be brought to life in schools. My South African colleagues brought two more concerns to the fore: first, they were concerned that South Africa’s Life Role Performers be both ‘competent” and ‘ethical.” Consequently, they identified a set of values and principles they felt were directly implied in the essence of the COs, and we carried out our outcome and curriculum design work with those ‘ethos” elements directly included.
Second, they strongly endorsed the elements in a framework called ‘Total Learning for Total Living” that I had developed earlier that year. It was about learning and living consciously, creatively, collaboratively, competently and compassionately, and they saw strong connections between the nature of these five attributes and South Africa’s five Life Role Outcomes.
So our first design step involved combining all of these components into a concise framework and set of statements (shown below) that schools could use to guide their future-focused, transformational OBE planning.
Our learning experiences are designed so that all our students can live and continue to learn:
With this set of statements in hand, we then faced what may be OBE’s greatest technical challenge – defining in ‘demonstration” language the ‘Critical Performance Components” of each of these Role Performer statements. In short, we set about to answer OBE’s biggest design question:
How would you know one (of these role performers) if you saw one?
The life managers example
Our task, using CO 3 as an example, was to develop a series of performance statements that would bring the six key elements in this ‘root definition” to life in a coherent and observable way. In effect, we were asking: What does a person consistently do to show that s/he is living (1) Consciously as a (2) Prudent, (3) Organized (4) Life manager, who is guided by an ethos of (5) Reflection and (6) Improvement? By focusing on do we were asking for something that teachers could actually ‘see” and respond to – statements that began with action verbs. Our results are shown below:
We desire to have all our learners consistently:
With ‘operational” statements such as these, educators can more directly align everything in their school’s instructional programme, from learning experiences, assessments and reports.
