Obe: The Restructuring Of American Society. :: essays research papers

OBE The Restructuring Of American Society.      on that point has been a concern for some time throughout America regarding the pure tone of public education. Students atomic number 18 graduating from highschool withoutadequate knowledge of the three Rs. Universities be recruiting a multitude ofincompetent pseudo-scholars. Employers dont understand why the new extensionof workers do not possess the basic skills to perform the job. It would appearthat American students are not skill as much as their parents did. And yet,teachers are still teaching, taxes are still being paid, and more funds than of all time are being appropriated for public education. Whats going on in Americasclassrooms?     Up until the 1980s nigh schools used a standards ground curriculum. Inthe traditional classroom setting, educators focused on the input side ofeducation, teaching a particular(prenominal) body of knowledge. Students were graded againstpredefined sta ndards and passed or failed based on their ability to visualise thosestandards. This method of teaching produced a graduate with a well traveleducation, and prepared him for further development of career skills. With theexception of those who did not take for themselves, the system worked.     Today Americas educators take a new approach in the classroom. Thefocus of education has moved to measuring what students can do, rather than whatthey understand. This is the onus principle of Outcomes Based Education (OBE).An outcome, by definition, is something that follows as a reply or consequence.So OBE then, is an approach to education where the end result is the mostimportant factor. This is very important in understanding what OBE is, and whatit intends to do. In the OBE classroom, any aspect of the curriculum is gearedtoward achieving a small group of specialised goals. To gain an insight into OBE,it is necessary to learn something about its origins and thos e promoting it.B. F. Skinner, a psychologist and learning theorist, developed thetechniques of learning (operant conditioning) based on conditioning phenomenafirst examine scientifically by Pavlov. Skinner called his technique his"teaching machine." Skinner thereof developed the principles on which "MasteryLearning" was developed by genus Benzoin salad days.Mastery Learning was the original name for the process known like a shot asOutcome Based Education, also known as surgery Based Education, orRestructuring. Educational theories used in OBE are based on Benjamin BloomsTaxonomy of Educational Objectives. A curriculum, according to Bloom, "...may be apprehension of as a plan for changing student behavior." (p 14 of Ron Sunseris word of honorOBE Understanding the Truth about Education Reform, Questar Publishers, P.O.Box 1720, Sisters, OR 97759) Bloom called it "Mastery Learning." Techniques forhis new style of education, based on Skinnerian beha vioral psychology, focus on