Competency Based Curriculum - Need of the Hour!!!

Outcome based education means aligning the education system around what a student must be able to achieve at the end of their learning period.

In today’s world where competition is ever increasing, education offered by any institute should be outcome based. It should assess whether a particular student has been able to achieve the desired course and program outcomes. All teaching learning and assessment methods must be directed towards achieving the course and program outcomes laid down by the statutory body or the University.

Outcome based education emphasizes on

1. Clearly stated course and program outcomes.
2. Assessment of students and course outcome attainment.

There are steps involved in formulating an outcome based curriculum. They are:

1. The Graduate Attributes (GAs)
2. The Program Outcomes (POs)
3. Bloom’s Levels
4. The Course Outcomes (COs)
5. Mapping of COs with POs
6. Content Mapping
7. Course Attainment Analysis

The first and foremost step while designing a Competency-based curriculum is laying down the Graduate Attributes.

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) defines graduate attributes as those qualities that any student graduating must carry and follow for their whole life. These in turn help the students to set short-term goals for themselves in order to achieve the graduate attributes.

Once the graduate attributes have been laid down, the next step is laying down clearly the Program outcomes. Program Outcomes are statements that describe what the students graduating from any of the educational Programmes should be able to do. These should be in alignment with the graduate attributes.

Programme outcomes can further be divided into Programme specific Outcomes.

Programme Specific Outcomes are statements that describe what the graduates of a specific educational Programme should be able to do at the end of that particular academic year.

The next important step in any competency based curriculum is defining the Course outcomes/ Competencies for each and every course.

They define what a student must be able to achieve at the end of the course. They should be measurable and are a direct reflection of whether the student will achieve the desired program outcomes laid down.

BLOOM’s taxonomy domains and levels must be used while defining the graduate attributes, Program outcomes as well as course outcomes.

The course outcomes, program outcomes as well as graduate attributes must be well spread across the 3 domains namely Cognitive, Psychomotor and Affective. Accordingly the verbs come in to play.

While defining any of the outcomes, the teacher must start from level-1 which is remembering and aim to reach level-6 –Creating which is the highest ranked.

The teaching learning and assessment must be planned in the same manner. Then only we can produce competent homoeopaths ready to treat patients judiciously in this competitive medical world.

Mapping of Course outcomes with Program outcomes

1. The main aim of this particular exercise is to inspect whether the course outcomes are in alignment with the program outcomes.
2. It also helps to identify whether attainment of the course outcomes help achieve the program outcomes.
3. In this, each and every course outcome is mapped to individual program outcome.
4. One course outcome can be mapped to several program outcomes.
5. It may also happen that a course outcome may not be mapped to any of the program outcomes.
6. However, each and every program outcome must be mapped to at least one course outcome of the entire courses running under that program.
7. This helps identify the gap areas in the curriculum of all the courses and take remedial measures accordingly.

Evolution & Different Methods of curriculum mapping:

Different methods of curriculum mapping have been adopted by different educational institutes without any uniformity.

     A. The traditional process of curriculum mapping:

     The following were the three traditionally used approaches to curriculum mapping.

1. Heads of the Departments (Courses) were instructed by the Head of the Institution to formulate their respective Course Outcomes.
2. Then the Academic Committee used to map them with the program outcomes without any input from the Heads of the Departments (Courses) and submit them to the University.
3. So a lot of bias came into play.

     B. Current Scenario

     Following method is now been used and universally accepted-

1. Mapping of Course Outcomes to Program Outcomes
2. Content Mapping- Mapping of the content (each and every topic) to the program outcomes, course outcomes.
3. Mapping of assessment methods to the learning outcomes competencies
4. Mapping of Course Outcomes to Question paper

Level.1 Mapping:

Here are the course outcomes that are mapped with the program outcomes. This helps the faculty identify the gap areas in the respective courses and to formulate remedial measures.

Level.2 Mapping: 

This is the main in the whole of mapping levels. It is also called as content mapping. With this, the entire syllabus gets mapped with the course and program outcomes. This is done topic wise, wherein each and every topic is mapped to Course outcomes & Program outcomes. This helps to form the specific learning objectives and identify the teaching-learning and assessment methods for each topic in the syllabus which in turn helps achieve the Course outcomes & Programme outcomes.

Level.3  Mapping:

The next important step in curricular mapping is mapping the assessment methods with the course outcomes. It is very important to map the assessment method with the course outcomes as it helps the faculty to judge the usefulness of a particular assessment methodology, adopt newer innovative assessment methods and identify the gap areas in the assessment of students. Accordingly remedial measures have to be planned as assessment should be a very strong point of any course.

Level.4  Mapping:

Each and every question in the question paper must be aligned in order to achieve the course outcomes. This is very important as it directly measures whether the student has the necessary knowledge/Skill to achieve a particular course outcome.

The setting of the question paper must be in accordance with the course outcomes laid down by the respective courses & help in measuring the course-attainment ratio

Benefits of mapping learning outcomes

1. Helps to determine the program requirements and course prerequisites before the formulation of program outcomes and course outcomes.
2. Helps identify the gap areas in curriculum planning & monitoring.
3. Helps formulate remedial measures for narrowing/ closing the gap areas in curriculum planning and implementation.

Course Outcome Attainment Analysis :

This is the final step of a Competency based curriculum

1. Course outcome attainment analysis is a clear indicator of whether the student has been able to achieve the course outcomes and in turn the program outcomes.
2. Formative and summative assessments form the base of measuring the course outcome attainment.
3. Each and every student is assessed as per the assessment methods laid down by the individual course and the course attainment ratio is calculated.
4. This also helps in pointing out the gap areas in the assessment method and helps in improving and strengthening the course.

Conclusion

It is time that the Homoeopathic curriculum should be competency based. It will help assess whether the graduating homoeopaths are capable enough to treat the patients. It will in turn help improve the quality of homoeopathic treatment imparted to patients. When the students are aware that certain benchmarks have been set for them to achieve and they will be assessed at every given point of time, they will strive hard to achieve the desired competencies.