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Issues and Opportunities for Change

Module by: Phuong Nguyen

The teams recognize that many of the issues or problems identified under the five topic areas are highly interconnected. For example, a major problem regarding undergraduate teaching and learning is that the primary teaching method consists of lectures that are two to four 45-minute periods long, typically focusing only on the presentation of factual knowledge while students passively take notes. The learning that is generally expected of students is rote memorization of the factual knowledge, which is tested through a final exam. Typically, there is little use of homework to reinforce the lecture material or to practice the application of the information provided. Thus, the long factual lectures with little, if any, required homework, intertwine to affect the level of student interest and learning outcomes.
The factors that cause these problems are many, including the following: cultural expectations regarding the relationship between teachers and students; traditional definitions of teaching methods; traditional curricula, courses, and content; the large number of courses/credits that students take each semester and that are part of the undergraduate curriculum (approximately 200 credits); the way that faculty income is determined (fixed low salary plus additional income based on the number of credits of instruction, which reportedly motivates teachers to teach 20 hours or more per week at one or more institutions); and the way that university and department budgets are set. In addition, curriculum and course development as well as program review and methods of evaluation do not emphasize institutional effectiveness in terms of student learning outcomes and in terms of the continuous improvement of teaching and learning. Therefore, for the teaching faculty, there is little motivation and there are few incentives or rewards for change. If real and lasting changes are to be made in Vietnamese higher education, then all of these factors must eventually be taken into account in order to address the issues and take advantage of the opportunities described next.
The following discussion of each of the five topic areas includes, first, brief descriptions of the importance of the issues (or problems) observed in that area and, second, opportunities (or recommendations) for improvement through professional, instructional, and organizational development. Because of the interrelationship of the different areas, the lists of issues and opportunities may be redundant. Please note that the enumeration is not meant to be a listing in any order of priority.

Undergraduate Teaching and Learning

The primary area that the teams identified concerns the content and methods of undergraduate teaching and learning in Vietnamese universities. This area is the foundation of the higher education enterprise and, as such, improvement is fundamental to any effort to create research universities in Vietnam that meet a level of quality recognized internationally by leading professional organizations and by top level universities world-wide.

Issues

Specifically, the following issues or problems were identified:
  1. Ineffective teaching methods, which have too high a dependence on lectures and little use of active learning techniques (e.g., graded homework and class discussions), result in not much interaction between faculty and students in or outside of the classroom. Many faculty do not seem to hold office hours.
  2. An overemphasis on rote memorization of factual knowledge and a lack of emphasis on conceptual learning or higher order learning (e.g., analysis and synthesis) result in shallow versus deep student learning.
  3. Student learning is passive (listening to lectures, taking notes, and reproducing memorized information on exams).
  4. Most undergraduate classes are too large.
  5. Too many students do not attend class.
  6. Students spend too much time in classes each day and take too many courses per semester with no time to internalize the material (no deep learning and comprehension).
  7. After classes most students have a job and work to earn money, thus they do not have much time to do any homework that might be assigned.
  8. A lack of understanding exists on the difference between education (general preparation for personal and professional life-long learning) and training (specific preparation for task completion).
  9. A lack of emphasis exists on developing professional or common skills such as team work, oral and written communication in English, project management, problem solving methods, initiative-taking, life-long learning, etc.
  10. A lack of understanding exists about the relationship between using contemporary teaching methods and the quality and extent of student learning.
  11. A lack of faculty development is apparent in:
    • pedagogy (i.e., teaching and learning methods and materials);
    • instructional design and development for improving courses and curricula;
    • professional advancement (e.g., graduate education).
  12. Few written or electronic resources or professional support staff are available to provide training in up-to-date teaching and learning approaches.
  13. Books, lecture materials, and software are out-of-date.
  14. Classrooms facilities are poor (high noise and low comfort level), and laboratory facilities and equipment for undergraduate instruction and research are inadequate or non-existent.
  15. Library facilities and resources are inadequate (i.e., insufficient physical space, inadequate printed and electronic books and journals, limited access to high bandwidth Internet, and too few computers).
  16. Lack of respect for intellectual property is apparent for both written material and software.

Opportunities for the Improvement of Undergraduate Teaching and Learning

Recommendations for improving undergraduate teaching and learning are presented in terms of professional development (PD), instructional development (ID), and organizational development (OD).

Professional Development

Consider ways to provide support for the improvement in teaching and learning in the form of:
  1. the establishment and funding of national, regional, and/or local centers of teaching and learning excellence with experienced staff and both written and electronic resources to provide pedagogical, instructional, and professional development support (see also ID);
  2. targeted workshops and other training activities by recognized professionals, who have general skills in pedagogy and instructional design and development as well as specific expertise related to teaching particular content areas (e.g., computer science, electrical engineering, and physics); and
  3. opportunities to go abroad to observe first hand the use of active learning and other effective pedagogical practices (see also the Instructors section below).

Instructional Development

Consider the best means to:
  1. Raise the level of learning from rote memorization of factual information to higher order thinking abilities, that is, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
  2. Incorporate active learning strategies into class discussions, for example, questions and answers, group work, projects, and graded homework.
  3. Require graded homework that is connected with the ideas in class; that is regular; and that is used to provide feedback on student learning. For example, require two hours of graded homework for one hour in class.
  4. Incorporate homework grades, attendance, and class participation into a final grade.
  5. Make instructional materials Vietnam-relevant and current; coordinate the course content/materials package (i.e., lecture notes, PowerPoint, class activities, tests, lab work); customize to local conditions and make available to students electronically.
  6. Develop practical applications, exercises, projects, laboratory experiments, internships, and other opportunities for students to get training for specific task completion.
  7. Evaluate student performance during the term, not just at the end of the term with a final exam.
  8. Reduce teaching loads and provide teaching assistants as graders. Teaching assistants would be useful in reducing the load on professors for grading of homework, midterm, and final exams.
  9. Provide general electronic access for all instructors in order to update curricula, syllabi, and related learning materials on the Web and through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) or other publicly available open courseware systems (see also OD).

Organizational Development

Consider the best ways to:
  1. Reduce the number of credits and, therefore, the number of courses taken by students and taught by instructors each semester.
  2. Increase flexibility and provide more elective courses in the curriculum (see also the Undergraduate Courses and Curricula section).
  3. Give students an opportunity to change majors after they have enrolled in a program.
  4. Update lab and classroom facilities. Institutional facility audits would be required to assess the gap.
  5. Reorganize and reduce class sizes in order to facilitate student participation and active learning methodologies. Establish a system to monitor student attendance; consider attendance part of the final grade.
  6. Require instructors to hold office hours. (This assumes that teachers have office space and the time to meet with students outside of class).
  7. Protect intellectual property rights by getting country-wide copyright approval and by educating students and instructors about professional ethics (i.e., the importance of copyright and academic integrity, and the understanding of what constitutes plagiarism).
  8. Encourage instructors to work with colleagues on their own campus, at other institutions in Vietnam, and in the region in order to share course materials.
  9. Establish interlibrary loans within Vietnam and the Southeast Asian region.
  10. Provide up-to-date printed and electronic resources (books, journals, etc.) for faculty and students in order to facilitate teaching, learning, and research.
  11. Provide adequate access to high speed/bandwidth Internet and provide adequate numbers of up-to-date computers for instruction.
  12. Create a program of donations and gifts, of institutional advancement, and of institutional development investments from Vietnam and from the U.S. and other countries to support the improvement of teaching and learning.

Undergraduate Curriculum and Courses

The content, structure, and methods involved in courses and curricula make up the second area of concerns and issues that the teams identified. There are too many courses in the curriculum (approximately 200 credits). Most of the courses include too many topics and are out-of-date. Furthermore, many courses, while even excluding political courses, are not directly relevant to the field of study. Teaching and learning are adversely affected. As a result, current undergraduate degree programs do not prepare graduates at the same level as students are prepared at other major international institutions.

Issues

More specifically, the following concerns or issues were identified:
  1. The undergraduate curriculum requires an excessive number of courses (6-8) and credits (around 25) per semester, and as a result, students cannot attain in-depth knowledge. This presents a heavy workload for teachers and students. Students cannot master concepts and content, cannot internalize principles, and cannot complete homework. Teachers have no time for course and class preparation or for feedback to students.
  2. Typically, the number of credits required for graduation at top level institutions of higher education outside of Vietnam are much lower than 200, and generally number about 120 units for an undergraduate degree. MOET has extensive control over the content of the first two years; for example, “technical drawing” is required of all engineering students. This is a skill that should be acquired prior to university enrollment or through other courses, and it would be better if it is not designated as a course in itself.
  3. Often a disconnection exists between related courses. Furthermore, proper sequencing is not apparent for the entire undergraduate curriculum (e.g., engineering courses are taught too late).
  4. Many courses in the curriculum are unrelated to the given subject or discipline.
  5. The content of individual courses and the overall curriculum are out-of-date and not at the same level of top universities world-wide. In particular, not enough concepts and principles are taught and too much emphasis is placed on factual knowledge and skills.
  6. Practical applications focus on low level tasks such as doing programming and solving exercises to get the correct answer, rather than on critical thinking abilities such as analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and problem solving.
  7. Practical lab experiences are inadequate due to inadequate laboratory curriculum, facilities, and equipment. There is an imbalance between theoretical courses and laboratory or practical courses.
  8. The undergraduate curriculum does not offer adequate English language preparation (including writing, reading, speaking, and listening), which is critical since English has become the international language of science and much of the important research literature is in English.
  9. Preparation is lacking in common or professional skills such as oral and written communication and presentation skills, team work, problem solving, project management, critical thinking, and self-confidence.
  10. The unique nature of the curriculum in each major means that students are unable to transfer between majors after they have enrolled in a program.
  11. The courses and overall undergraduate curriculum are not guided by explicit statements of expected student learning outcomes.
  12. Regular opportunities do not exist for students to evaluate courses and the overall curriculum with regard to their perceived learning achievement.

Opportunities for the Improvement of Undergraduate Curriculum and Courses

Opportunities for improving the undergraduate curriculum and courses are presented in terms of professional development (PD), instructional development (ID), and organizational development (OD).

Professional Development

Consider the best means to:
  1. Provide instructional design and development support from recognized experts to help teachers update the content, structure, and pedagogical methods of courses and curricula (also see the Undergraduate Teaching and Learning section above).
  2. Send instructors abroad to study with exemplary teachers in their discipline (also see the Instructors section below).

Instructional Development

Consider the best ways to:
  1. Provide students with more applied hands-on experience and practice in the form of integrated laboratory exercises, design-and-build projects, and problem-based learning.
  2. Engage industry in project-related experiences, internships, and co-op programs.
  3. Use these opportunities (in items 1 and 2 above) for the development of oral and written communication and presentation skills, team work, problem solving, project management, critical thinking, and the development of self-confidence.
  4. Have students evaluate courses as a normal practice.
  5. Use student and industry feedback on courses and on specific educational experiences to help guide improvement efforts.

Organizational Development

Consider the best means to:
  1. Consolidate courses in order to conform with recognized credit systems of top universities world-wide, typically consisting of 120 to 130 credits for an undergraduate degree, which will reduce the number of courses that students take and that instructors teach each semester, and thus reduce their workloads.
  2. Consolidate and reduce the number of courses without creating financial disadvantages for teachers (see the Instructors section below).
  3. Modernize laboratory facilities and equipment so that it is possible to develop experiments, exercises, and projects that promote higher order thinking and problem solving skills.
  4. Allow MOET to be less prescriptive on the number and type of courses and to give more autonomy to institutions in terms of curriculum content and sequencing (e.g., allow engineering to be introduced earlier in the curriculum).
  5. Develop articulation agreements among programs and/or coordinate curricula so that students can transfer between majors after they have enrolled in a program.

Instructors

The quality of the teaching staff is the third area that the teams identified. While the teams found many dedicated, hard working, and competent instructors, overall their background and experience did not prepare them to develop and implement a modern undergraduate curriculum or to conduct research that measures up to the same level of that being conducted at top universities worldwide

Issues

More specifically, the following concerns or issues were identified:
  1. The teaching staff had a low level of academic preparation due to the focus on the memorization of factual knowledge (theory) in undergraduate education and the lack of modern research facilities for them as graduate students. Specific issues that surfaced include:
    • Instructors with Bachelor’s degrees are responsible for labs. (They have little or no research experience). University administration might consider placing laboratories under the supervision of higher level faculty members.
    • Instructors with limited graduate education because of the level of their own master’s degree are responsible for theoretical lectures on factual knowledge, resulting in their delivering an unsophisticated understanding of the material.
    • Instructors with doctorates are not involved in research and, therefore, are not able to mentor graduate students or bring their research into the undergraduate classroom.
  2. Instructors lack up-to-date knowledge in their field with regard to curriculum and course content, teaching practices, and research. Therefore, there is a lack of qualified teachers who can modernize undergraduate teaching and learning methods, curricula, and facilities, as well as graduate education and research.
  3. Academic inbreeding within institutions inhibits cross-fertilization of knowledge since undergraduates from the same institution are selected as laboratory assistants, master’s degree students, doctoral students, instructors, and professors.
  4. Faculty are overworked and underpaid (teaching up to 20 contact hours or more per week plus outside jobs in order to made a living) and, thus, have heavy teaching loads. Therefore, they lack the time necessary to upgrade teaching skills, courses and curricula, and research ability. Additionally, no incentives are provided to encourage them to improve in these areas. Furthermore, because of the teaching load, faculty are not available to students.
  5. Instructors are passive and may be resistant to considering innovation/change since this requires their time and effort.
  6. Full-time teachers lack support and assistance as demonstrated in:
    • little or no professional development support for instructors as teachers or scholars;
    • few human resources available to instructors such as teaching and/or research assistants, secretaries, and instructional development experts; and
    • out-of-date and poorly equipped facilities both for teaching (classrooms) and research (laboratories).
  7. There are inadequate library holdings and little or no access to other scholarly resources such as text books, e-journals, international journals, and electronic data bases.
  8. Promotion and salary increases are based on seniority, not merit or performance.
  9. Teaching staff are rewarded financially primarily for the amount of teaching and not for conducting research.
  10. Some new faculty coming back from abroad are frustrated with the slow pace of change.
  11. Faculty are not aware of the visions of higher administration for improving the university and undergraduate education.
  12. Faculty are not involved in significant curricular decisions and other related matters.
  13. Faculty are not evaluated and, therefore, do not get feedback on their performance.
  14. Faculty are not fully aware of procedures and steps of the reward system (e.g., promotion, recognition, and tenure) or of the consequences of their performance.

Opportunities for the Improvement of Instructors

Opportunities for improving the quality of instructors are presented in terms of professional development (PD), instructional development (ID), and organizational development (OD).

Professional Development

Consider the best means to:
  1. Help teaching staff get advanced academic preparation by offering:
    • focused professional development programs in Vietnam in specific disciplines and subjects;
    • short term study abroad programs (i.e., 1-6 months) or sabbaticals in specific disciplines and subjects so that teachers can experience first hand exemplary courses taught at top level international institutions by professors recognized in their profession;
    • opportunities in Vietnam to obtain advanced degrees in their discipline; and
    • study abroad opportunities to obtain advanced degrees, such as VEF Fellowships.
  2. Support teachers to attend professional conferences as both presenters and participants.

Instructional Development

(See also the Professional Development sub-section under the section on Opportunities for the Improvement of Undergraduate Teaching and Learning.)
Consider ways to:
  1. Help instructors learn how to design and teach courses that emphasize student learning at the conceptual level.
  2. Help instructors learn how to develop and use interactive teaching and active learning methods so that they can present course material in different ways, using various perspectives.

Organizational Development

Consider the best ways to:
  1. Reduce and standardize teaching loads and increase time for research by:
    • paying teachers a total combined salary/income that adequately supports them to work at their home institution for a full work week of approximately 40 hours per week of professional responsibilities, focusing on teaching, research, and service at one single institution;
    • revising the compensation system so that teachers do not require additional jobs outside their home institution and so that the number of courses taught would be independent of salary/income; and
    • changing the promotion and reward system so that faculty pay and other financial rewards are based on conducting research and service (advising students, instructional development, and faculty governance) in addition to teaching. In many countries such as the U.S., faculty are paid for teaching, but hired or promoted for their research performance. Promotion would bring a higher salary.
  2. Set expectations and provide administrative and financial support and recognition for teachers who make improvements in teaching, learning, and research.
  3. Develop programs for instructor development and evaluation as the basis for promotion beyond lecturer, in which the department chair conducts an annual evaluation that focuses on performance and is related to increases in merit base pay. The program ideally would use criteria related to evidence of student learning outcomes, course evaluations by students, number of publications, conference presentations, course development, research funding, effective links with industry, and service to the department and institution.
  4. Produce a faculty handbook with clearly defined procedures and steps for the reward system (e.g., promotion, recognition, and tenure).
  5. Create favorable working conditions to attract and retain new ambitious, dedicated, and well-trained faculty coming back from studying abroad.
  6. Provide teaching assistants, research assistants, and clerical assistants to full-time teachers.
  7. Provide resources to modernize undergraduate research labs and classroom facilities through additional investments by the government, business, industry, and international organizations.
  8. Provide personal computers with high-speed Internet access to all instructors.
  9. Recruit graduates for teaching positions from other universities.
  10. Foster interactions/collaborations between departments. One result would be to avoid unnecessary duplication of courses. For example, there is significant overlap in some courses in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and the Faculty of Telecommunications and Electronics.
  11. Communicate more fully and dynamically the vision and rationale for change to faculty and other stakeholders and engage teaching staff in developing the vision.
  12. Provide up-to-date scholarly resources in the form of:
    • current textbooks for individual use and for students to use in courses;
    • access to e-journals and electronic data bases for all instructors; and
    • leading/seminal books in libraries.

Graduate Education and Research

While not the main focus of this project, the quality of graduate education and research has a direct impact on the quality of undergraduate teaching and learning, courses and curricula, and teaching staff.

Issues

More specifically, the following concerns or issues were identified:
  1. Poor preparation of graduate level teaching staff and students can be related to an overemphasis on the memorization of factual knowledge (theory) in undergraduate education.
  2. Graduate teachers appear to lack up-to-date knowledge in their field as well as in the latest curriculum and course content, teaching practices, and research. Therefore, there is an apparent lack of qualified professors to modernize undergraduate and graduate education and research programs.
  3. Modern research laboratory facilities are lacking for professors and graduate students. Those that are available seem to be largely out-of-date and poorly equipped.
  4. Few, if any, research laboratory assistants or technical and clerical support staff are provided for graduate instructors.
  5. Graduate level library holdings are inadequate and there is little, if any, access to other scholarly resources such as text books, e-journals, and electronic data bases.
  6. There does not seem to be sufficient support for international conference attendance.
  7. Little opportunity seems to exist for Ph.D.s who have studied abroad to pursue their research or apply the teaching methods that they have learned when they return to Vietnam.
  8. Apparent academic inbreeding inhibits a dynamic research environment.
  9. The separation of research institutes and laboratories from teaching departments limits the potential opportunities for many faculty members to engage in research activities.

Opportunities for the Improvement of Graduate Education and Research

In addition to the above recommendations related to improving the quality of instructors, the following recommendations are provided as a means to improve the quality of graduate teaching and research.

Professional Development

Consider the best means to:
  1. Offer professional development that gives instructors opportunities at the graduate level to increase their level of conceptual, discipline specific knowledge and understanding; to conduct academic research at the same level of top universities worldwide; and to understand effective graduate level teaching and learning approaches used at leading research universities worldwide.
  2. Provide opportunities for instructors to attain advanced degrees (master’s and doctorates) from leading research universities in specific disciplines in science, technology, and engineering and in other subjects such as instructional design, professional development, evaluation, and assessment.
  3. Fund instructors to participate in international conferences.

Instructional Development

Consider the best ways to:
  1. Raise graduate curricula and courses to the same level of quality of top universities worldwide in both content and methods of teaching and learning. This might be done by emulating the best programs world-wide.
  2. Engage experts in teaching specific disciplines and in teaching pedagogy to provide guidance for the improvement of teaching and learning.
  3. Employ Ph.D.s, who have studied abroad, when they return to Vietnam to provide leadership in disseminating the use of the teaching methods that they have learned in their advanced training.
  4. Provide graduate level library holdings and access to other scholarly resources, such as text books, e-journals, and electronic data bases nation-wide.

Organizational Development

Consider the best means to:
  1. Have decision-makers reconsider where basic research is conducted in order to prepare the next generation of scientists. Consider reorganizing the structure and relationships of the universities, research institutes, and laboratories so that more research is conducted in universities by teaching faculty and graduate students.
  2. Provide funds to build modern laboratory research facilities for professors and graduate students.
  3. Provide personnel resources to faculty. Consider employing research laboratory assistants and technical and clerical support staff for graduate instructors.
  4. Encourage and facilitate collaboration among major research universities.

Evaluation of Student Learning Outcomes and Institutional Effectiveness

An overarching area noted by the teams concerns how the government, individual institutions of higher education, and departments monitor and improve quality. In general, there appears to be a lack of systematic evaluation of student learning, of programs, and of institutional effectiveness. At the foundation of these concerns and issues is an apparent lack of clearly articulated and coordinated student learning outcomes at the institutional, departmental, and course levels.

Issues

More specifically, the following concerns or issues were identified:
  1. At the course level, apparently few mechanisms are used to provide feedback on teaching and learning for the purpose of improvement. Formative assessment seems to be lacking.
    • Homework is not regularly assigned and, if it is, there is little or no grading or feedback to students.
    • There seems to be too much reliance on final exams as the primary source of grades. Students are not aware of performance until the end of the course.
    • Typically, course evaluations are not used to gather student feedback on teaching and learning.
    • Exams and quizzes are not regularly used to assess student learning or to determine the strengths and weaknesses of instruction.
    • Teachers do not seem to be held accountable for the quality of teaching and learning and the improvement of instruction.
    • There appears to be a general lack of evidence regarding the quality of teaching and learning.
    • Instructors seem to lack knowledge and skills regarding the evaluation of teaching and learning.
  2. At the departmental level, there is apparently little ongoing review, based on sound assessment data, of the quality of courses in the curriculum and the achievements of students majoring in specific areas.
    • Curricula and courses are generally not revised nor kept up-to-date based on feedback on teaching and learning.
    • Direct evidence of student learning is not apparently used in the evaluation of courses or curricula.
    • Neither academic achievement nor the success of graduates appears to be closely monitored.
    • Programs do not seem to be regularly reviewed in order to continually improve quality, based on norms usually associated with top level universities worldwide.
  3. There is an apparent lack of institutional research infrastructure at the university level. To clarify, this refers to research on information about the institution, not research projects in the disciplines.
Potential solutions include providing training for academic administrators responsible for registrar functions; creating offices of institutional research; and providing electronic resources for tracking, analyzing, and reporting student data including enrollment, progress toward degree, graduation, and learning outcomes.
  1. Institutional effectiveness is not typically evaluated in terms of student learning or research productivity.
    • Administrative areas do not seem to be held accountable for their contribution to the quality of teaching and learning.
    • Departments do not seem to be held accountable for the quality of teaching, achievement of well-defined student learning outcomes, and research productivity.
    • There are few expectations for continuous improvement based on evidence of student learning and institutional effectiveness.
    • Few resources seem to be available to support evaluation processes.
  2. Governmental accreditation (i.e., summative assessment) is in its early stages of development with some potential for development.
    • The current standards seem to be more concerned with compliance than with the assessment of student learning and continuous improvement.
    • Inadequate personnel resources seem to exist to assist the various institutions and departments. Ideally, staff in MOET and the VNU central offices could provide training and support related to accreditation and assessment.

Opportunities for the Improvement of the Evaluation of Student Learning Outcomes and Institutional Effectiveness

Recommendations for improving the evaluation of student learning outcomes (i.e., what students would be expected to know, to be able to do, and to value) and the evaluation of institutional effectiveness include the following:

Professional Development

  1. MOET might consider providing incentives and support in the form of professional development for local assessment experts.
  2. Professional development opportunities could include the following:
  • Provide full funding for in-country training, such as institutes, workshops, short courses, and seminars, all of which could count toward merit-based pay.
  • Engage international experts to provide formal training and informal consultation to local assessment experts.
  • Offer opportunities for instructors to attain advanced degrees (master’s and doctorates) from leading research universities in such subjects as instructional design, development, evaluation, and assessment.
  • Training for academic administrators responsible for registrar functions would be very beneficial including:
  • advanced degrees in educational psychology, measurement, and statistics;
  • short-term institutes on how to keep/maintain student records in order to help administrators understand the principles of institutional research; and
  • training programs for support staff to learn how to do data entry and analysis.

Instructional Development

Consider the best means to:
  1. Develop measures to evaluate student learning using a combination of formative methods (e.g., assignments and quizzes) and summative methods (e.g., capstone exams, projects, and portfolios).
  2. Develop and implement a system for student feedback in each department. In regular course evaluations, consider soliciting input from students regarding their perceptions of the extent that the instructor and course helped them to achieve the intended student learning outcomes.
  3. Develop clearly articulated statements of general learning goals that are related to courses in the curricula.
  4. Include specific student learning outcomes that are related to lectures, assignments, quizzes, and exams in the course syllabi.

Organizational Development

Consider the best ways to:
  1. Have institutional planning serve as the guide for the evaluation of the institution and departments.
  2. Encourage each institution and department to develop and implement evaluation plans that have processes and support structures for continuous improvement of teaching and learning, based on quality practices as seen at top universities worldwide.
  3. Require departments to have regular program reviews conducted by external/international reviewers.
  4. Establish offices of institutional research at the local university level and at the Vietnam National University level in order to organize, analyze, and report student data.
  5. Provide training for academic administrators responsible for research functions.
  6. Provide electronic resources for tracking, analyzing, and reporting student data including enrollment, progress toward degree, graduation, and learning outcomes in order to provide the information that is necessary to support the evaluation of student learning outcomes and institutional effectiveness.
  7. Establish Centers for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at each university to support the development and implementation of evaluation plans that incorporate the direct measure of student learning as the basis for continuous improvement.
  8. Institute annual reviews of faculty to guide professional development (see also the section on Instructors).
  9. Review and consider standards and practices as exemplified in the following:
    • ASEAN University Network: Quality Assurance Guidelines (ASEAN University Network, 2004);
    • SEAMEO: Framework for Regional Quality Assurance Cooperation in Higher Education (SEAMEO, 2003);
    • ABET, Inc.: 2006-2007 Criteria for Accrediting Computing Programs (ABET, 2006a) and 2006-2007 Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs (ABET, 2006b); and
    • The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) at http://www.chea.org/. Also see the Middle States Commission on Higher Education document, entitled Characteristics of Excellence (Middle States Commission on Higher Education, 2002).
  10. Assure that faculty and other stakeholders can be involved in establishing accreditation criteria.
  11. Reduce teaching loads to allow faculty time to provide to students more feedback that is based on sound classroom evaluation techniques.
  12. Hire graders and/or teaching assistants to help provide timely feedback. Consider creating a system of teaching assistantships (e.g., each student could be required to work as a teaching assistant for a semester, which could count toward the completion of the undergraduate degree).
  13. Reward faculty for providing appropriate student feedback. Various simple grading techniques can be used (e.g., allow students to cross-grade their assignments in class, and/or have students grade their own assignments by comparing against the answer keys that are posted publicly on certain dates either on a bulletin board or the Internet).
  14. Engage senior students and honor students for peer mentoring of the first, second, and third year students as a way to provide feedback on learning.
  15. Provide incentives and support, perhaps from MOET, in the form of:
    • financial support for the establishment and/or enhancement of VNU Assessment Centers and local institutional Centers for Excellence in Teaching and Learning;
    • technical advice to administrators and instructors; and
    • help in developing a mechanism for establishing positive, supportive relationships with U.S. universities and determining good U.S. universities with which to partner.

Opportunities for Change at the National Level

The U.S. expert teams also identified the following general recommendations that MOET might want to consider.
  • How to expand the university education system throughout Vietnam, with appropriate distribution across the country, so as to increase accessibility to more high school students to obtain a university education. The current 255 universities do not meet the demand.
  • Ways to develop a plan to prepare highly trained future faculty by empowering the current major universities to produce excellent teachers in sciences and technology for the other Vietnamese universities.
  • Options for making a strategic decision to fund fundamental and basic research in universities to ensure future generation of scientists.
  • Ways to provide more local institutional autonomy and flexibility to enhance quality and to keep curricula up-to-date.
  • How to develop the accreditation process to include assessment of student learning outcomes and how to work with local institutions to develop or enhance the program review process for academic departments.
  • Ways to develop a mechanism to ensure that resources are distributed based on merit and quality.
  • How to evaluate the level of quality of universities across Vietnam, based on student learning and research, and how to establish a mechanism to assist those institutions at a lower level of quality to rise to the highest possible level.
  • How to enable access to the latest public information for all universities via high speed Internet connections to electronic journals and data bases.
  • Ways to build instructor capacity in subject matter knowledge, teaching methods, interaction with students, and research through systematic professional development efforts.
  • How to reorganize the faculty workload to give instructors more time for preparation, interaction with students, and research.
  • Ways to revise and reorganize the MOET mandated curriculum so that students can spend more time on learning relevant content and on integrating course information.
  • How to improve teaching methods in high school to better prepare students for a more demanding, post-secondary education.
  • Ways to help high school students to be prepared to choose a major for their university degree program while still in high school.

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