In order to continuously enhance digital capacity among the staff and teachers of partner colleges, The Programme “Reform of TVET in Viet Nam” (TVET Programme) continued to support NTVC by inviting Dr. Le Phuong Truong from the University Lac Hong, Dong Nai province to implement the training course on the “Competency-based teaching” method for nearly 35 staff and teachers of NTVC.
Addressing the participants at the training course, Mr. Nguyen Phan Anh Quoc, the Principal of NTVC mentioned “Competency-based training” is a necessary method for teachers in the digital age. This course is especially meaningful for teachers of NTVC at the present time. Recently, teachers of NTVC have applied a number of methods to develop their module plans/lesson plans. However, the processes, methods and applications are still scattered, not systematic. Some processes have not been implemented properly, then the development of module/lesson output standards is not very good. Therefore, the quality evaluation of the learners is not very properly. To ensure that at the end of the training course, all teachers can develop their own standard processes, including all steps of developing output standards, designing module/lesson plans, developing teaching and learning activities, designing assessment activities… and immediately apply to their teaching specifically right in the new school year. The Principal also suggested that all teachers should arrange their time to fully attend the course to absorb all knowledge and actively share experience from trainer to improve their teaching capacity.
The training course on the “Competency-based teaching” method was conducted within 3 days, from 13-15, September 2023. It incorporated both theoretical (20%) and practical components (accounting for 80% of training time). The content was delivered and guided directly on the Moodle Learning Management System (LMS) platform of the college so that the teachers could log in the system for easy reference before the training course or further review after that if they desired.
There were 04 groups representing 04 different faculties engaging in group practical assignments after each training segment as follows:
Day 1: Development of expected learning outcome, teaching and learning activities. In this session, teachers engaged in the following content: Methods of developing expected learning outcome, Software for expected learning outcome development, 06 learning styles (ABC Learning Design), Software for teaching plan development, Application of Bloom’s Taxonomy to develop the expected learning outcome of modules/lessons. At the end of this session, the teachers had group assignments on applying Bloom’s Taxonomy and learning styles to design teaching and learning activities based on expected learning outcome.
Day 2: Competency-based teaching methods. In this session, teachers engaged in the following content: Competency-based education, Expected learning outcome measurement, Project-based learning. At the end of this session, teachers had group assignments on designing the course content that integrates the “project-based teaching” approach into the teaching and learning plan.
Day 3. Design Rubric for modules/lessons. In this session, teachers engaged in theoretical and practical segments about the Rubric design method and Development of assessment method matrix in accordance with the expected learning outcome.
In order for teachers to be able to immediately apply the training content, the Trainer let all teachers spend most of the time in the last session of the course on using their own available lectures and Bloom’s Taxonomy to develop expected learning outcome, teaching methods, assessment methods then submit on NTVC’s LMS system. Based on that, the Trainer provided comments to ensure that their expected learning outcome developed could be good enough to be applied immediately for their own modules/lessons in long-term. This kind of activity was considered a mandatory final assignment to evaluate the ability of the teachers in term of absorbing and applying knowledge they obtained, as well as how NTVC fulfilled its commitment to immediately apply the trained content into their teaching activities.
At the end of the training course, most of the teachers applied quite well the skills and knowledge they have acquired and fully completed the group and individual practice assignment and received good feedback from the trainer during the training progress and afterward.
According to survey results, 88% of the teachers are willing to apply the trained content in their teaching activity after and 95% of those are satisfied with the content and quality of the training course. In addition, there were also some suggestions that the TVET Program should organise more similar training courses to improve the capacity of teachers in the future.
Addressing the participants at the end of the training course, Mr. Tran Trung Dung – Vice Rector of NTVC highly appreciated the idea of TVET Program of organizing such training course. At the same time, he also showed his appreciation for the Trainer’s enthusiastically experience sharing, professional knowledge, introduction of management tools on digital platforms and quality assurance information systems for NTVC’s reference; and especially his personal views and opinions contributing the improvement of management quality, quality assurance and digital capacity for NTVC’s the college in the future.
