Faculty Conference 2008-2009

The conference took place on October 11, 2008, with the participation of faculty members from various departments and faculties within the university.

The purpose of the conference was to evaluate teaching practices under the credit-based curriculum; clarify teaching issues that need to be focused on in the 2008-2009 academic year; and discuss solutions to strengthen guidance, supervision, and evaluation of students' self-study process.

The conference heard the report of the Steering Committee for the transformation of university education to a credit-based system and discussed many related issues.

The 2007-2008 academic year was the first year of university teaching under the credit-based curriculum for the QH-2006-X and QH-2007-X cohorts. However, because most of the courses taught were general subjects, the number of training units and lecturers teaching under the credit system was still limited. In the new academic year, essentially the majority of the university's lecturers are directly teaching under the credit system.

A highlight of the past year's teaching activities was that most lecturers strictly adhered to the credit-based teaching system, including teaching according to the issued course syllabi, guiding students in self-study and using learning materials, strengthening assessment and evaluation, and actively innovating teaching and assessment methods. The evaluation of teaching quality also improved based on the synchronized management of teaching content and assessment. Students were more proactive in understanding course information, such as what content to study, how to study it, and how to accomplish learning tasks; they were also more active in providing feedback on teaching and learning.

[img class="caption" src="images/stories/2008/10/14/img_0307.jpg" border="0" alt="Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan - Faculty of Philosophy" title="Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan - Faculty of Philosophy" width="240" height="160" align="left" ]

In addition, the report also mentioned areas where teaching performance was lacking in the past year. Regarding lecturers, the use of course syllabi was limited to informational purposes and lacked specific details for each class; lecturers did not proactively assign self-study content to students, or assigned it without effective guidance and supervision; assessment activities were ineffective; and lecturers' proactiveness in providing guidance was insufficient.

Regarding professional management, the practice of observing lessons to gain experience in teaching has not received adequate investment; the progress and quality of compiling and using assessment tools and subject learning materials are still limited.

From the students' perspective, there is a misconception that the credit-based system is easier than the semester-based system. In addition, students' self-study time management skills are still very weak.

Entering the 2008-2009 school year, the main focus of teaching is:

- Continue to update and refine the course syllabus;
- Enhance guidance and assessment of the learning process, especially students' self-study tasks;
- Focus on developing course materials with key activities;
- Innovate the professional management of the department.

To accomplish these tasks, the school has issued a policy to support lecturers who actively implement the assigned tasks and to specify these tasks in the evaluation and ranking system. Functional departments will focus on supporting lecturers in tasks such as: providing tools for lecturers to independently gather student feedback during teaching; conditions for performing course counseling tasks; digitizing unpublished learning materials; and enhancing the search for and dissemination of relevant materials for organizing training and teaching methods... in accordance with the credit-based training system.