Impacts of Globalization on Professional Development of Lecturers in Higher Education
The Case study in School of Education in Can Tho University, Viet Nam
HO THI THU HO*
Abstract
Globalization has effected on the quality of higher education in different sides in Viet Nam. This process has developed gradually after 1986 when the “Doi Moi” policy happened in Viet Nam. Located in the central of the Mekong Delta of Viet Nam, Can Tho University (CTU) is one of the places that gets a lot of positive impacts from globalization through international collaboration. One of these impacts is the improvements on professional development of lecturers in teaching and researching such as 1/ the improvement of knowledge, thank to international training and studying; 2/ the improvement of teaching methods basing on educational innovation; 3/the improvement of research competence in the international learning community. Thank to that, the quality of teaching and researching of lecturers at our university has been improved more and more. This paper will display these three improvements in the case study in School of Education (SoE) at CTU and clarify how globalization through international collaboration has effected on professional development of lecturers in teaching and researching at higher education with the core discussion on the implementing process of these three improvements.
1. INTRODUCTION
Globalization is “a comprehensivetermfor the emergence of a global society in which economic, political, environmental, and cultural events in one part of the world quickly come to have significance for people in other parts of the world. Globalization is the result of advances in communication, transportation, and information technologies. It describes the growing economic, political, technological, and cultural linkages that connect individuals, communities, businesses, and governments around the world” (Tabb, William K., 2008).
Globalization in Vietnam has gradually come since the ‘Doi Moi’ policy began in 1986. The year 1986 is the important landmark in history when the Vietnamese Party and Government implemented comprehensive reformation of socio-economic policies and changed from “the centrally planned economy” to “socialist-oriented market economy”. That is the process of economic renovation for effective integration into economic globalization and knowledge-based economy. After “Doi Moi” 1986, Vietnam has gradually been among the most successful East Asian economies (Philip Abbott and Finn Tarp, 2011). The process of globalization, after 1986, has influenced on Vietnamese development in different aspects such as economy, culture, environment, education…The Vietnam’s higher education system has also developed rapidly and recorded a lot of significant achievements in the process of globalization (Nguyen, 2002).
Globalization through international cooperation in Vietnam is considered as a strategy in the process of reforming the higher education. This process has helped to upgrade and build facilities and equipment; to reform training objectives, contents and methods; to promote activities of scientific research in universities. Globalization through international collaboration in Vietnam has also brought few negative impacts on higher education (Nguyen, 2002). However, this study mainly focuses on positive impacts of international cooperation on higher education in SoE, CTU, Vietnam.
Can Tho University (CTU), an important state higher education institution in the Mekong Delta (MD), is the cultural, scientific and technical center of the MD and Viet Nam. The university has established scientific and technological cooperation with many international organizations, universities, and research institutes. As a result of these cooperative projects, the staff’s administrative capabilities and specializations have been upgraded. The facilities, experimental equipment, and scientific materials have also been added (Introduction of CTU in CTU website).
School of Education (SoE), housed in CTU, which is committed to constantly improving its capacity in education, research and community services. The main missions of SoE include: (1) Training initial primary school and secondary school teachers; (2) Conducting research in the fields of educational, natural and social sciences. Since During the past years, the SoE has received on-going support from different education institutions and organizations in Europe, America, Australia and Asia. This international collaboration has influenced the on education and research through curriculum studies, professional development, and leadership skills (Trinh, 2012). Thank to this collaboration, the quality of higher education in SoE has been developed more and more.
This paper will discuss about the influence of the international collaboration on Professional Development of the SoE staff in teaching and researching. “Staff” in this study refers to mentions on “lecturers” and “Professional Development” (PD) here focuses on knowledge, teaching method and research competence.
2. METHODOLOGY
2.1 Research questions
This study attempted to find out the answers to one main following question:
“How has Globalization through International Collaboration Impacted on Professional Development of Lecturers in SoE, CTU, Vietnam?” This impact will be clarified on the improvement of:
- knowledge of lecturers thank to international training and studying;
- teaching methods of lecturers basing on educational innovation;
- research competence of lecturers in the international learning community.
2.2 Research instruments
There are three main instruments for the research. They are as follows:
- Collecting and researching data from the procedures, materials regarding to the process of SoE development in the international collaboration which has influenced on PD of lecturers from 1996 up to now;
- Interviewing lecturers and leaders who have worked in SoE from 1996 up to now to get their opinions and views for the impacts of international collaboration on PD of lecturers in SoE.
- Observing activities that SoE lecturers have participated in learning, teaching and researching such as “lecturing classrooms”, “field trip activities”, “seminars”, “workshops”, “conferences”… These observations gave the specific evidences to prove how lecturers have been improved their professional development.
2.3 Methods of data analysis
To answer the research question, data Data from procedures, observations and interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed so as to answer research question with qualitative methods of Strauss and Corbin, 1996 and the base on case study theory of Yin Robert K. 1994.
3. FINDINGS
3.1 Impact of international collaboration on the improvement of knowledge of lecturers thank to international training and studying
Thanks to the international cooperation of the projects from European countries, USA, Australia …, SoE lecturers’ knowledge has been upgraded by “Official training” and “Study in the international project activities”. These training and studying programs have been developed since 1996 up to now. After the international collaboration with the first MHO4 project (1996-2004), SoE has more international projects such as CTU-MSU (2001-2009), LG (2001-2006), NFP (2006-2007), ALA (2008-2010)…These projects gave a lot of opportunities for SoE staff to strengthen and improve their knowledge.
Strengthening knowledge from “Official training”: Several projects have sponsored the for SoE candidates to take diplomas, masters or doctors training programs, which are very well organized. Firstly, trainee candidates are trained English in CTU, even computer using, the way to live and study in foreign countries, then these candidates will be sent to foreign countries to study for getting master or doctor degrees in many different subjects in long term projects. Several of other lecturers studied in short training programs to get diplomas. For instance, in MHO4 project since 1996-2004, the total of there were totally 2 doctors, 11 masters, and 12 diplomas were trained in abroad. while Before before 1996, there were not more than 10/150 people, at SoE, who had the a chance to study in overseas (Le, 2004). Beside this project, there are many other trans-national partnerships that have supported for many master and doctorate programs in SoE. This support consists of financial funding, immigration procedures, admission procedures, academic advising, living abroad conditions and others., et cetera. Without such support, it is not easy for SoE lecturers to be improved knowledge and to received official and valuable master or doctoral degrees in several prestige universities in abroad.
Improving knowledge from “Study in the international project activities”: Lecturers have a chance to be enhanced their knowledge through workshops, conferences, visiting (study tour) in abroad and other activities in cooperative working with foreign experts in the international projects. This will be clarified more in the next sections. The table below shows a number of lecturers who had the a chance to study in oversea in short time.
Table 1: Number of persons who received study tours by international projects
Project / Number of person / Duration / Destination country / Main objective of the tourMHO4 / 13 / 3 months / Holland / Writing lecture notes
LG / 9 / 3 weeks / USA / Learning Methodology in Teacher Training
NFP / 5 / 2 weeks / Holland / Learning Coaching model in Education
ALA / 14 / 2 weeks / Australia / Learning how to Design Teacher Training Curriculum
(Source: Interview the SoE former Dean who hold the office in term 2005-2012)
Through these training and studying programs, knowledge of lecturers significantly improved in both subject knowledge and educational knowledge. Their knowledge is supplemented, extended, in-depth and practical. Thus, these programs bring good opportunities for lecturers to update and integrate new knowledge into their different subjects such as English, Math, Physic, Chemistry, Biology, Geography, Literature, Education…This has great significance, not only for lecturers, but also for their students at present and in the future.
3.2 Impact of international collaboration on the improvement of teaching methods of lecturers basing on educational innovation
3.2.1 Process of Educational Innovation from International Projects
Educational innovation has come to SoE since 1996, after the first international project (MHO4 project) began. in SoE. Before this time, most lecturer staff of SoE had taught with “Chalk and talk” or “Teacher-center trend”. SoE lecturers have been improved teaching methods from a lot of activities in educational innovation through international projects such as MHO4, CTU-MSU, LG…from many different countries (Le, 2004). The process of teaching reform is not easy! It is a long and hard working process of both foreign experts and SoE lecturers. The activities in this process have been conducted from “Learning active teaching” to “Applying theory of active teaching into teaching courses”, “Observing class teaching and giving feedback”, “Discussing and drawing lesson learns” then “Presenting the results in the conferences”. These activities of the projects will be clarified in the following:
MHO4 project, from Holland, since 1996 to 2004, is the first project which brought educational innovation to SoE.
Learning active teaching through training workshops
This project organized three training workshops for 150 lecturers (all Lecturers) of SoE and 50 high school teachers in the Mekong Delta in three summers in 1996, 1997, and 1998. One workshop lasted 10 days. Each workshop had general training at the first time, thenand then specific training divided by different groups of subjects: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography, History, Literature and Educational Psychology. Each group has its foreign professional professor of teaching methods to train and support. The main topic in both three training workshops is "Learning by Discovering" or "Teaching with student-center trend". The key content of the workshops focused on 5 dimensions of Robert Marzano[1]: 1/ Positive Attitudes and Perceptions about Learning; 2/ Acquiring and Integrating knowledge; 3/ Extending and Refining Knowledge; 4/ Using Knowledge Meaningfully; 5/ Productive Habits of Mind (Le, 2004).
Application in class teaching - observation - giving feedback - discussion lesson learn
After each training workshop, lecturers and school teachers are required to apply what they studied by teaching practice in class. The Dutch professors and colleagues observed and gave feedback and discussion later for the class teaching. From such discussion and feedback, groups of all lecturers and Dutch professor sited together to draw lesson learns mainly about the way of teaching. They discuss what is the best; what need to be changed; what teachers had learned; what could be difficult and why so difficult; how to overcome those that problems. Through such activities, teaching skills of teachers and lecturers have changed significantly (Le, 2004).
CTU-MSU project is The Cantho University (CTU)-Michigan State University (MSU), USA project “Integrating of School Reform with Community Development” began in June 2001 up to December, 2009. One of the project’s goals is to improve active teaching in participating schools in rural areas. The project uses a particular approach to active learning, called KUA (Knowledge-Understanding-Application) (Ho, 2010).
Learning KUA teaching and learning model through training workshops
The project organized the ‘active learning” workshops followed the KUA model. With this model, American experts trained SoE lecturers and school teachers[2] a series workshops which consisted 7 topics such as Theory of KUA; How to identify the main idea of the lesson; How to build productive questions; How to organized group work activities; How to use teaching aids; How to use formative/continuous assessment and How to teach outside classroom (Ho, 2010).
Application in class teaching – observation and giving feedback – discussion lesson learns
After workshops, lecturers and school teachers who teach the same subject will apply KUA methods in teaching practice. This work was were on going weekly with the following activities, such as discussing lesson plans, micro teaching, discussing and giving comments, and teaching in the real class for observation and reflection. Each lecturer helped 2-3 school teachers. These SoE lecturers, after one year working in such activities, could train KUA teaching model to other lecturers and school teachers in the later workshops of CTU-MSU project. Later, these These workshops were later seen making progress more and more.
Participating teachers get on-going support to change “chalk and talk teaching” through weekly visits from SoE lecturers who observed lessons, provided supportive feedback and reviewed lesson plans for the coming week. Thank to this work, school teachers’ professional development was improved more and deeper. One school teacher said: "In the workshop, we really did not understand much about KUA model, but in practical teaching, through specific and supportive comments from colleagues and SoE lecturers, we understand KUA teaching method more and learn a lot of subject knowledge and pedagogic skills" (Ho, 2010).
This is also a golden opportunity for SoE lecturers to improve subject knowledge and practical experience of teaching methods in the real situations to train their students at SoE, so that these students can become good teachers in future. SoE lecturers’ professional development, through the process from training workshop by American professors, then supporting school teachers in making lesson plans, observing lesson teaching, discussing and giving feedback in many different lessons to organizing and training KUA methods for new teachers and lecturers in later workshops, has been upgraded clearly in a steady growth (Ho, 2010).