Master Teachers Training News
From 3-4 July 2021, Kenan collaborated with the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) to organize the Master Teachers Training Workshop – Project Based Learning modules 101 & 102 of Technology Enhanced Learning in Vietnam project to:
- Update the status of STEM education and the policy on STEM education in the school year 2021-2022;
- Identify the characteristics of high-quality STEM project-based learning from international examples;
- Provide knowledge about integrating and structuring science, math, technology contents, and engineering design process into STEM lessons;
- Provide exemplar STEM projects to use or adapt for school-teacher training and classrooms
Eleven master teachers provided the training, experts with high qualifications in education, who came from government agencies in education fields, universities, and academies in Vietnam. The MOET selected them for consistently applying STEM Education. Some of the teachers have been deeply involved in STEM Education since it was initiated in the country.
The two-day workshops included two STEM projects: outbreak and remote sensing.
The Outbreak project, which illustrated the virus spreading mechanism and how to prevent them, was efficient and fitted the current context of the Covid-19 pandemic. 11 master teachers attended the training online to comply with the local authority’s social distancing policy.
As Grade 6 students were introduced to the virus at a fundamental level and explored in more detail in Grade 10, the master teachers observed that this project could be applied effectively to the school curriculum and it would inspire students to enjoy STEM lessons with a topic that relates to their current situation and daily life. The project also aims to provide students with engineering habits of mind to solve practical problems.
The remote sensing project involved collecting data remotely or from a distance, which was an interdisciplinary field and only taught in certain universities in Vietnam. At the same time, knowledge related to this area was partially provided to students in secondary school (basic background knowledge about light was taught in Grade 7). By delivering this project lesson to students in the STEM classroom, teachers can show students the practical applications of this unit of knowledge, which can help in career orientation and build habits for students to pay more attention to social development issues gradually. Throughout the two lessons, Kenan’s international experts had chances to provide master teachers in detail the new approach to deliver STEM lessons – by using project-based learning.
After the two-day training courses, we witnessed positive feedback from master teachers who already had experience delivering STEM lessons in Vietnam, and they shared their views about STEM education and how to implement it in the classroom.
Dr. Son from Hanoi DOET shared: “The knowledge shared in the training is already familiar to us; however, the way the international experts presented it was highly engaging. Thus, it encourages me to bring the same energy and enthusiasm when working with our school teachers. With a two or three-day training session, it is challenging to transfer detailed knowledge, but it is possible to transfer a new and fresh way of working, where teachers are given opportunities to experience delivering STEM in the classroom and to fail while delivering it, just like how we want the student to try and fail and learn from their failure. We should keep in mind what can be improved and share this knowledge. If we do not have recommendations, we should keep exploring so that we can improve delivering STEM education in the classroom.”
While discussing the lesson plan development, Dr. Chinh from MOET shared: “Delivering STEM education in the classroom should be simplified to encourage more teachers to bring STEM lessons in class. Why do I suggest it? The overall decision of what knowledge the students should get from each lesson has been made by the Textbook Revising Board, a leading scientists Board, which includes Dr. Mai Sy Tuan. If the teacher follows the textbook for guidance, the student should gain the knowledge and grow their capacity. We should not go back to asking the teacher to become a scientist to identify the student’s capacity from the lesson, at least at this stage, because it will add more unnecessary work and burden the teacher. We need them to feel comfortable and focus on what they’ve done best but still need to improve in terms of their teaching skills. And that, to me, is STEM education transformation.”
