Expecting a large number of FPT Education (FE) employees to understand CDIO – the new training methods, in January 22 afternoon, at the 13th floor lobby of FPT Cau Giay Building, more than 100 FE employees attended an education talk show (Edutalk) entitled “CDIO and international integration of education”.

The Edutalk was in a series of FPT Education Open Talk (FPT EduCamp) which was held for the first time in November 2014. This is a monthly open talk for people who are interested in education sharing and discussing in order to promote and innovate the education.

Speakers of the talk show are CDIO well-known experts in Vietnam and ASEAN, including:

• Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mr. Le Hoai Bac, Head of Computer Science Department of doubles as Head of Information Technology Faculty – The University of Science, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City (VNUHCM);
• Assoc. Prof. Dr. Doan Thị Minh Trinh, Machine Manufacturing – Automation Technology, Deputy Head of CDIO Board at VNHCM;
• Dr. Nguyen Quoc Chinh, Major: Chemistry at University of Manchester (UK) and MA Educational Science at Simon Fraser University (Canada), Head of Undergraduate and Post Graduation Department, VNUHCM

CDIO is the abbreviation of Conceive – Design – Implement – Operate which mean conceiving ideas, designing ideas, implementing ideas, and operating them. CDIO is initiative came from the idea of the engineering professions of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – the U.S.A in collaboration with Swedish universities. It is a methodology which could solve the two major issues: what to teach students (What to teach?) and how to help students to deeply understand the knowledge (How to teach?).

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Doan Thị Minh Trinh, Machine Manufacturing – Automation Technology is the one of the first people who has studied and applied CDIO in research and teaching for higher education programs at Viet Nam National University – Ho Chi Minh City (VNUHCM) since 2010. She claimed: “CDIO provides a scientific methodology for training high-tech workforce in the 21st century willing to work in the globalization environment”.

CDIO aims to integrate skills and knowledge in learning and teaching activities, to create modern practical spaces for students, and to promote learning methods through practical experiences and continuous improvement processes. “This is not a completely new method but its advantages is a comprehensive toolkit to standardize learning outcome based on rubrics”, Assoc. Prof.Dr. Minh Trinh mentioned.

Viet Nam National University – Ho Chi Minh City (VNUHCM) faced a lot of challenges when applying CDIO methods in learning and teaching activities. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Hoai Bac shared: “To implement CDIO, there are something needed to be considered including: Budgets, changes in awareness, and promoting of teachers’ desire to change the traditional teaching methods and ways to spread CDIO culture on educational environment“. If it is successfully implemented, CDIO will help improve teaching competence, gain students’ eagerness so that they can acquire more skills and useful knowledge and the university reputation can be enhanced.

Beside general knowledge about CDIO and CDIO model applied at Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City (VNUHCM), Q&A part was also really exciting. The FE staff especially pay attention to methods of designing and evaluating learning outcomes in CDIO Initiate, because it is considered as a competitive advantage of FPT University with almost 98% graduates having jobs in recent years.

Assoc. Prof.Dr. Minh Trinh shared: “In CDIO Initiate, learning outcomes are referred from faculty, employers, alumni and students.” This is also a concern of VNUHCM, because learning outcomes are inconsistent and constantly changed by every day, every hour to keep up with changes of science and technology. To overcome this problem, The process of referring information to design learning outcomes have to be collected annually and information from industries must be referred as evaluating technological trends in order to design proactively updated programs.

Further discussion about learning outcome, Dr. Nguyen Quoc Chinh confirmed: “The debate about student quality does not immediately meet the needs of businesses are always “hot”. However, higher education mission is not to train workers. Its mission is to educate students with a solid foundation of disciplinary and social knowledge in order to help them catch the trends and lead the societies. With CDIO Initiate, after students graduate from schools, businesses’ mission is to continuously train students rather than retrain students“. Dr. Chinh’s statements won the applause of the audiences.

“Participating in the talk show, I got the most basic knowledge about CDIO and was particularly impressed by speakers’ straightforward sharing about challenges when applying CDIO at VNUHCM for the first time. This will be a significant and valuable lesson for FPT University to move vigorously in the future“, Mr. Duong Trong Tan – Director of Educational Technology, FPT University, said.

Luu Van, Chung ta