The educational philosophy of the Chemical Engineering program is articulated and communicated to all stakeholders. It is reflected in the teaching and learning activities.
The educational philosophy of IU is well presented and communicated to all stakeholders. The educational philosophy was announced in 2018 and revised as the current version in 2022. It is summarized as “Comprehensive – Liberal – Pioneering – Global”.
The educational philosophy of the CHE programme is inherited by the educational philosophy of IU. This educational philosophy was discussed and shared among the members of our faculty during faculty meetings to improve their teaching, and between lecturers and students. The educational philosophy is also propagated to new students on the orientation day, staffs, and stakeholders through the school’s website, student handbook, and stakeholders meetings. CHE’s lecturers, together with IU’s lecturers, have been trained in teaching methods in order to bring this educational philosophy into all their teaching activities. During the orientation week and at the beginning of the courses, students are introduced to learning approaches based on this educational philosophy. Before teaching technical concepts in detail, instructors present syllabi, discuss the course’s contents, textbooks, learning outcomes, grading scheme, their links to previous courses to prepare students with starting knowledge and their impacts in both academic and practical situations, and hence motivate students studying new courses.
The CHE program has utilized student-centered teaching and learning approaches, including: encouraging and developing active learning and multidisciplinary appropriateness; developing self-learning ability and lifelong learning capability; integrating theories and practices. Hence, all teaching and learning activities aim to transfer specific and in-depth knowledge to students, to encourage them discover the impact of the acquired knowledge in a more general setting in engineering practice and motivate them self-awareness and self-development of their knowledge. Different teaching and learning activities have been used in the programme such as interactive activities in class, practical experiments, group/individual assignment, and presentations. The crucial points underlying this educational philosophy are that students must learn to identify the problems arising in the real-world engineering practices and find out its optimal solutions to a given problem. Besides, students also have chances to experience the practical hand-on experience via the laboratory and field trips or updating new knowledge from invited speakers via seminars and conferences.
Teaching and learning activities are constructively aligned towards the achievement of the expected learning outcomes
In order to ensure that students can entirely meet the programme expected learning outcomes, each course is designed to meet certain learning outcomes.
The student-centered oriented approach provide students opportunities in which they can study at their own pace and interest. Lectures continuously stimulate and nurture their students ‘active and reflective learning’ in many activities:
Active learning methods: Lecturers are intertwined by questions and answers, and to encourage class and group discussion. Course assignments including homework, quizzes, midterm exams and final exams, and written reports and oral presentation are required in many courses.
Project based learning methods Several courses have term projects.
Practice based learning methods are strongly used in the programme. The schools has several laboratories with sufficiently equipped instruments for both study and research. Students can spend as much time as needed in the laboratories for self-study. Many theoretical courses are organized together with laboratory practices. It enables students to experience the reality of theoretical concerns and practices to improve skills.
Professional practice and internship are required of all students. Several field trips are arranged by the school, making sure that students are familiar with the real-world process. With a good connection with industry the school brings all third-year students to a company for summer internship. During the internship, students are well-trained by experienced engineers, and hence their work knowledge and practical skills are improved significantly.
Research based learning methods are applied to let students do a short investigation within a course. In these investigations, students are firstly required to state a problem. In the next step, this investigation can be completed at the level of reviewing literature but also at the level of conducting experiments, collecting data, interpreting and trying to find or suggest a solution. This method enables students to improve problem solving skills by solving real problems, practicing writing and presentation skills, and data analysis. This methods are deeply applied for the graduation thesis.
Besides, IU has the vision to become one of the leading research-oriented universities. To encourage students doing research, it offers students research grants for conducting their own research projects under the supervision of a faculty in the school.
Seminar and conferences: As a part of a course or research activities, students will have chances to participate in seminars or conferences where they can be in contact with experts as invited speakers. These activities help students to update their knowledge and recognize the importance of life-long learning and motivate them to generate new knowledge, fostering innovation and creativity.
English skills (reading, speaking, listening, writing) are integrated in the curriculum.
Practicing soft skills such as team-work, presentation and writing communication, problem solving are required in various courses via assignments, lab works and lab reports.
Quality assurance in teaching and learning activities
Students not only learn from their lecturers, but also from higher-class students via several voluntary tutorial sessions organized by the school and youth association.
These teaching and learning activities are implemented efficiently with the help of sufficient facilities provided by the university. The number of students in each class is kept to be medium, about 40-50 students for lower division and 20-30 students for upper division. Each classroom is well-equipped with a computer, projector and white board. These facilities together with the Blackboard system support lecturers in providing course materials to students. Technical discussions between students and lecturers are not limited to class hours, students are encouraged to seek help from their instructors outside the classrooms during the office hours, via emails or by appointments.
Students are not encouraged to learn by remembering, but by learning how to learn, learning to know, learning to do, learning to live, learning to be, learning for personal development and learning for professional development. With this in mind, the School organizes peer-review teaching activities to provide teachers opportunities to learn with and from each other by working on real-world problems and sharing industrial experiences. Teachers are also encouraged to arrange time to work off-hour for a consultant company to enhance their real-site experiences and to build up relationships with industry. The Schools coordinate with the University to continuously help instructors improve the teaching and learning strategy by facilitating interaction among instructors and students, giving them feedback from students. Formal and closed discussions take place after the IU’s QATO delivers the Course Evaluation results.
In and out of class, students are always boosted to discover and discuss any topic related to the field. The courses focus on creativity, independence, teamwork, organization and know-how. ‘Action learning’, which is one of the key factors to enhance life-long learning, is also considered as one of the centers of our teaching and learning activities. With the understanding of theory and design principles, students are required to implement a real model and perform the test in the laboratory. To provide the best optimal model, students must read several documents available on the internet and library, analyze by themselves. By applying project/problem-based teaching, students learn that there is not only a single solution for the problem, and they must direct to self-learning to find out their solutions with confidence, creativity and enjoyment, which are crucial characteristics of life-long learning.
In short, the School is restricted to providing both teachers and students opportunities to engage in teaching and learning activities, and to create the challenge to understand, explore, and support new essential dimensions of learning such as: self-directed learning, learning on demand, informal learning, and collaborative and organizational learning. Teachers are supported to be a learning teacher, to continuously push themselves to learn new ways of facilitating teaching and learning and increasing student engagement. For students, the courses require them to apply knowledge and skills in the context of authentic, self-directed problems. The courses are designed by integrating working and learning, students can learn
within the context of their work on real-world problems with confidence, creativity and enjoyment.
In brief, the table below shows the correlation of university educational philosophy, ILOs, teaching and learning activities, and student assessment methods.
| University Educational Philosophy | Teaching and learning approach | ILOs | Teaching and learning | Student assessment |
| Comprehensive:
To offer multidisciplinary and holistic training (intellectual, physical, moral, emotional, soft skills, professional & specialized knowledge together with a broad general knowledge base) |
Encouraging and developing active learning and multidisciplinary appropriateness | ILO1
ILO2 ILO3 ILO4 ILO5 ILO6
|
Group/ individual assignment;
Lecture teaching; interaction activities |
Quiz;
Assignment; Presentation; Reports; Written test |
| Liberal: To provide an education focused on liberal thinking and behaviors with the aim of reaching world elitist standards. To develop students’ potentials to the fullest, equipping them with necessary knowledge and skills as well as preparing them for a complex, diverse and changing world. To promote critical thinking, alongside with the sense of individual and social responsibility. | – Integrating theories and practices
– Developing self-learning ability and lifelong learning capability |
ILO1
ILO2 ILO4 ILO5 ILO6 ILO7 |
Group/ individual assignment; Doing experiments in Laboratory; Doing projects;
Lecture teaching interaction activities |
Quiz;
Assignment; Presentation; Reports; Skill test; Defense; Written test |
| Pioneering: To generate new knowledge, fostering innovation and creativity in teaching and research activities.
Global: To build an international academic community, in line with Vietnam’s strategy of global integration, contributing to the overall development of the world. |
– Utilizing student-centered approach in teaching and learning
– Developing self-learning ability and lifelong learning capability
|
ILO1
ILO2 ILO3 ILO4 ILO5 ILO6 ILO7 |
Doing research/ experiments in Laboratory; Attending conferences;
Lecture teaching; interaction activities; Doing thesis |
Quiz;
Assignment; Presentation; Reports; Written test; Skill test; Defense |
Training for academic staff about teaching methods, measurement of learning outcomes is frequently organized
IU organized various training courses for academic staff about teaching methods. Before opening each course, a survey on training demand of academic staff is conducted. The results are analyzed and the topic of training, time, and frequency are considered. IU has organized pedagogical classes for teachers every year since 2016 to 2019. Besides, IU in collaboration with Hanoi National University organized the training course “Innovation in Education” for teachers.
Training for the measurement of learning outcomes is also conducted frequently. Expert from the University of the West of English was invited for a training programme in teaching and learning of academic staff, including the teaching methods, evaluation/measurement based on Bloom’s taxonomy. Training by other experts from VNU HCM, QATO of IU and other universities in Vietnam such as University of Technology – VNU HCM have been conducted.
Student satisfaction in teaching and learning methods
Course evaluation surveys are conducted in each semester for each course. The rates given by students from 2018 to 2023 are over 4.2 / 5.0 except for semester 1 of academic year 2021-2022, suggesting that students have positive evaluations (“agree” and “strongly agree”) to teaching methodology of lecterers of the Department of Chemical Engineering (Figure 26). The lower rate in semester 1 of academic year 2021-2022 reflects the online teaching method is not favored than offline teaching method. In fact, online teaching method was applied during the Covid-19 pandemic in Ho Chi Minh city in 2021, it is the time of semester 1 of academic year 2021-2022.