The first HEEAP Vocational Faculty Development training of 2014 began on May 19. Seventeen faculty members from three different vocational schools in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam were selected to participate in the four-week program held at Arizona State University. In four weeks, the faculty members were put to rigorous work in developing techniques to enhance their classroom skills. The training alternated between two ASU campuses. At the main campus in Tempe, the faculty members worked with Dr. David Benson, HEEAP Academic Director, learning new instructional methods and multidisciplinary approaches for engineering instruction. Additionally, an important goal of the training was English language skills development. The faculty worked with Mr. Scott Welsh, from ASU’s American English Cultural Program (AECP), focusing on team work and creating presentations in English to test their communication and group collaboration skills.
While the faculty practiced their soft skills at the main campus, they put their technical knowledge to test at the Polytechnic campus. For two weeks, the HEEAP faculty at the Polytechnic campus participated in an applied project, where they worked in teams to build a mock elevator using Arduino programming. This portion of the training was facilitated by ASU professors Dr. Scott Danielson, Dr. Kathy Wigal and Mr. Scott Pollat, demonstrating how to integrate applied project experiences across engineering course curriculums.
A participant from the Industry University of Ho Chi Minh City, Nguyen Phuong Bac, commented on the elevator project, “Working with people you don’t know is difficult because you have to trust their work ethics,” he said, “you can’t check each person’s work all the time, so it’s important to have good teamwork.” Group collaboration skills development is a crucial component of HEEAP. Modern engineering education must focus on training graduates to succeed in the workplace with both technical and soft skills.
The HEEAP Vocational Faculty Development training introduced new active learning teaching methods and soft skills development to the 17 participating Vietnamese faculty members. The faculty completed the training by presenting their HEEAP project proposals, detailing plans for updating one of their current courses with the new teaching methodologies they learned during the training.
A participant from the Industry University of Ho Chi Minh City, Nguyen PhuongBac, commented on the elevator project, “Working with people you don’t know is difficult because you have to trust their work ethics,” he said, “you can’t check each person’s work all the time, so it’s important to have good teamwork.” Group collaboration skills development is a crucial component ofHEEAP. Modern engineering education must focus on training graduates to succeed in the workplace with both technical and soft skills.The HEEAP Vocational Faculty Development training introduced new active learning teaching methods and soft skills development to the 17 participating Vietnamese faculty members. The faculty completed the training by presenting their HEEAP project proposals, detailing plans for updating one of their current courses with the new teaching methodologies they learned during the training.
View more pictures of the HEEAP Vocational Faculty Development training in our Flickr page:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/heeap/sets/72157644824957703/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/heeap/sets/72157644824957703/