Week 3: STUDENT ASSESSMENT IN VIETNAM HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUITONS

After reading Tagg's chapter on student assessment in the learning paradigm, I would like to share with you how student assessment is implemented in Vietnam.

Student assessment is one of the most important factors in higher education in Vietnam where grading and degree are considered important for students, parents, and society. Student assessment includes entrance assessment, learning progress and exit test assessment. The assessment process is carried out in three aspects: discipline assessment, courses assessment with a variety of assessment methods, and graduation check.

Student entrance assessment is carried out through the National University Entrance Exam. The entrance exam evaluates students’ ability on mathematics, physics, and chemistry or other subjects depending on which major they apply. Please note that opportunities for higher education are limited, as the system can only accommodate a small portion of those seeking admission. For example, in 2009, Vietnam’s 376 universities admitted only 400,000 of the 1.2 million candidates attending university entrance exams.

Since 2007, the majority of universities in Vietnam have completely applied the credit-based system, so the teachers can decide the assessment methods. Regarding student progress assessment, the Department of Academic Affairs, academic advisors, School Committee, Department of Student Services are assigned to perform student discipline assessment and course evaluation. The assessment is observed by the examination inspectors of the Quality Assurance System. Student progress assessment includes pre-test, group or individual assignments, presentation and discussion, exercises, homework, mid-term exam, course project and the final exam. In at most two weeks after the final exam, the teachers have to post the exam results, meet the students in classroom and answer students’ complaints if any. Each course has at least two types of mark, in that the final exam must make up more than 50% of the total grade. The assessment is informed at least two weeks in advance to students.  the end of the academic program, students can choose to work on their graduation thesis. The results of the courses and the graduation thesis achieved reflect the expected learning outcomes and the content of the program. The assessment criteria are posted on websites, Course Specification, Teachers Handbook and the assessment methods must be complied with assessment process defined in Academic Regulations for regular and non-regular training modes.

Week 2: Tagg (2003): Chapter 10-12; Collins (2012)

Collins (2012)

My first thought when reading about this article is "Oh my god! It is exactly happening to us!" Then I thought whether our decision would have been different if we had had a chance to read this article before we decided how our grade would be assessed.

It is great to move from my own experience in the decision making process of class assessment to the article addressing the same topic. I am excited to go over the article and curious to figure out  how our decision making is different from  that of the participants in the research.

It is really interesting to find out that we (our classmates and the participants) share many thoughts in common regarding trust, responsibility, risk, opportunities, etc. What is unexpected to me is although 98 out of 195 participants were interested in group grading option, they came to the agreement that without 100 % consensus, they would not proceed with a group grade  choice. The author explains that the students did not feel fair to force a student unwilling to take the chance of group grading. In my opinion, their agreement makes me think about the respect for an opposite idea. They are willing to open to the new idea, new experience, however, they are aware that mandating a person to live with unwilling decision makes it hard for that person and for themselves throughout the semester.

Another question raised in my mind: For the research purpose, would it be possible to have 2 two groups, one with the conventional grading structure and the other with unconventional  one to compare and contrast the motivations, learning experience, outcomes, etc. I don't know! Maybe it is not feasible!

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Tag (2003): Chapter 10-12

Tagg proposes 5 characteristics of the Learning Paradigm:
- Supporting students in pursuing their own goals
- Requiring frequent student performances
- Providing frequent and ongoing feedback
- Assuring a long time horizon for learning
- Providing stable communities of practice

The students 'goals must be the important ones and must be set by themselves in order to have much effect. But who is going to guide students to have the right and important goals? and by what way? Theoretically, a learning paradigm could help students pursue their goals. I doubt the current education is really hot cognitive economy yet. Where are we in the continuum of the Instruction Paradigm and Learning Paradigm?  Is it just half way? What I mean is that we gradually change the teaching method, value student centered, focus much more on the student learning outcomes. However,  graduation, getting a job, paying off the debt seem to be too much for students and their family. Maybe it is a surface purpose, but it is real, practical, and without achieving these goals, I doubt that students can get something like deep learning. Why we accuse that the Instruction Paradigm is the product of the higher education system only? Is it only the responsibility of educators that make students become surface learners, be more interested in grades and graduation than deep learning and growing. There is no single company, business, corporate, organization that hire an employee without qualification. And the first thing that an employer is getting to know you is through your resume where you have to reflect your educational background before your work experience, and of course, an official transcript. The higher GPA you have, the better score you get in the eye of your employer, at their first impression. I believe whenever the society, including educators, policy makers, employers, and other stakeholders still consider grades as a measure for one's capacities, they cannot ask students to change their thoughts about grades and assessment. So, in my opinion, the change should happen from the top.

Tagg argues that students should be an experimenter, a wayfarer, a person who seeks discovery, a searcher for the yet unseen, who seeks out beginnings, new engagements, new sights. He emphasizes that colleges should create a learning paradigm and inspire students to take risk to discover and build something new. He concludes that the most important job of university professors is to produce effective  beginners.

One illustration of the Learning Paradigm approach is the Liberty Hyde Bailey Scholar Program at Michigan State University. What is new from the program is as follows:
- Faculty members as learning conveners
- Faculty and students are both learners
- Collaborative learning
- Faculty and students decide what to learn
- Collaborative grading system design
- Change the way of thinking

The Bailey program seems very interesting since it aims at developing the whole student by helping them develop their own learning experience. I wonder how many programs like this one are carrying out in the US  HE universities and whether there is any research conducted to assess the learning outcomes of the students from these programs and what outstanding differences between these and those from a cool cognitive economy.

Another example is Olivet College, which transforms its educational program at the college level. In this program, students are responsible for their own learning and they take ownership for their learning.

Week 1: Group Grade or Individual Grade?

I came to the class with excitement. New professor, new friends, a semester full of challenges is ahead... The course syllabus seems interesting. The first half class session happened the same as other first day class: getting to know each other, going over the syllabus. Then we have to decide whether we want to go with the group grade or individual grade... I did not not understand what it meant at first because I did not expect to hear such kind of evaluation... As Tagg stated in his book, like other students, I set my expectations for this class based on the totality of my previous experience. I have been familiar with group work but have never heard about group grade. Why group grade? One of the classmates questioned whether group grade really makes us more cooperative, closer, work more effectively. The other pointed out that weak students could make the group grade lower... Others believe in trust and cooperation... I had bad experience with group work before since each person has his/her own style of working, different schedule.... Working in group, exchanging ideas and learning from each other is great but it is also time consuming. And time is what I need. It was really panic... Finally we had a blank vote. The majority said yes, not many said no... and we came up with the majority and we have to live with our decision throughout this semester!

I wonder if other classmates have the same feelings like me: panic? nervous? I wonder if it is an experiment to prove that grade is not everything. What is really important is learning, like Tagg addressed in his book. And whether the instructor wants us to change our belief about schooling, about the purpose of education. If it is a case, I am excited to see if we could change our belief after taking this course. But, before we can change any dysfunctional belief about academic work, first we still have to deal with grade and do our best in order not to let others down because of any of us. This thought makes me feel nervous, and uncomfortable since if I learn and do the job by myself, I am responsible for what I am. Now I have to be responsible for other classmates... I know what my strengths and weaknesses and I am sure that I will not let them down. This is a new adventure, I think! And all of us seems to be taking a risk! Will we fail? Will we be learning through failure as Tagg's argument?

Week 1: Tagg (2003): Chapter 1-9

The Learning Paradigm College
Chapter 1-9: Week 1

The central question of the book is how the way we view students as learners makes the way we design the learning environment.
Tagg begins his book with the statement "When we see through a new lens, it is impossible to go back to thinking of the world the way we did before. " It is totally true in all cases. It is interesting that the author asks the audience to see things through new lenses which implies that we should see the teaching and learning process with a new and open eye to critique what is really happening, how to make it  better and more relevant to learners.

In p. 5, Tagg compares that the organization paradigm is like a lens, the way we how we look at it will determine how we see everything else. I wonder what is the REAL purpose of college education? to educate the whole person? to become effective citizens in a democratic society? a get a better life? good salary? I guess it will be addressed differently depending on personal points of view, and which stand they are on, administrators, faculty, students, parents and what their purpose of life is. According to a senior student, "it is just a bunch of courses and then graduation". What can be done to change people's points of view about college education? Is there a need for curriculum change? What are the goals for courses?
For the majority of students, the predominant goal is grade. Why not? I agree that grade does not reflect one's capacity or knowledge. However, as far as grade is used to measure a student performance and achievement, for job application, higher degree application, considering grade as the most important goal while attending college is still a must for students and parents.
The author proposes that universities should revisit the curriculum, see it with a different lens by revisiting their  assessment, pedagogy, course design, advisement, and the architecture of undergraduate education (p.9). Tagg also emphasizes that without the proof of student learning assessment, there is no way to improve the outcomes.

While reading Chapter 1, readers will wonder what are the recommendations for fundamental change in colleges and university as stated in Involvement in learning (p. 6) which is clearly stated in Chapter 2.
In Chapter 2, HE reform in the US: why innovations do not transform colleges, Tagg argues that although it is clear that the purpose of eduaction is to provide a highest quality program for all students. However, he also stresses that achieving this purpose is a hard job due to bureaucracy, regulations, apathy, and inadequate resources. And a big question is why colleges do not do what they say they want to do.

Two important concepts in this chapter is espoused theory and theory-in-use. These are the kinds of theories of action that individuals and organizations follow: the former is to govern what they claim to follow and the latter is inferred from what they do. An example of the espoused theory is the organization's mission and goals while the organizational behavior is an example of theory in use. Tagg also argues that there is always a missmatch between theory in use and espoused theory.

Tagg defines Organization Paradigm as the overall theory in use of an organization consisting of  framework of examples, models and rules that define the activities of an organization and generate the new rules that govern those. It is also the lens through which people in an organization see the organization and their role in that organization. He pointed out that besides the fact that poilicy makers are guided by economic motives instead of educational consideration as stated by Astin (1993), the meaning of education changed, the Institution Paradigm changed. Courses and to put more students in courses seem to be the mission of many colleges and universities these days. And universities become "factories for the production of full time equivalent students, transcript-generating machines".

Chapter 3: The Instruction Paradigm
In Chapter 3, Tagg states that one needs to have a new paradigm. So far we focused on formal institutional processes (courses, transcripts)  rather than the purpose of education.The core of the Instruction Paradigm is to provide instruction, but instruction is not the only mission of a HE institution. The Instruction Paradigm determines and is determined by organizational structure, defined as the "features of an organiazation that are stable over time and that form the framework within which activities and processes occur and through which the purposes of an organization are achieved" (p.23). And this structure will affect the subsystems of an organization including faculty and administration, curriculum, calendar, assessment and pedagogy, and criteria for success and accountability.

Chapter 4: The Route to Transformation: The Learning Paradigm
According to Tagg, the Learning Paradigm puts purpose before processes, focuses on students, emphasizes on the outcomes, and sees the whole experience of the students. The core of the Learning Paradigm is a teaching-learning process that focuses on learner learning.The perspective of the Learning Paradigm is to think of student learning first, then revisit and redesign the academic work to achieve the end.He stresses that the Learning Paradigm organization is the one that produces learning and the one that learns.
However, there are still objections to the Learning Paradigm and Tagg argues that these objections are not totally true.

Part 2: The Foundation: The Learners and the Learning:
Chapter 5 answers who the learners will be and how they should learn. One of the barrier to better learning comes from the beliefs students hold about colleges in general.
These are some of their characteristics:
- fail to recognize the value of learning
- their highschool experience place challenges when they enter college
- fail to make transition to college
- physically present but psychologically absent
- spend less time studying than those "in the old days"
Why so?
- the diploma requires no real engagement
- if trying hard in highschool, it is because of getting good grade to enter colleges
He concludes that changing the way students think about academic  work is really challenging.

Chapter 6, Self-Theories and Academic Motivation, states that many mistaken beliefs students hold about schooling derive from dysfunctional beliefs about themselves and their ability.
Tagg argues that depending on students' self theories, the belief about themselves, the way students think and attend to information about their own performance will be different and the experience of schooling seems to shape these self theories. He also distinguishes between an entity theorist, a person believing intelligence is fundamental , unchangeable and a incremental theorist who believe that intelligence and ability is changeable. Research shows that incremental theorist students have the tendency to be more confident, easily to make improvement in class than the entity theory ones.
Tagg raises the idea of considering learning as a process of failure and students should learn not to fear being failed.  Research shows that American students do not work hard as compared to Asian students due to the belief that school achievement depends on innate intelligence rather than hard work. He concludes that the mission of universities and colleges is to change the belief of students about themselves and their belief about academic institutions.

Chapter 7: Approaches to Learning
Education is about conceptual change, not the acquisition of info. (p. 62).  There are 2 approaches to learning: surface learning, which focuses on the sign, and deep learning focusing on understanding the meaning. Table 7.1 (p. 81) describes different characteristics between deep and surface learning.  Tagg emphasizes that colleges should promote deep orientation to learning.
The learning environment has an effect on student orientation to learning. And the dysfunctional beliefs about schooling comes from what they learn in school. In other words, the failure of learning is the product of the school environment. Chapter 8 will address the issue of how to shape the environment for more effective learning.

Part 3: The Learning Environment of the College
Chapter 8: The Whole that Determines the Parts
The learning environment is more than just the classroom.  Chapter 8 proposes using cognitive economy, one that promotes a deep orientation to learning, encouragement of risk taking and promotion of incremental self-theories, as a framework reflecting on the learning environment. Tagg also an analyzes the six characteristics of the cognitive economy including goals, activity, information, time, community, and alignment. He also makes a distinction between a hot and cool cognitive economy.

Chapter 9 describes how the Instruction Paradigm produces a cool cognitive economy and the need for paradigm shift which will be addressed in Part 4 of Tagg's work. Tagg argues that the academic calendar, the grading process shape the cognitive economy students experience. He analyzes how the Instruction Paradigm college performs and what is the production of a cool cognitive economy by analyzing six categories mentioned in Chapter 8.

- Goals: The Instruction Paradigm college encourages students to pursue extrinsic goals. He argues that grades, personal goals for students, are performance goals, and that such an assessment system impacts the whole system and shapes student perceptions and expectations. Grades are the most important thing students bring away from college.

- Activity: The Instruction Paradigm college devalues student performance. By activity, he implies how active students are, how much time they spend for learning, and what kind of work they are doing. Tagg argues that student performances are secondary, artificial while the teacher's evaluation of the student, the grade, is primary. He concludes that a system that promotes extrinsic goals will follow a surface approach.

- Information: Maximizing evaluation and minimizing feedback. Grades are final, so they are evaluation, not feedback. Institutions highlight assessment as evaluation. The Institution Paradigm  college disminishes the role of assessment as feedback.

Time: Instruction Paradigm colleges impose a short time horizon on learning. Courses designed with final exams make studetns forget what they have learned. Final examinations eliminate the requirement of further study (p. 111).

- Community:  Instruction Paradigm colleges isolate students from supportive communities. He concludes that students who seek support from their peers, faculty and staff members persist and succeed in college.

- Alignment:  At Instruction Paradigm colleges, elements of the cognitive economy are usually misaligned.