The SIDA/SAREC-funded project on sustainable rural development (RDViet) jointed by the Department of Urban and Rural Development (SOL), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry (HUAF) will organize a week workshop relating to the capacity development of project participants in the area of pedagogy. This workshop is preliminarily set to take place in Da Nang city, Vietnam from August 24 – 28th, 2009.
The Center for Educational Development (UPC) within the SLU have been asked to assist the project in the planning, preparation, and implementation of the workshop.
Already in June of 2008, staff from UPC participated in a planning workshop aimed at sharing ideas and principles related to educational policies and pedagogical approaches among institutions in the RDViet network. At that time, participants concerns were mostly directed towards pedagogical issues within the classroom, even if work around pedagogical policies was also discussed.
A year later, a follow-up workshop is to be held – this time in Vietnam – in order to take stock in previous activities and advance pedagogical issues and questions one step further. The target group is partly changed and the focus for this second course is to be directed towards the broad perspectives on how to improve the MSc programs.
Participants in the workshop will include the people responsible for the MSc programs, teachers in the programs as well as officials at university level. Participants will be invited from the Vietnamese universities which offer MSc programs in rural development, environmental management or related subjects.
The aim of this workshop is to give participants tools and resources to improve their work with within the Master’s Program at their home university.The workshop will address both the decision-makers for the programs and their concerns focus on improvement strategies at the structural level, including the objectives of the programs and how to achieve them. The workshop will also discuss how learning can be organised concretely for different courses. The goal is an overall improvement of the programs focusing on a more student-centred learning and the integration of theory and practice, With this in mind we will discuss a range of options regarding the practical organisation of the programs
During the week’s work, we propose to take a closer look at generic skills at the program level. Generic skills are those competencies which are not subject specific; they are those key competencies which all graduates are expected to acquire and possess when completing a program. They include but are not limited to:
– analytical skills
– team work skills
– problem-solving skills
– communication skills
- conceptual thinking skills
- skills related to community development
- writing skills
- other skills related to their future employment situation
Participants will be asked to bring with them
program goals, course descriptions, and other materials to work with during the
workshop. Participants will also be asked to make an inventory of which generic
skills they find important for the students to develop during their program;
and which skills we should focus on during the course.
