Fundamento filosófico

Section 4.3.2 provided a description of availability of ICT tools and how students used these tools to support their study. This section focuses on the ways that lecturers integrate ICT into their teaching.

When discussing how Vietnamese lecturers applied ICT in their teaching, all participants agreed that in their experience lecturers did not use much technology in

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teaching. There were only some lecturers who used projectors or PowerPoint for their lectures. For example, Ha, who studied in Vietnam in 2008, remembered “at that time, few lecturers used projectors, PowerPoint in class presentation” (Ha, Int.1). In addition, Huyen said “lecturers mainly used chalk and blackboard to assist their teaching” during her time at University in 2006 (Huyen, Int.1).

Several reasons were identified to account for the limited number of lecturers using technology. For example, Truong recalled when he was studying in Vietnam, “the use of technology in teaching was not compulsory”, so lecturers did not have to use it (Int.1). Besides, the lack of availability of equipment caused difficulty for lecturers to integrate technology into their teaching. According to Toan, if a lecturer wanted to use a projector he or she “had to book in advance...we had only some rooms equipped with projectors and projection screens and no Wi-Fi internet available” (Toan, Int.1).

Therefore, the experiences of these participants indicated that very few Vietnamese lecturers integrated technology into their teaching, and the ways they applied technology in their teaching were limited. According to most of the participants’ experiences, lecturers mainly used PowerPoint to simply present learning content to students, which did not maintain students' attention or encourage their engagement and interest:

The lecturers had applied some technical equipment to their teaching such as a projector, and PowerPoint, but it was very limited and only for presentation and knowledge transfer to the students. (Phung, Int.1)

Some lecturers used PowerPoint in their teaching process, but it was mostly used to list all of the important content for students to see and take notes. (Thu, Int.1)

In the teaching process students often felt bored because the lecturers mainly read the slides. They didn’t pay much attention to the interpretation or the connection of content to practice. (Lan, Int.1)

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The above observations have revealed that most of the Vietnamese lecturers encountered by these students simply used the technology to transfer knowledge, which was consistent with their overall teaching style. Besides, the barriers the lecturers faced, such as the lack of encouragement or requirement for applying technology in teaching and a lack of equipment also inevitably had an impact on how they used technology.

Regarding the integration of ICT in teaching activities in the Australian University, all the participants commented that their lecturers used the technology in various activities such as searching for resources, teaching and also communicating with students. The use of ICT to support teaching activities was regarded as being compulsory for lecturers because they had to “do research online and guide their students in ways to look for necessary information from different websites” (Toan, Int.2). The lecturers had to use technology to create teaching content such as PowerPoint slides, to teach, to manage their subjects in the e-learning sites and to communicate with their students via forums or emails, etc. (Truong, Int.2).

All the Australian lecturers could easily integrate ICT in their teaching activities because “all lecture rooms are well-equipped with teaching devices such as projectors” (Khanh, Int.3). In addition, high speed internet connections were available everywhere on the campus, which was a favourable condition for the lecturers to get access and search for the information to illustrate or give an explanation to the students during their lectures (Ha, Int.3).

The most popular integration of ICT in the Australian teaching activities was the use of projectors for subject content presentations or to give lectures. However, the ways the lecturers applied the technology were different and depended on each lecturer (Toan, Int.3). All the participants agreed that most of their lecturers used projectors to present teaching content and stimulate students’ learning with various applications derived from the internet.

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In this University, lecturers all made use of projectors. Most of the lecturers employed the lively illustration and video clips on the well-known cases in their lectures to explain and encourage students to give opinions and solutions, which helped students remember and understand the learning content better. (Tri, Int.3)

The lecturers made use of quite a lot of illustrations via the internet, for example, using videos to explain and illustrate some complicated concepts such as the global economic crisis to help students have a more complete picture of that concept. (Ha, Int.3)

The methods of integrating ICT in teaching as indicated in the quotes above were believed to be effective for students’ learning. This was because the lecturers that the participants had experienced mainly focused on key points, guided students to learn and engaged them in learning activities with stimulation from different sources. However, the participants also had some Australian lecturers who just used the projectors simply to repeat what they had provided to their students via lecture slides, which made “students feel depressed and not interested in learning” (Phung, Int.2).

Some lecturers [in Australia] often give lectures by presenting or reading slides without explanation or illustration to help students understand subjects easily. This often makes students feel disinterested because slides are available; students don’t see any new information. Especially, for calculating subjects like accounting subjects, it is very difficult for students to understand the lecture when lecturers only give lectures by reading slides. (Tri, Int.2)

When ICT was used mainly to impart knowledge, Tri added, “students’ learning was even less effective than learning with traditional teaching methods such as chalk and board, which required students to attend classes to listen and take notes, so that they could remember the learning content” (Tri, Int. 2). However, in the Australian learning context, he further explained, lecture slides were generally available online, so students did not have to listen carefully or take notes, which “made students become lazy in attending classes and taking notes, and as a result, they don’t remember much of the learning content” (Tri, Int.2).

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Overall, the practice of instruction in the Vietnamese higher education sector as described above was believed to assist students in achieving a solid theoretical basis. The role of Vietnamese lecturers and their teaching approaches had a strong influence on students’ learning outcomes. Students could easily follow and rely on what was taught by their lecturers. However, according to the participants’ experiences, students often considered their lecturers too important to get close to or be open with. Teaching styles mainly focused on following a pre-determined instructional sequence, which did not seem to encourage knowledge construction or support collaborative construction of knowledge through discussion. Lecturers seemed to pay more attention to transferring knowledge from course books to students than on students’ knowledge construction, understandings and feedback. Most of the participants in this study reported that many

Vietnamese lecturers did not facilitate group work or discussions.

With regard to the teaching techniques used in the Australian University, the participants reported a relaxed relationship with their lecturers. The lecturers were considered to be “facilitators” who cared for students’ learning needs and the application of knowledge in practice. Students’ feedback on teaching content and collaborative learning through group work and discussions were generally encouraged. However, according to some of the participants, this teaching style had certain weaknesses, such as a perceived lack of structure and certainty in teaching content.