Recommendations to XMUT for the joint programme, based on programme at VUW.
These recommendations arise from the visit by XMUT teeachers to VUW in August 2019.
Tutors:
- Find tutors from the International School to act as tutors for the joint program. But graduate students of the teachers may also be good.
- Tutors should be allowed to speak to the students in Chinese because the primary role for the tutors is to assist students to understand the course. But the tutors must have sufficient English to be able to communicate with the lecturer in English, and must be able to read the assignment/lab/test/exercise in English.
- Tutors should be paid enough to ensure that they take the job seriously and be professional and not be bribed.
- Need enough tutors (at minimum) to have 1 tutor for each 15 students in the lab.
- First priority for tutors is to help in the labs
- Second priority for tutors is to assist with marking.
- Training the tutors:
- Tutors will require training to be able to help the students effectively. They need to learn how to interact with the students in the lab and also how to lead students to a solution with questions and suggestions rather than simply giving the answer. The training will need models of good practice (eg videos of the lecturer helping students) and will also require supervised practice.
- Part of the training should be from the lecturer, since the lecturer understands the course and the labs.
- Part of the training should be from the School of International Education and Teacher Development Center.
Labs and Assignments
- The courses in the joint program should move their labs and assignments away from highly prescribed exercises towards more open ended problems. There are several consequences:
- The labs will need more tutor support - it is not possible to run a large lab with open ended, problem-solving exercises without sufficient tutors to guide the students. Without tutors, the only option is to have highly prescribed exercises which teach basic lab skills but do not develop the problem-solving skills or the deeper understanding of the material that VUW expects labs to provide.
- The courses will either need more hours or will need to reduce the amount of content they attempt to cover, because open-ended lab exercises and assignments take more time to cover the same content (though the students get a deeper understanding and more problem solving skills).
- Staff will need time to develop such labs - they cannot be constructed quickly.
English Language training.
- VUW should provide about 5 hours of videos of a range of lectures from the programme which the English teachers can use to create relevant and VUW-specific aural comprehension exercises.
- VUW should provide examples of assignments that could be used for reading comprehension exercises
- XMUT needs to communicate to the students how important the English courses are to prepare them for this programme. Eg,
- Get students who have been at VUW to talk to the XMUT students about English
- Use more material (Video and written) from VUW to be motivating exercises in the English classes.
Encouraging student engagement
- Many XMUT students (like VUW students) are now less willing to engage in traditional learning activities, especially lecture-based delivery of content. Developing new models of delivery, and developing new ways of encouraging engagement is a priority in the next few years, otherwise the programme will fail. There are no easy solutions, and staff at both XMUT and VUW need to innovate to develop new techniques, and also to seek examples of innovative practices at other institutions that might help in our programme.
Transition from XMUT to VUW
- VUW needs to run an orientation programme for XMUT students starting their ECS courses......
- Students need more help and guidance through the whole of their first trimester
- Provide a "mentor" - a senior XMUT student that they can ask questions.
- Provide a weekly "tutorial" session, just for XMUT students, to discuss issues, problems, questions, and get some help, run by a VUW staff member.
- need to explain the EPP program better to students and the role of the pre-test.
- Need to explain the programme and courses at VUW. (a) at XMUT, and (b) in the orientation programme here. Maybe offer a "standard" programme that will be OK if they are happy with it.
- XMUT should work harder to encourage the good students to come to VUW during the 1st and 2nd year classes. Also talk about the dif
- XMUT should get the students who have gone to VUW to come to talk to the XMUT students (when they return for their holiday) to talk about their experience and how the programme works.
Co- Teachers
- Co-teachers should have their co-teacher hours included in their workload - it should not be an "extra", otherwise they don't have time to be able to do the job properly.
- The role and responsibilities of the co-teacher should be made clear to the VUW staff member and to the co-teacher.
Future visits.
- More XMUT teachers of courses in the 1st and 2nd year of the programme should be able to visit VUW.
- It may be useful for some staff to visit for a whole VUW trimester and be fully involved (as a tutor/assistant teacher) with teaching a couple of courses. This would make the most sense if the visitor could also participate in some research projects.
- For staff to observe and engage and talk with VUW staff to get a good feel for the programme, a visit of two to three weeks is appropriate. Less than two weeks is not enough. More than three weeks would not be helpful, unless it was a whole trimester.
