Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic: Student challenges and lessons learned in Vietnam

Abstract

Since the first semester of the academic year 2018-2019, the Faculty of Education from the University of Social Sciences and Humanities - Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City has used Moodle, a learning management system, as an official online learning platform in several courses for hybrid learning. To be more specific, students have started to do their tasks with online learning activities, namely discussing with peers, submitting of assignments, receiving of feedback and scores from lecturers. Thanks to those methods, students of the Faculty of Education have improved and got familiar with active learning activities and the integration of technology into the classroom environment. Besides, a training workshop is organized at the beginning of each academic year to acquaint students with our learning management system (Moodle) active learning methods, and raise their awareness in engaging with the new learning methods. At least two or three sessions and workshops which are about sharing and improving skills for lecturers in choosing appropriate teaching and learning methods as well as educational technology tools are offered and delivered by both local and foreign experts. Although the Faculty of Education is seen as one of the first pioneers in the University of Social Sciences and Humanities - Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City, in using LMS as a tool for blended learning, the COVID-19 pandemic has put us into an unavoidable situation where we have to transfer from face-to-face learning and blended learning methods to online learning without sufficient preparation for both students and faculty members in order to cope with the social distancing period. This article focuses on the experiences of some students in the university and discusses the opportunities for supporting student online learning. We obtained data from a survey administered to the students.