In the book “Innovating teaching methods”, Ulrich Lipp and Paul Schlueter said: “In the lessons of state administrative management in administrative and political schools, the presentation of a big part of the content is heavily theoretical. That will limit the contribution of trainees’ knowledge and experience during the lessons, lessen the trainees’ motivation and liveliness during the lectures ”.
In traditional teaching, it is undeniable that there is success in using presentation methods, because trainers can provide rich information, useful lessons, analysis, evaluation, generalization, problems that help learners better understand the content of the subjects.
The problem here is: is it necessary to introduce teaching skills in training and retraining of civil servants and public officials? How is teaching skills different from teaching presentations? Should these two teaching styles be separated or combined to be effective?
- Subjects and needs
Reality shows that trainees participating in the program of professional training in the organization of home affairs are civil servants and administrative officials with different positions and titles such as leadership and management at department level and equivalent levels; division-level leaders; implementing, executing civil servants and public officials . They are those who have been recruited or appointed to a rank, position in the administrative system and have a certain level of training; are physically, mentally, physiologically mature for the implementation of social labor activities; are people who self-control the behaviors and attitudes and must take responsibility before the law as a citizen, a civil servant and a public official. At the same time, these trainees are experienced civil servants, public officials, in leadership and management, advising their superiors, experiencing daily and hourly public service activities.
Therefore, in fostering civil servants and public officials, it is extremely necessary to provide and encourage trainees to promote scientific thinking, independent creative methods in thinking and practical action; spirit of criticism, respect for the truth and justice; having attitude and responsibility at work and in life; ability to observe and habits of experimenting, verifying, collating, comparing, analyzing and summarizing practice to generalize into scientific reasoning. This is the basic and comprehensive feature of intellectual education and perfecting personality. In essence, this is the process of innovating social thinking that is brought into the school and through education and training to reach the goal of thinking innovation.
At the same time, this is a training process for the trainees to become familiar with independent thinking, daring to think of new things and digging into the nature of new things; shifting from lack of understanding, simplicity, superficiality to knowledge-based trust. Learners will become acquainted and have the need for intellectual complexes, know how to express and affirm their identity, personality, debate, dialogue and know how to protect righteousness. Leo Tolstoy said: The main obstacle in realizing the truth is not a lie but something similar truth. Overcoming this obstacle requires overcoming superficial and dogmatic diseases which ultimately refer to the laziness of the mind, the mental slavery, the reincarnation, the immediate parasitism in intellectual activity. Therefore, thinking education is the foundation and core of cultural education in training and retraining civil servants and public officials today.
From a theoretical and practical perspective, teaching programs to foster knowledge of specialists and key specialists, master classes in public administration have shows that trainees who are civil servants and public officials always have the desire to learn, to discover and improve. If in the teaching, only the presentation method is used, even though the lecturer inspires the learner, is passionate about the career to pass knowledge, experience and wisdom to the trainees, wants them to understand, receive and apply that knowledge into public service. But in reality, this contradicts the practical experience of learners, because the trainees works at different hierarchical positions, different organizations, so it will be very diverse in behavioral culture, in the ways to solve management issues about which the teacher’s experience is limited. On the other hand, these are not the main factors to promote positive learning. The deciding factor is the goal that the learner himself has set. The civil servants and public officials go to school to satisfy the need to assert themselves in the collective, improve the professional level to better serve public services. The society is growing, the public services are more and more complicated, which requires civil servants and public officials to have professional skills and capacity to meet the work requirements. Therefore, the active learning of trainees who are civil servants and administrative officers is selective, not everything good and new will create learning interest of learners. They only really participate actively in the lectures when the issues which are raised are close to their daily practice.
- Participation of trainees in the teaching process
In the current teaching work, there are topics called skills, but most of the time, trainers only use one-way presentation method to convey professional content, learners passively listen to lectures. Thus, there is no correlation between the name of the subject and the teaching method.
American psychologist Benjamin Bloom published a Classification of Cognitive Classes in Teaching and Learning Activities. According to this Classification, the goal of teaching can be determined. If the determining goal is just to let the learners know about a certain problem, then the instructor will introduce the full content information; but if the instructor wants the learners to understand, the trainers need to analyze, collate, compare and exchange with the learners about the problem thoroughly. If the goal is to guide learners to apply the knowledge and skills in practical work, then the teaching activity does not stop at the analysis and comparison the trainers deliver but also requires the learners to practice the content of the lessons under the guidance of the trainers.
Thus, the presentation method will be effective when used for goals at levels 1 and 2; for level 3, the requirement is higher, besides presentation, trainers need to apply skills teaching methods so that trainees can practice and train through specific exercises.
To do this well, first of all, it is necessary to have vivid visual images to support and illustrate the lesson content to attract learners’ attention; trainers are open, friendly and encouraging learners to enjoy the content of the lecture, creating a happy atmosphere in the classroom. Trainers are people who suggest and orient trainees to develop their knowledge as well as practical experience, which not only creates closeness but also shares experiences with each other; apply basic theoretical parts to compare and compare with reality; to practice skills based on situations that make learners think, exchange, debate to find consistency in solving or making decisions, thereby drawing useful lessons and skills, basic and effective principles for every organization and locality in which they work.
Teaching skills combined with presentation methods will bring high efficiency in teaching and learning activities. In addition to the basic theoretical issues, trainees can practice skills, bringing reality into lectures, which is an important point. Therefore, trainers need to perfect their skills and teaching methods to improve the effectiveness of training and retraining of civil servants and public officials.
Trinh Thanh Ha – Tran Boi Lan
