Long An June 28, 2018
Dear Faculty, Staff, Parents of students, and Students,
As acting Provost of Tan Tao University (TTU) and Dean of the School of Medicine (TTU-SOM), I would like to send all of you my letter on the strategies of TTU in the academic year 2018-2019 with exact activities matching these strategies from July to December 2018.
GOALS
In the academic year of 2018-2019, the 4 major goals of all five professional schools of TTU (School of Medicine (SOM), School of Business and Economics (SBE), School of Engineering (SE), School of Biotechnology (SB) and School of Humanities and Languages (SHL) are outlined below:
- Excellence in teaching and use of US based curriculum (for current students)
- Successful transition to the competitive market (for the new graduates): Success in finding good-paying jobs and Excellent Performance in the new job environment.
- Admission of students from outside Vietnam, mainly from Asia and the US (to tap in a new pool of student recruits and as a strategy to improve the quality of teaching and research at TTU)
- Major drive in biotechnology, engineering and medical research
Excellence in Teaching
The teaching condition at TTU models the standards of US education: Small class size, Good faculty: student ratio, Use new methods: The reversed classroom, students to do presentation, more engagement of students in class, US clerkship for all students and more bedside teaching for medical students.
BEST LEARING ENVIRONMENT
Small Class Size So far for the students at TTU, small class size helps direct communication and contact between students and faculty. This will help improvement in the learning of students
NEW TEACHING METHOD:
The Reversed Classroom: In this method of teaching, the faculty will play the role of student and the student plays the role of teacher. In this case, Thai Ba Anh Minh played the role of doctor asking patient while Dr Tarneem Darwish played the role of a patient being interviewed.
NEW TEACHING METHOD:
Active engagement of students by discussion:
Learning is not a one-way communication. Students can understand and remember longer if they are more engaged to the learning process. Lively discussion will improve the understanding of the topic and the retention of information. In this picture, third year medical students discussed actively in English during the Problem Based Learning session in March 2018
NEW METHOD OF LEARNING:
US clerkship
Ten 3rd year and 4th year TTU medical students at the orientation day in May 2018 at St Mary medical Center, Hobart IN, USA. They rotated with other students from the US, physicians from Vietnam and other countries, including Egypt. So far 8 students got their US visa approved. Two more students will be interviewed in mid July. Two students will do clerkship in hematology at the Herman Memorial Hospital in Houston. This is a teaching program for the American medical students of the University of Texas at Houston.
NEW METHOD OF LEARNING:
Bedside teaching according to the US standards
There are many US faculty coming to TTU for bedside teaching round. In this month of June, Professor Pham Gia Khai, former president of the Vietnam Heart Institute in Hanoi, came to conduct bedside rounds to TTU 5th medical students at the Thong Nhat hospital. In June, there were 2 US trained MD to do teaching rounds for TTU medical students: Drs Advait Soni from Merrillville and Hirat Patel from Chicago.
NEW METHOD OF LEARNING:
US faculty at TTU
In August, Dr Neil Kleiman, Professor of Medicine, at Methodist Hospital, Houston, will teach and do rounds to 5th year medical students. In September, Dr Peter Singer, Chief of Endocrinology of the University of Southern California (USC) will spend 3 days teaching at TTU and affiliated hospitals.
NEW METHOD OF LEARNING:
Attending symposium.
On Friday June 22, 2018, four TTU students participated in the Teach Play and Learn symposium organized by the Indiana U in South Bend, IN, USA. Here Pham Le Huy Hoang and Tran NM Chau working with their team which included 2 faculty of Indiana U in Indiana polis.
NEW METHOD OF LEARNING:
Presentations by TTU students at scientific meetings.
In 2018, TTU students will present their research at two Vietnamese meetings (Thang Long 8/2018, VN Heart Association (10/2018) and two abroad (the Great Wall International Conference in Cardiology in Beijing 10/2018) and the Joint Coronary Revascularization meeting in Busan KR 12/2018). Abstracts were submitted for presentation at the TCT meeting in San Diego in September and American Heart Association in Chicago in November 2018
NEW METHOD OF LEARNING:
Skill LAB
TTU SOM will set up its own skill lab in the teaching of various procedures
Advanced Summer Course
TTU school of Engineering will have an advanced summer course on Artificial Intelligence
ADMISSIONS of STUDENTS from the US, Europe or Asia:
Besides the cooperation with Rice University in Houston, Duke University in Durham, NC, and Indiana U, TTU extends its working relationship to other universities (Manhattanf Institute of Management in New York City, the University of Jaen in Spain and Chonnam U in Korea. TTU will receive students from these institutions and send TTU students to study in these institutions as exchange students.
In summary, the next six months of 2018 will extremely busy for TTU faculty, staff, and students. However, with the determination of all executives, faculty, staff, students, and parents, coupled with the new American style of management, the first half of the academic year 2018-2019 will be very promising. I hope everybody will enjoy the summer holidays and enjoy the challenges of a bright future at TTU.
With my warmest personal regards,
Thach Nguyen MD FACC FSCAI
