Management measures for moral education through experience for high school students at Ho Chi Minh c...

MANAGEMENT MEASURES FOR MORAL EDUCATION THROUGH EXPERIENCE FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS AT HO CHI MINH CITY IN THE CURRENT CONTEXT AN EXPERT BASED EVALUATION Mai Duc Thang Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Vietnam Abstract The essence of moral education requires students to participate in the experiences of community life, in which moral values are developed by the dialectical combination of moral action and moral reflection However, in Vietnam, almost moral education is limited to the fram[.]

THROUGH EXPERIENCE FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

AT HO CHI MINH CITY IN THE CURRENT CONTEXT: AN

EXPERT-BASED EVALUATION

Mai Duc Thang

Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Vietnam

Abstract: The essence of moral education requires students to participate

in the experiences of community life, in which moral values are developed

by the dialectical combination of moral action and moral reflection.However,

in Vietnam, almost moral education is limited to the framework of classroom activities, lacking in out-of-class activities.The measures are presented in this article as an attempt to solve the above problem in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.But whether these measures are really necessary and feasible before applying them in practice is questionable.This is a descriptive study in which the expert methodology was used with 30 teachers in Ho Chi Minh City

to answer the above question.The new findings provide answers to identify what measures are most necessary and feasiblein the current context.

Keywords: Educational management, Moral education, Experience.

Introduction

Each long lasting community in the world have their moral rules and these rules was passed from generation to generation Dawson (1994) emphasis that in order for an educational environment to impose the moral development of students should include both moral action and moral reflection, meaning experiment via thinking and doing According to Nord & Haynes (1998), moral education should provide students information, intellectual resources to help them have responsible judgment to problems in community life Similarly, Wilson (2000) also implied about a moral education procedure with 5 steps: 1) Identifying the meaning, effected zone of moral; 2) Establishing activities to give good result; 3) Developing realistic appraisal methods; 4) Testing the moral education

methods; 5) Providing practical recommendations According to Devine (2006), the development of society will affect to moral content, moral process and finally moral education is the endless twist that come along with the changing of life

A brief summary of related documents shown that, moral education should let student experiement in living environment, it is the development of dialectical relationships between moral action and responsible reflection of intellectual Vietnam, also similar with other countries, where moral education was emphasized in the formal education system Each student have to study moral classes at least one hour a week through 12 school years, from the primary to high school Textbooks are made and distributed exclusively by the Ministry of Education and Training In the curriculum, all aspects of morality are detailed in each lesson, primarily present the list of moral codes The actual moral situations will be selected by the teacher and put into lectures to suit the local reality.Most moral lessons in Vietnam are done with lectures, presentations, illustrations High schools lack of the means to incorporate classroom activities and out-of-classroom practical activities for moral education to students

Ho Chi Minh city is home to the largest number of industrial parks and attracts the largest number of foreign investment projects The current globalization and economic situation is causing the moral problems that students are experiencing, the value of lifestyle in Ho Chi Minh City is diversifying, it requires moral education always change to suit the actual situation Because, morality is always changing according to the development of society, it affects moral content, moral process and ultimately moral education as an endless twist together with the same change of life (Devine, 2006) Consequently, moral education teaching in schools must always change in accordance with the development of society, and enhance the moral experience of the students This article is a descriptive study in which the necessity and feasibility of moral management practices will be conducted in high schools in Ho Chi Minh City in the context of Education innovation after

2018 will be clarified by expert methodology

Theoretical framework

1 Value of moral education

Morality is the values that exist through dialectical unity between: 1) Moral understanding (norms, rules), 2) Moral needs and feelings, and 3) Moral doing

of personal and community life (Hung, 2012) A moral education program effectiveness should provide full three sources of moral values to students

Wanting to learn moral, learners must practice daily on moral in the community, social and natural (see Figure 1)

Figure 1: Value of Moral Education

Moral education in schools has important tasks of helping students develop the three sources of value (Nord & Haynes, 1998):

(1) Moral understanding: Provide students with information and intellectual

resources to help them make responsible judgments about difficult issues of moral importance

(2) Moral feeling: Nurture young virtues to become good people and believe in

“good” and fight the “evil”

(3) Moral doing: It is moral socialization - socializing children in moral doing in

accordance with their ethical and moral code in personal and community life

In sum, the model of the value of moral education (see Figure 1) implies that moral education can not be learned through pure moral norms, but emphasizes the educational environment through experience

2 Management measures for moral education through experience for high school students

Solution 1: Develop a process for developing moral education through experiential learning

Step 1: Analyze the influence area of student morality

Teachers must understand the circumstances of life, community life where local students live Based on the objective and content of moral education to form ideas for the most appropriate theme In order to analyze the world of student

experience, teachers can apply effective research methods such as surveys, observations, interviews and discussions with parents Good idea for choosing an experience theme should ensure that the criteria include:

+ Associated with the community life of students;

+ Stimulates curiosity, excitement and interest of students;

+ Students are experienced in a safe environment;

+ Suitable for physiological age of students;

+ Strengthen the cooperation between teachers to organize the experiential activities of the school with the local social forces

Step2: Determine the content and form of experience

Based on the theme of the experience, the goal of the moral lesson, the specific context of the classroom, the school, and the community life of the student to determine the content and the task to be performed in the experiment

It is necessary to describe in detail the tasks that the student needs to perform, including 3 groups of tasks: 1) The tasks to develop moral reason; 2) The duties

to develop moral behavior; 3) The task to develop moral feelings Experimental content can be expressed in various forms of experience such as: academic journals, interviews, field trips, book-making, journals, posters, drama, games, presentations on events, community service

Step 3: Detailed planning for the experience

When planning a detailed experiential activity, teachers should identify the following:

- What specific tasks does the student need to do?

- What kind of activity organization?

- Role - function of the teacher?

- Place of implementation?

- The time required for each task?

- The social forces involved in the implementation?

- What is necessary means, resources?

- Implementation costs?- Results (or products) of each task?

Solution 2: Develop and apply technical procedures to guide moral education

through experience

2.1 Monitor and supervise the student’s “moral emotional experience” activities using the “learning journal”

Learning journal is not only simply a pure description of the moral events in life that each student experiences, but also help students reflect on their own moral events Learning journal provide materials for the thought process to develop moral reasoning, helping students reflect on what they have done, understanding why and how they did in the events It helps each student to actively learn, mobilize, and organize the experience, moral values that are available to develop new ideas / concepts / rules and new moral standards, self assessment for their prior learning experience to seek help

2.2 Establish democratically-oriented learning groups for students to

“experience reflecting moral values”

The ethical values recorded by the student diary should be reflected and shared among the members to create a common learning outcome for the group Reflection of moral values will help students share, transform emotions, moral feelings into norms and moral rules for themselves The democratization group allows students to talk to their peers or reflect on their own feelings in actual moral events

2.3 Develop and apply real-life experiences to students to “experience moral reasoning” and “moral behavior”

A real-life scenario is a written exercise that contains all relevant data about a realistic situation or event Studying real-life scenario experiments is an effective way to bring real ethical events to the classroom for students to solve problems The core purpose of studying real-life experiences in moral education

is to develop ethical reasoning in choosing and making the right decisions in the face of moral situations; It then allows students to apply ethical rules and norms

to real situations in order to develop moral behavior An empirical case study experience usually has three basic characteristics:

- Scenarios, scenarios of situations usually occur within a specific time frame

- The structure of storytelling is narrative

- Important information is revealed step by step to the place where a decision

is made by the student

A real-life case study experience must reflect the moral and student-oriented

learning goals that drive the design of the teacher’s experiential activities.

Solution 3: Develop standards for assessing civics education teachers in moral education through experiential learning

Developing the standards for teacher assessment in moral education through experiential learning will help educate citizens to meet the requirements of managers in a standardized way Teachers develop their own training plans to reach levels from low to high

In addition to the criteria for evaluating teachers in general, the criteria and indicators for evaluating ethics teachers in moral education through experience are summarized as follows:

Criterion 1: Understanding the educational environment

- Integrate ethical issues with the local situation into the moral education of the school

- Proposing local educational issues within the school can be coordinated to organize student experiences

Crierion 2: Design of teaching

- Demonstrate teaching / learning methodology based on experience

- Transform moral education into student experiences

- Provide opportunities for students to participate in experiential activities

- Specific results of the experiential activity are clearly described

- Flexibility of experiential activities

Criterion 3: Teaching

- Organize practical experience and guide collection of information

- Support discussion and reflection to develop moral rules from actual events, materials, lectures

- Allow students to apply moral rules in real situations

- Feedback, counsel students to adjust moral values in their own context According to these assessment criteria, the school administrator will develop assessment questionnaires for four or five levels that are appropriate for each school.Teachers will use the questionnaire to assess their competencies, then managers will evaluate and rank teachers

Research purposes

Assess the necessity and feasibility of moral education management measures through experiential learning for high school students in Ho Chi Minh City in the current context

Research questions

Two research questions were raised for the expert methodology:

1 What is the ranking of the necessity of moral management practices through experience activities for high school students in Ho Chi Minh City?

2 Similarly, what is the ranking of the feasibility of moral management measures through experiential learning for high school students in Ho Chi Minh City?

Methodology

This is a descriptive study in the form of “cross-sectional studies” This research has selected 30 specialists, including the school administration (10 members), moral education teachers (10 members), Experiential Learning Experts (10 members) (Appendix 1) Study site is in Ho Chi Minh City in February in 2018

We conducted the compilation of documents to send to the experts with three main contents:

- A theoretical framework for moral education through experiential learning

- An overview of socio-economic development in Ho Chi Minh City

- Methods to manage moral education through experiential learning for high school students in Ho Chi Minh City

These documents are sent directly to us or sent via email to the experts to read and give feedbacks

A set of criteria for assessing the necessity and feasibility of measures was designed to be sent to the specialists (Annex 1) Each criterion will be collected

on a Likert scale with 5 levels Emails of assessors are required in order to communicate some of the assessment information as needed All subsequent data analysis after that was performed by SPSS.22.0 software

Results

A brief statistics on the gender and education level of the experts is shown through Table 1

Table 1: Statistics on the field of work and educational attainment of experts

Criteria

Areas of work

Total Managers in

the school

Moral education teachers

Experience learning Experts Education

Level

Results of Table 1 shows that most of the experienced learning specialists have a doctoral degree or higher, most of the school administrators have a master’s degree, a majority of moral education teachers have a diploma and bachelor degree

The Kruskall-Wallis tests were conducted to see the impact of data collected

on the education level, field of expertise of the expert The results “p> 0.05” in all cases show that the data is not influenced by the level of learning, the field of expertise (Table 2)

Table 2: Kruskal-Wallis test results for the impact of data by educational

back-ground and field of expertise

Management measures p-value Necessity Feasibility

(Edu level) p-value

(Experience) (Edu level)p-value p-value

(Experience)

1 Develop a process for developing an moral

education program through experiential

2.Develop and apply technical procedures to

guide the implementation of moral education

through experiential learning (with 3 specific

measures)

2.1 Monitor and supervise the student’s

“emotional experience” activities using the

2.2 Establish democratically-oriented

learning groups for students to “experience

2.3 Develop and apply real-life experiences

to students to “experience moral reasoning”

and “experience moral behavior.” .190 .526 .168 .396

3 Develop standards for assessing moral

education teachers in moral education

Discussion

Question 1: What is the ranking of the necessity of moral management measures through experiential learning for high school students in Ho Chi Minh City?

Friedman analysis in SPSS was performed to examine the difference in mean values of the observed variables The Friedman test’s null hypothesis is that “the mean value of the variables does not differ.” Friedman test results are shown in Table 3

Table 3: Friedman analysis of the necessity of moral education management

measures for high school students

Descriptive Statistics

N Mean Std Deviation

1 Develop a process for developing an moral education

program through experiential learning 30 4.47 .730 2.1 Monitor and supervise the student’s “emotional

experience” activities using the “learning journal” 30 3.83 .834 2.2 Establish democratically-oriented learning groups for

students to “experience reflecting moral values” 30 3.87 .860 2.3 Develop and apply real-life experiences to students

to “experience moral reasoning” and “experience moral

behavior.”

3 Develop standards for assessing moral education

teachers in moral education through experiential

learning

Ranks

Mean Rank

1 Develop a process for developing an moral education program through

experiential learning

2.1 Monitor and supervise the student’s “emotional experience” activities

using the “learning journal”

2.2 Establish democratically-oriented learning groups for students to

“experience reflecting moral values”

2.3 Develop and apply real-life experiences to students to “experience moral

reasoning” and “experience moral behavior.”

3 Develop standards for assessing moral education teachers in moral

education through experiential learning

3.57 2.25 2.47 3.77 2.95

N

Chi-Square

Df

Asymp Sig.

30 29.238 4 000

a Friedman Test

The corresponding results show that Chi-Square value is 29,238, Asymp Sig in 0.00 (p <0.05), the hypothesis H0 was rejected, indicating a difference in

the mean of the observed variables The combination of the Descriptive Statistics and Ranks tables indicates the rank information needed for the five variables Accordingly, a ranking order is obtained as follows: The first is “2.3 Develop and apply real-life scenario experiments ”, the second is “1 Develop the process of developing a moral education program through experiential learning”, the third

is “3 Developing standards for assessing civics education teachers in moral education through experience”, the fourth is“2.2 Set up study groups towards democratization ”, the finally is“2.1 Monitor and supervise student activities

by using learning logs” Thus, the two measures include “2.3 Develop and apply real-life scenario experiments ”and “1 Developing the process of developing

an moral education program through experiential learning must be the two most attention-and-for-attention measures needed in moral education through experience

Question 2: How does the ranking of the feasibility of ethical management measures through experience for high school students in Ho Chi Minh City?

The Friedman analysis in SPSS was performed to examine the difference

in mean values of the observed variables The Friedman test’s null hypothesis is that “the mean value of the variables does not differ” Friedman test results are shown in Table 4

Table 4: Friedman analysis of the feasibility of moral education management

measures for high school students

Descriptive Statistics

N Mean Std Deviation

1 Develop a process for developing an moral education

program through experiential learning

2.1 Monitor and supervise the student’s “emotional

experience” activities using the “learning journal”

2.2 Establish democratically-oriented learning groups

for students to “experience reflecting moral values”

2.3 Develop and apply real-life experiences to students

to “experience moral reasoning” and “experience moral

behavior.”

3 Develop standards for assessing moral education

teachers in moral education through experiential

learning

30 30 30 30

30

4.53 3.90 3.83 3.83

3.87

.629 960 913 834

.819