Developing the homeroom competence for students in secondary and high school teacher training

Secondary and high school teachers’ training programs at pedagogical schools in Vietnam currently usually have subject groups about general pedagogical profession such as: Gen[r]

Nguyen Thi Thuy Dung, Assoc.Prof., PhD 1

Abstract: Based on the analysis of the tasks and working relationships of

homeroom teachers in secondary and high schools, and research overviews of someother authors, the article presents some necessary elements of homeroom competence system that assists the homeroom teachers in performing the roles of classroom manager, students’ leader, educator, and social activist; who coordinates all educational resources inside and outside of schools In the perspective of competency-based training, the article provides some suggestions

to enhance homeroom competence for students in teacher education and training Mastery of homeroom competence could be made to one of outcome standards

of the curriculum in teacher training, and it can be developed for students through many ways The research result stated in this article could be used as a reference for pedagogical colleges/universities in designing competency-based training program in which the homeroom competence is considered necessary for a future teacher.

Key words: Develop, Homeroom competence, Training, Secondary and high school teacher.

INTRODUCTION

Each secondary and high school teacher, throughout their career, aside from giving lectures, could be assigned a homeroom teaching position In the scenario of the industrial revolution 4.0 with strong and continuous change in every aspect of social life, the secondary and high school homeroom teachers are not only educators; classroom managers; but also students’ leaders; social activists, coordinating all educational resources in order to guarantee the proper development of students’ personalities To perform well as a homeroom teacher, one needs necessary competencies which have to be formed and developed from their pedagogical training Competency-based training for secondary and high school teachers

1 Faculty of Education, Sai Gon University, 273 An Duong Vuong, Ward 3, District 5, Ho Chi Minh City, Telephone: 0903.777.509 Email: thuydung139@gmail.com

must not leave out that homeroom competency is considered a necessary part of the teachers’ overall competencies and could be made to one of the of the training program in pedagogical colleges/universities

Based on the analysis of the tasks and working relationships of homeroomteachers in secondary and high schools, and research result overviews

of some other authors, the article presents some necessary elements of homeroom competency system; at the same time, in the perspective of competency-based training, the article provides some suggestions to enhance homeroom competency for students in teacher education and training

CONTENTS

1 Necessary competencies of a secondary and high school homeroom teacher

1.1 The secondary and high school homeroom teacher

In countries around the world, the homeroom teacher position in secondary

and high schools can be called by different names such as “homeroom teacher” (United States, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, China, South Korea), “form teacher” (Singapore, Australia, Austria), “class teacher” (India, Bangladesh…), “class mentor” (Netherlands), or “form tutor” (United Kingdom, Spain) Despite their different

names, homeroom teachers all play some similar roles such as managing the class, supporting students in studies and school activities, keeping in touch with families, carrying out homeroom periods (daily or weekly based on each school regulations)

In Vietnam, each class in secondary and high schools has one homeroom teacher The school’s headmaster could assign the responsibility of a homeroom teacher to any teachers not depending on their seniority and educational experiences

The responsibilities of a homeroom teacher are clearly written in The regulations

of secondary schools, high schools and multi-level schools (Ministry of Education and

Training, 2011, Article 31, Paragraph 2) The regulations on Career standards for teachers

of school education (Ministry of Education and Training, 2018) also mention some of

the teacher’s responsibilities which are the important ones such as advising and supporting students (Standard 2, Criterion 7); establishing educational environment (Standard 3); developing relationships among school, family and society (Standard 4)

The legal documents published by the Ministry of Education and Training indicate 5 basic responsibilities of a secondary and high school homeroom teachers including:

- Establishing educational activity programs for students;

- Performing educational activities as planned;

- Strictly cooperating with students’ families, subject teachers, Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union, Ho Chi Minh Young Pioneer Organization, social organizations related to educating students;

- Commenting, assessing and classifying students at the end of school terms and years;

- Regularly or incidentally reporting to the school’s headmaster about classes’ conditions

To perform the mentioned responsibilities, a homeroom teacher must establish many relationships: with students, with super management, with subject teachers; with social and political organizations inside of schools; with students’ parents; and with social organizations outside of schools

Analyzing responsibilities and working relationships of a homeroom teacher indicates that a secondary and high school homeroom teacher has to play

a combination of three roles: as a students’ manager, as an educator (organizing educational activities for students), and as a social activist (establishing relationships

coordinating all educational resources inside and outside of schools to educate students)

1.2 The structure of homeroom competency

Homeroom competencies was researched by some authors such as: Nguyen Duc Quang (2010, p.23-27), Nguyen Thanh Binh (2011, p.9-10), Phan Thanh Long (2011, p.133-137), Mai Trung Dung (2017, p.33-38), The authors pointed out that homeroom teacher’s competencies associate with planning, seeking information and classifying students, organizing activities on teaming students, performing overall educational contents

By combining all the authors’ conceptions with analyzing three homeroom teacher’s roles mentioned, we assume that the structure of homeroom competency includes three basic groups: management competency, education competency, and coordination competency with educational resources (Table 1)

Table 1 Homeroom competency

1 Management competency

Planning homeroom tasks Organizing classes Leading students Examining students’ study and practice results

2 Education competency

Organizing educational activities Organizing weekly class meetings Educating students with deviant behaviors Handling pedagogical situations related to homeroom tasks

3

Coordination competency with educational resources

Coordinating with students’ parents Coordinating with subject teachers Coordinating with political and social organizations inside of schools

Coordinating with social organizations outside of schools

1.2.1 Management competency

According to Nguyen Tung Lam (2016), a homeroom teacher “must has sufficient management competency as a “school’s headmaster” at each school” A homeroom teacher, on behalf of the school’s headmaster, is a classroom manager, performing manager’s function In management theories, classifying management function includes four functions (planning, organizing, leading and examining) approved by national and international authors (Harold Koontz, Cyril Odonnell

& Heinz Weihrich, 1998, p.17-18) Therefore, before mentioning the necessary competencies of a homeroom teacher, we need to point out the competency group performing these management functions including:

- The competency of planning homeroom tasks: A homeroom teacher needs to be

aware of the importance of planning homeroom tasks, preparing knowledge and skills to make plans, specifically to be able to: (1) Carry out research in practical conditions: superiors’ guidance papers; infrastructure and financial conditions,… of classes and schools; students’ conditions (family background, learning capacity,…); (2) Determine the goals of homeroom tasks; (3) Determine contents of homeroom

tasks; (4) Determine methods; (5) Determine execution time; (6) Determine supporting resources

- The competency of organizing classes: A homeroom teacher needs to take good

care of organizing classes, prepare knowledge of organizing function and organizing classes skill, specifically being able to: (1) Establish classes’ organizational structures (titles, teams, groups…); (2) Select class officers and supporting members for class activities, such as: class monitor, vice monitors, group leaders, vice group leaders, deputy class monitors in charge of studies, class treasurer,…; and (3) Assign duties and regulate relationships between individuals and components during work

- The competency of leading students: A homeroom teacher needs to be aware of

his/her leading role to students, have knowledge and skills of performing leading function, specifically: (1) Set path to class’ study and practice efforts; (2) Guide, operate class activities; (3) Motivate class’ study and practice In the time of Industrial Revolution 4.0 with fast development of technological sciences, daily strong and rapid changes of economy, culture, society, the leading role of a homeroom teacher

to students is becoming more and more important The homeroom teacher needs to

“provide guidance so that the students do not get lost”, “probably one day robots will teach human, but sense and sensibility, sacrifice and devotion, abilities to connect and motivate making changes to human future will forever be the missions of teachers, especially those with homeroom jobs (Ministry of Education and Training, ETEP Program Management Unit, 2018)

- The competency of examining: A homeroom teacher performs examining

function in order to timely identify and adjust deficiency in students’ study and practice To carry out well this function, a homeroom teacher needs to have attitude, knowledge, and skills to: (1) Deploy standards assessing students’ study and practice classification; (2) Assess and classify based on standards; (3) Keep track of the students’ process of overcoming in study and practice after examining

1.2.2 Education competency

A homeroom teacher is not only the classroom manager but also the educator

of his/her students To play this role, the homeroom teacher needs education competency including:

- The competency of organizing educational activities (life skills education; vocational

guidance education; sex education; environmental education; law education,…):

a homeroom teacher needs to have knowledge and organizational skills on these educational activities; be able to make work plans, carry out the right target, content, method, activity organizational form and assess educational results on students

- The competency of organizing weekly class meetings: This is the weekly meeting

time between the homeroom teacher and students The homeroom teacher needs to invest in the class meetings, have knowledge and skills to effectively organize these meetings: preparing lesson plans for class meetings, innovating contents, methods, organizational forms in a way that increases students’ positivity, activeness, creativity, puts students at the center

- The competency of educating students with deviant behaviors: Deviant behaviors

are behaviors that are not appropriate based on social moral standards, school’s regulations, school’s behavioral rules… To educate students with deviant behaviors,

a homeroom teacher needs a persistent attitude, knowledge and skills to perform these tasks: know how to overall search for causes; “know how to make students change their deviant thinking, conceptions, beliefs that lead to deviant behaviors; know how to ignite self-esteem and self-respect to self-educate and self-complete; using group opinions to adjust negative behaviors of students in class…, know how

to cooperate with subject teachers, families and social resources to help students change their attitudes and behaviors” (Mai Trung Dung, 2017, p.34)

- The competency of handling pedagogical situations related to homeroom tasks: In

the homeroom tasks, situations related to teaching and educating students usually occur requiring the homeroom teacher to have situation handling skills, specifically have knowledge and skills to perform these tasks: discovering and identifying situations; setting targets to handle situations; collecting and analyzing information; suggesting solutions and choosing the optimal one

1.2.3 Coordination competency with educational resources

During the process of performing homeroom tasks, a homeroom teacher needs

to coordinate with educational resources inside and outside of schools Therefore,

a homeroom teacher needs to have the competency of buiding and developing coordinated relationships including:

- The competency of coordinating with students’ parents: A homeroom teacher

needs to be aware of the importance of this coordinated relationship in homeroom tasks, has knowledge and skills to coordinate: Know how to search for family backgrounds and characteristics of students’ parents; select suitable personal means

of communication (face to face, telephones, emails, social media, etc.); scientifically and effectively organize parent-teacher meetings

- The competency of coordinating with subject teachers: A homeroom teacher needs

to strictly coordinate with subject teachers to find out about students’ study and practice conditions in subjects, discuss and bring together the education mode,

teaching methods and formalities to increase the quality of delivering lessons; discuss about assessing and classifying students, fostering excellent students and tutoring below average students

- The competency of coordinating with political and social organizations inside of schools:

A homeroom teacher needs to strictly coordinate with Ho Chi Minh Young Pioneer Organization, Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union in organizing extracurricular activities for students

- The competency of coordinating with social organizations outside of schools:

following the directions of secondary and high school’s headmasters, a homeroom teacher could make coordinated relationships with organizations outside of schools

to perform tasks such as preventing diseases, preventing social evils, mobilizing students to go to school, etc (Institute of Educational Managers Ho Chi Minh City,

2010, p.131)

2 Developing homeroom competency for pedagogical students

According to Nguyen Song Hien (2018), competency-based education model

“emphasizes outcome results of learners A learner is evaluated as qualified for accomplishing a subject, program, course or level when he/she proves to handle and apply knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and behaviors based on competency criteria listed” With this way of approaching, the problem concerned is not “what the leaners learn”, but “what they apply what they learn for” Therefore, “teach how to learn, how to apply knowledge, skills, attitudes to handle problems related

to practical life and therefrom establish competency” (Nguyen Quang Thuan, 2016, p.68-82)

Hence, secondary and high school teacher competency-based training is in fact approaching pointedly on the outcome of training and educating process, in which emphasizes what competencies learners need to achieve after finishing the educational program Therefore, we must first identify outcome competency standards associated with job requirements; hence, choose the formalities, ways, competency development contents, competency assessment methods during training process (assess at the beginning, during process and at the end)

From the theoretical basis mentioned above, we suggest the following development of homeroom competency for students in secondary and high school teacher training:

2.1 Make homeroom competency the outcome standards of the training program

Homeroom competency has to be made one of the outcome standards of the training program and considered an important part in the overall competencies that secondary and high school teachers need It can’t be generally called “an educational competency” but clearly identified as “homeroom competency”, in which details three basic competency groups associated with the homeroom teacher’s roles stated

at the beginning of this article Making homeroom competency an outcome standard

of secondary and high school teachers’ training program will officially confirm its importance and take control of designing, choosing the contents of the curriculum

The outcome standards of training program is the basis to confirm outcome

standards for subjects in the curriculum Hence, the homeroom competency considered

one of the curriculum’s outcome standards will be “transferred” into the outcome standard of certain and appropriate subjects in the training program

2.2 Design a separate subject/module for homeroom tasks

Secondary and high school teachers’ training programs at pedagogical schools

in Vietnam currently usually have subject groups about general pedagogical profession such as: General Psychology, Organizing teaching and educating activities (which has a part mentioning homeroom tasks), etc

To confirm the importance of homeroom tasks in secondary and high schools,

it is necessary to establish a separate subject/module about this topic in the lesson groups of general pegagogical profession The name of this subject or module could

be “Homeroom tasks in secondary and high schools”, “The homeroom teacher in secondary and high schools”, etc

a) The module’s goals

- The general goal: Establish and develop homeroom competency for students

- The specific goal: Establish and develop three specific competency groups in homeroom competency structure

b) The module’s contents

Designing topics with contents close to the specific competencies identified in three competency groups of secondary and high school homeroom teachers

c) The module’s teaching methods and formalities

In competency-based teaching, the teachers only play the role of designing and guiding teaching curriculum while the learners have to build knowledge, skills and attitudes themselves by researching, observing, exploring, and creating, etc

Teaching the homeroom module also follows the rule above The teaching methods include group discussion, case studies, presentations, role playing; organization of group-based learning, individualized-based learning, and self-directed learning for students; and organization of project-based learning or learning based on specific tasks that are related to secondary and high school’s homeroom tasks, such as:

- Practice planning homeroom tasks;

- Practice building organizational structure of a classroom;

- Create a speech motivating, inspring students in study and practice;

- Conduct research on legal documents related to assessing and classifying students;

- Practice preparing lesson plans for class meetings;

- Practice planning to organize specific topics about sex education, vocational guidance education, environmental education, law education, life skills education, etc, for homeroom teachers’ students;

- Practice planning a parent-teacher meeting;

- Practice handling pedagogical situations in homeroom tasks;

- Build scripts and illustratively perform one class meeting, one parent-teacher meeting, one pedagogical situation, etc

d) Assessing module study results

- Types of assessing: In competency-based teaching, assessing study results plays an important role, helps teachers and learners know which competency level learners have reached, hence teachers and learners can reasonably adjust and add contents and execution time Therefore, assessing is carried out not only in the final results but also during study process Assessing homeroom module study results also includes 2 types: Formative assessment and summative assessment

- Contents and criteria of assessment: The contents of assessment are specific competencies described in the module’s outcome standards/ aims The criteria of assessment need to be clearly established and deployed by teachers for students at

the beginning of the module These criteria could focus on not only theperforming

process (attitudes, cooperation, ways of thinking, applying methods…) but also the products achieved (for examples: homeroom task plans, classroom organizational

structure models, speeches, homeroom lesson plans, plans for organizing an educational topic, parent-teacher meeting plans, etc.)

2.3 Integrate, combine homeroom competency development for students in pedagogical profession subjects/modules

As stated above, outcome standards at curriculum level will be “transferred” and specified by outcome standards at subject level Therefore, in secondary and high school teachers’ training program, some subjects in the pedagogical profession subject groups with appropriate contents could be integrated with homeroom competency development, for example:

General Psychology, Age-group and Pedagogical Psychology, General Education… could be integrated with practice exercises, discussion about educating troubled students in homeroom class, handling pedagogical situations in homeroom class, choosing educational contents and methods suitable with age-psychological characteristics, explaining factors affecting attitudes, actions, behaviors, students’ study results, etc

2.4 Develop homeroom competency for students through listening in for practice and pedagogical practices

Secondary and high school teachers’ training program needs to spend a significant amount of time on listening in for practice and practical searching module Students are allowed to have field trips to secondary and high schools with contents regulated in the module, and they have to finish assignments and achievement reports from their own experiences Among the requirements to complete on-the-job trainning and reality expericencing, the students are also required to include research on homeroom teaching

It’s worth noting that pedagogical practices in secondary and high schools are important activities with significant duration designed in training program for teachers generally and secondary and high school teachers specifically Currently, pedagogical practices for students always have contents about homeroom tasks Students are able to attend class meetings, observe educational activities organized

by homeroom teachers for their students; students are able to practice, experience how to manage an actual class and practice organizing educational activities for students in the class assigned Students are given opportunities to apply homeroom knowledge and skills into reality, hence develop their homeroom competency Pedagogical practices in general and homeroom task practices in particular need

to be studied and organized by pedagogical schools with gatherings not only on a periodic basis but also on a regular one during pedagogical training process