To prevent innovative teaching methods from being manipulated.

(Baonghean) - Scientific research and the compilation of innovative educational experiences are extremely important activities in schools at all levels. Over the years, this activity has achieved many encouraging results. The number and quality of innovative educational experiences submitted for ranking at the departmental level have steadily increased. The number of projects winning awards at the provincial-level Science and Technology Innovation Competition accounts for a large proportion of the total number of entries from the entire province. However, alongside these achievements, this activity still reveals some limitations and shortcomings that need to be addressed and overcome.

Currently, the writing of experience-sharing reports is being implemented on a large scale in many schools. Newly hired teachers, even those on contract for the first year, are required to compile experience-sharing reports. However, they have very little work experience and practical exposure, making this very difficult for them. Therefore, many newly graduated education students focus on collecting and preparing many completed experience-sharing reports related to their major from various sources for use when needed.

Unintentionally, from the very beginning of their careers, many teachers find themselves having to cope with the task of writing experience-based reports. Because there are no specific regulations regarding who should write these reports, some female teachers who are on maternity leave for more than a semester are also required to write them. Furthermore, experience-based reports for subject groups and departments are regularly submitted annually. Therefore, in a single school year, some teachers have to complete two experience-based reports to meet the requirements – one for themselves and one for their group/department, according to a rotating assignment. This has led to the continued prevalence of plagiarism and superficiality in writing experience-based reports. Simply "transferring" experience-based reports from other districts or provinces and making adjustments to fit the information is considered fulfilling one of the key tasks of the school year.

To somewhat mitigate this situation, perhaps specific and strict regulations are needed regarding who is required to write and summarize their best practices. These regulations should consider the length of service and link it to the end-of-year performance awards for each teacher, subject group/team, and school unit. In addition, a requirement should be introduced to register the title of the best practice project at the beginning of the school year.

Simultaneously, a council for reviewing and evaluating innovative teaching methods at the school level is established at the beginning of the school year to outline a plan for checking and evaluating the progress of implementation at each stage. For the district-level councils for reviewing and evaluating innovative teaching methods at all levels, a plan should be quickly developed to compile statistics on innovative teaching methods that achieved levels 3 and 4 in previous school years, categorized by subject and author, to prevent some colleagues with many years of experience from simply reusing previously approved innovative teaching methods in a cyclical manner. The Department of Education and Training needs to issue a directive to schools to seriously review the performance of administrators, teachers, and staff whose innovative teaching methods are not classified due to plagiarism, duplication, or copying from the internet. The lowest penalty should be withholding any school-year emulation awards for these individuals.

The reality is that to invest time and effort in writing a truly valuable and practically applicable experience-sharing report, the author must dedicate significant intellectual effort to research and reflection. Many experience-sharing reports ranked at level 3 and even level 4 at the provincial level are highly regarded, but the recognition of the authors and, especially, the dissemination and application of these reports remain very limited. It is suggested that the Department of Education and Training should pay special attention to promoting the dissemination and application of experience-sharing reports with practical value, tailored to the specific characteristics of each region. This could involve organizing workshops and exemplary reports on experience-sharing reports throughout the district; compiling and printing a collection of highly-rated experience-sharing reports with wide applicability as a resource for schools to refer to and learn from in specialized workshops...

Vu Phong (Muong Xen, Ky Son)