In the tendency of globalization, exploring new training techniques to educate students who meet stringent new skill requirements has become a priority worldwide
After twenty years of successful development through international partnerships and steady improvements in its quality of education, in 2012 DTU participated in the CDIO initiative aimed to provide innovative training models to continue to raise its educational standards. At the 10th Annual International CDIO Conference, which took place from the June 15th to 19th at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain, DTU gained strong recognition and evaluations for its recent achievements in implementing CDIO.
DTU representatives speak at the Conference
The 2014 Annual International CDIO Conference welcomed 240 IT executives, engineers, teachers and students from 82 universities and technology research institutes from 30 countries. The Conference provided 95 press releases, 30 posters, 18 workshops, 4 showcases. Participants discussed the Admission and Training of engineering graduates, Learner Support Program sponsored by businesses, Research and Collaboration between business and universities and more. Participants shared their experiences in implementing CDIO applications. Participants from Denmark, Sweden and Finland outlined effective initiatives that attracted new students because of their use of CDIO on large-scale projects.
DTU members at the Conference
In addition to its achievements in international curricula transfer and exchange programs with renowned universities in the US and UK, Duy Tan University has gained even more success since joining the CDIO initiative in 2012 as one of only two Vietnamese universities in an organization of over 100 technology universities worldwide. DTU has now adopted CDIO as the framework of curricular planning for its engineering program and collaborated with its partners, both national and worldwide.
Using CDIO, all the DTU engineering programs are being upgraded, including the Introduction to Engineering course for first year students, the Deployment of two CDIO proposals and the Skills and Capabilities Assessment of CDIO Projects. Every year, DTU sends staff and students to participate in the annual international CDIO conference, regional CDIO meetings, the Fall CDIO Meeting and the CDIO Workshop. DTU gained excellent results at the 2013 CDIO Cup, hosted at Harvard and MIT, with first and second prizes for two projects entitled “A Low Cost Do-It-Yourself Water Filtering System for Farmers” and “The Solar and Battery-Powered Alphabet”.
In 2014, with 6 papers presented by 4 DTU staff, DTU had the most papers accepted at the conference. They focused on topics including Innovations in Education, the Assessment and Evaluation of Academic Programs, Curricula Planning, and International Partnerships. The Learning Express and Overseas Industrial Learning Program, which DTU is conducting with ASEAN partners, drew special attention at the conference.
On evaluating the collaboration and adopting CDIO with DTU over the past few years, Ms. Helene Leong, Director of the International Cooperation Center at Singapore Polytechnic said:
“Thank you DTU for your efforts in developing student exchange programs with Singapore Polytechnic. We admire you for your proactive participation and for sharing your CDIO application experience at DTU. Your work has contributed to the improvement of roles and responsibilities of ASEAN universities.”
The Conference takes place at a time when innovation in engineering education becomes a big challenge for universities everywhere. Its early achievements since joining CDIO have encouraged DTU to continue innovating and enhancing educational quality and make significant new contributions at the 11th International CDIO Conference, to be held in Chengdu University, China in 2015.
(Media Center)