Teaching Engineering Biomechanics in Vietnam

The Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Technology (MOET) is investing in twelve technological disciplines to elevate them to international standards. The US government, through the Vietnam Education Foundation (VEF), also supports technology capacity building within Vietnamese universities through fellowships for graduate students and faculty to study and earn degrees from U.S. institutions. In 2008, VEF initiated the U.S. Faculty Scholars Program, and selected four participants to teach technology-related courses for Vietnamese universities. The proposed focus of one of these programs is biomedical engineering (BME) at the Hanoi University of Technology (HUT). The BME program at HUT historically produces graduates to administer and maintain biomedical instrumentation within Vietnamese hospitals. Because the expertise of the HUT BME faculty lies in the areas of electrical engineering, their most immediate need for course assistance is in non-electronics areas, for example, engineering biomechanics. Furthermore, studies sponsored in part by VEF have identified pedagogical practices within the Vietnamese higher education system that constrain the degree of higher-level learning for engineering and related students. The program described in this paper involves teaching in English a biomechanics course for HUT, through both on-site classroom instruction as well as and through distance learning. The technical topics of the course are centered on the design of an orthopedic implant, including specifications, a design report, and team presentations. A custom textbook for the course includes technical content targeted toward the design project, student assignments, and key PowerPoint slides. With obvious language challenges and cultural differences, the associated faculty and students establish a strong rapport including exposure to new learning approaches and engineering practices. Future efforts may include further expansion of the HUT BME curriculum and teaming with the HUT faculty to offer more of the curriculum using modern approaches to engineering design and education.