THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROBLEM - SOLVING SKILLS THROUGH CONSTRUCTIVIST-BASED TEACHING FOR STUDENTS AT NGUYEN HUU CANH TECHNICAL ECONOMICS COLLEGE IN HO CHI MINH CITY

The fourth industrial revolution has posed opportunities and challenges for vocational education in Vietnam. To equip students for abilities to perform elementary-level and professional tasks, apply technology to jobs, work independently or work in teams, it is necessary to renovate the content and especially teaching methods towards increasing learning activities such as exploring and self-constructing knowledge through applying knowledge to solve practical problems of life and work. This paper refered to constructivist teaching, its nature and methods, as well as the application of the constructivist teaching methods in teaching the subject “Costume Pattern Design” to develop the problem- solving skills for students at Nguyen Huu Canh Technical Economics College in Ho Chi Minh City. Qualitative and quantitative results on the problem-solving skills of 33 students in class TKTT 17.1 (applied constructivist teaching methods) and 35 students in class TKTT 17.2 (applied lecture dialogue methods) indicated that from 51,4% to 68,6% students of the class TKTT 17.1 achieved good results in the evaluation criteria of the problem-solving skills (including analyzing the problem, proposing solutions, implementing plans and evaluating solutions) compared with zero or only from 3% to 9.1% students of the class TKTT 17.2 meeting these criteria.