Recent collaborations between Duy Tan University (DTU) and local high schools in Danang City and Quang Nam province in the Vietnam Science & Engineering Fair (ViSEF) have yielded successful outcomes through a series of awards won by students from these high schools at the fair. The collaborations, however, also revealed a number of gaps and issues in the approach of faculty members and students at both Duy Tan University and its high school partners, namely: (1) incompatible communication styles, (2) initial lack of trust in the skills and capabilities of both sides, and (3) different creativity techniques and project management schemes. Previous skills and knowledge acquired by DTU faculty members from the CDIO Initiative, however, turned out to be very helpful in bridging these gaps, especially regarding CDIO Standards No. 4, 5, 6 and 7. In particular, DTU faculty members have created a “crash” course to quickly teach high school students and teachers about the CDIO model and framework. An informal process of “design-and-trial” was also developed to help run many student projects at the same time, and to build trust between DTU and its partners through incremental progress in these projects. And yet, another major challenge was to get high school students and teachers to become involved and make effective use of the engineering labs at Duy Tan University despite their lack of previous formal training in such engineering fields. This paper, through a series of semi-structured interviews with both DTU faculty members and its partnering high schools’ students and teachers, will provide a qualitative look into the opportunities and challenges of collaboration between a university and partnering high schools in engineering projects. The recognized roles and techniques of CDIO for smooth collaboration in these projects will be examined and emphasized.
