Speaker
Description
As Vietnam moves toward more ESL-oriented educational goals, English teachers are increasingly expected to engage in reflective and inquiry-based professional learning beyond one-off workshops. However, many teachers experience fragmented professional development, cognitive overload, and difficulty sustaining classroom-based inquiry over time, even when valuable pedagogical insights emerge from daily teaching practice. This presentation introduces Research Operating System (ROS), a conceptual AI-supported reflective system designed to help teachers capture, organize, critique, and track pedagogical and research ideas. Rather than functioning as an automated productivity tool, ROS is framed as a cognitive support environment that promotes reflective continuity and inquiry-oriented teacher development through low-friction idea capture, AI-assisted structuring, guided critique, and longitudinal thematic tracking. Grounded in Cognitive Load Theory and self-regulated learning, the session explores how AI-supported reflective systems may contribute to more sustainable forms of teacher professional learning in Vietnam’s evolving ESL context. Participants will explore a mock reflective workflow, engage in sample idea transformation activities, and participate in a mini critique exercise demonstrating how classroom observations may be developed into more structured professional learning or research directions. By the end of the session, participants will be able to identify barriers to sustained teacher inquiry, evaluate the potential and limitations of AI-supported reflective systems, and consider practical strategies for supporting more continuous professional learning in their own contexts. The session also addresses tensions surrounding AI-supported professional learning, including risks of superficial reflection and over-reliance on AI-assisted thinking.
Biography
Cao Van Anh is an English lecturer at the School of Languages and Tourism, Hanoi University of Industry, Vietnam. With nearly a decade of teaching experience, she has worked with diverse learners ranging from high school students to working professionals. Her teaching and research interests focus on technology-mediated language learning, multimodality, cognitive load, and self-regulated learning in higher education contexts. She is particularly interested in how AI and educational technologies reshape teacher development, learner autonomy, and classroom interaction in the evolving transition from EFL to more ESL-oriented educational environments. In addition to her teaching, she actively explores reflective and inquiry-oriented approaches to professional learning, with a growing interest in AI-supported cognitive tools for sustaining teacher inquiry and research development. Her recent work examines how structured and purpose-specific uses of AI may support more sustainable forms of reflective practice and professional growth while also addressing tensions related to cognitive overload, over-reliance on AI, and the changing nature of educational work in technology-rich learning environments.
| Affiliate type | University |
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