Future classroom in early years: An exploratory study in Hong Kong

Future classroom in early years: An exploratory study in Hong Kong

• Hu, Xinyun The Education University of Hong Kong
• Liang, Yutong The Education University of Hong Kong
• Xu, Jiayi The Education University of Hong Kong

International Conference on Learning and Teaching 2020 (ICLT2020): Learning and Teaching in the 21st Century (2020: Hong Kong)

• S School Environment & Facilities, Organization
  • SB Laboratories & Special Rooms
• F Learning & Teaching
  • FD Application of Communicative Media, IT in Learning & Teaching

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Pre-Primary Education

With the rapid development of technology, Early Childhood (EC) educators have been urgently required to appropriately integrate various and cutting-edge digital technologies to support the diverse learning needs of students in Hong Kong. The Future Classroom of EdUHK offers an opportunity for educators to integrate innovative toolkits to explore students’ potential learning opportunities, embracing their design thinking and creativity. This study applies an exploratory case study approach to learn the ways of improving students’ learning by using digital technologies in the Future Classroom, and develop practical toolkits for EC educators. Data was collected by activity plans, class videos, and students’ artifacts. Three students aged 6-8 in Hong Kong were invited to participate in this study. Content analysis was employed to analyze the effectiveness of the toolkits on students’ learning modal and engagement. The findings show that digital technologies can help change students’ learning modal from passive to interactive by stimulating multimodal learning, i.e. making an AR vocabulary card required modals of linguistic, gestural, visual, and aural. The toolkits can build a platform for design thinking and creativity, i.e. a map and digital story of the ocean were created by using a toolkit composed of 3D printing models, coding robots, and a digital book App. Students’ learning engagement can be improved by the toolkits, especially on the emotional aspect since they took the initiative to create their stories and characters at a later stage. Lastly, a list of practical digital resources is provided. Copyright © 2020 International Conference on Learning and Teaching.

Paper presented at the International Conference on Learning and Teaching 2020 (ICLT2020): Learning and Teaching in the 21st Century, Hong Kong, China.

• English

Conference Papers

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/f2fd3862

2021-06-15