Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in Hong Kong was proposed by Carrie Lam, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong in 2015 and later optimized in 2022 as science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) education. The goal of STEAM education is to cultivate students’ solid STEM knowledge to support Hong Kong’s rapid economic and technological development to meet contemporary world challenges; however, the role and educational purpose of the arts (i.e., the “A”) in STEAM education have not been stated clearly. I share three teaching examples and discuss how to integrate the arts into STEM education and cultivate students’ creativity through hands-on activities. To implement STEAM education, teachers could begin with the subjects they teach and then explore ways to integrate the other four areas to create STEAM education. Copyright © 2025 by Yichien Cooper and Alice Lai.

Although spherical video-based virtual reality (SVVR) has gained attention as an effective tool for technology-enhanced learning, little research has been conducted on its integration in formal education settings and the role of teachers in facilitating its pedagogical use. In this study, a design-based research (DBR) approach was used to develop teacher-facilitated tactics for SVVR-supported learning based on virtual inquiry fieldwork in formal senior secondary geography education in Hong Kong. Over a period of 2 academic years, we engaged with nine teachers (from nine schools across the upper, middle, and lower academic bands in Hong Kong) and their Grade-10 classes, which comprised a total of 504 students. In addition to reporting and discussing the pedagogical effectiveness of the teacher facilitation practices designed, enacted, analysed, and refined in the iterative DBR process, this paper presents the teacher facilitation principles deduced from these practices. Overall, the findings and implications of this DBR are academically and practically relevant for researchers and educational practitioners who seek to utilise SVVR for educational purposes and strive to enhance its pedagogical effectiveness. Copyright © 2023 Elsevier.

Teachers have had to face a number of difficulties when school-based assessment (SBA) was introduced for most subjects of the New Secondary School curriculum in Hong Kong from 2009. This paper draws on data from a project that supports the implementation of rubrics in inquiry learning for the subject of Liberal Studies. It aims at studying the way the use of rubrics enables teachers to address the challenges of SBA and at identifying useful strategies to address these challenges. The project invited ten secondary schools in which thirty-six teachers and more than 400 students were involved. Data were collected from teachers, students and classroom observations. The paper formulates four strategies by which rubrics are used to enhance the implementation of SBA, namely increasing the validity of assessment, diagnosing students’ learning needs, providing a supportive and non-competitive assessment environment, and enabling students to develop a personal learning path.
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