Classrooms nowadays are exemplified by student diversity. Students may differ in, for example, motivation, learning style, aptitude, cultural background, social economic states, and past learning experience. As students’ learning needs are becoming increasingly diverse, a new challenge is to look for ways that address their needs. Assessment is one useful way to help teachers deal with classroom diversity. Teachers can use assessment strategies to identify different learning needs and to improve teaching and learning. This subsequently leads to a consideration of two critical issues with the first one being how teachers can plausibly identify classroom diversity and the second being how useful are the assessment strategies they use to cater for the identified diversity. This paper presents and discusses the findings of an investigation into the assessment strategies that teachers used to identify classroom diversity and the assessment strategies teachers used to deal with the identified diversity. About one hundred Hong Kong teachers were interviewed, revealing that the teachers used a number of assessment strategies to assist them in understanding students’ diverse needs and that the teachers seemed to be more interested in identifying those students who needed help academically rather than in their needs in the social and affective domains.

The Hong Kong Education Reform, which calls for a realignment of assessment practices, addresses the assessment theories of the early 21st century and tries to move Hong Kong from an educational culture of “Assessment of Learning (AoL)” to a culture of “Assessment for Learning (AfL)”. This paradigmatic shift of culture, addresses the assessment theories formulated during the past decade that call for assessment practices which should drive both teaching and learning (Biggs and Watkins, 1999). However, most Hong Kong classrooms currently still use assessment as a tool for measuring learning instead of a mean for facilitating learning (Berry 2005). In view of this, an investigation was initiated in the purpose of achieving a better understanding of the assessment actions in the classroom. The investigation included twenty-seven teachers from nine secondary and primary Hong Kong schools which focused on assessment used in the classroom as seen from lesson observations of the participating teachers. The data collected was analyzed by using Torrance & Prior’s divergent (AfL) and convergent assessment (AoL) framework (1998). It was found that there were key tensions and important opportunities in the assessment and learning processes in the classrooms. The paper will first give some background information about the paradigm shift of assessment culture, followed by a presentation of the findings of the investigation and a discussion on the key tensions and important opportunities in the assessment and learning processes in the classroom.

A method for enhancing the quality of teaching and learning is through encouraging academics to engage in action research projects into some aspect of their teaching which is of interest or problematic for them. Action research is promoted as a means for committed teachers to bridge the gap between their theories and practices, and now it has becoming a required skill of frontline teachers in schools in Hong Kong. However, groups of teachers being sold to the concept, are fresh to such idea and method, and their day to day practice has confined themselves to the more practical and technical management of teaching in schools. This paper explores the use of a case illustration approach for teaching action research on 33 in-service primary school teachers, the application of constructivist theories of learning underpins this approach will be addressed and the result will be discussed while significance of the findings will be highlighted in the light of preparing curriculum leaders to promote change in schools.

The State Education Development Commission in China introduced the communicative syllabus in 1992. However, evidence indicated that the traditional structured-based approach was still prevalent in the English classroom. The paper is an attempt to examine rural teachers’ concerns regarding the adoption of a communicative language teaching (CLT) approach in their classroom. The data for the investigation came from teachers’ journals written during a two-week training programme organized by a Hong Kong voluntary group in Gansu Province, classroom observations, interviews, as well as written correspondence between the teachers and the mentors. The analysis showed that the teachers were positive about the effectiveness of CLT in motivating students to learn English. However, a number of teachers’ concerns that might hinder the adoption of CLT were revealed. Examples of these included teachers’ low English proficiency, lack of confidence, a misconception of CLT, poor understanding of language teaching and insufficient acquisition of teaching skills. The measures taken to help the teachers during the programme were discussed. It is hoped that the discussion contained in this paper could lead to a more frequent professional exchange between teachers from the mainland and Hong Kong so that CLT can be elevated to a new level for the benefits of both teachers and students.

Cooperative learning is only a small component of a core module in the pre-service programmes and an elective module in the in-service programmes of the biggest teacher education institute in Hong Kong. Schools attempting to implement cooperative learning have to rely mainly on the help of external staff developers. Most of the school-based staff development programmes provided by the staff developers start with some introductory talks and workshops, followed by lesson planning, lesson observation and post-lesson sharing by the teachers, and end with a concluding session by the staff developers. Many of these school-based staff development programmes are not effective in attempting to add cooperative learning to the repertoire of the teachers largely because of the weakness of these programmes and the overlooking of the diversified aspects of cooperative learning. This paper suggests a six-phase model of school-based staff development in cooperative learning to enhance the effectiveness of the programmes. These phases are described as setting objectives, participation in workshops, collaborative lesson preparation, peer observation, post-lesson conference and reflection. The model is effective in that it gives ownership to teachers in working in collaboration with their peers as well as staff developers in planning and implementing an innovation.

Technology Teacher Education, in similar ways to medical practitioner education, has to rely heavily on constructivist learning principles whereby learning takes place as a result of processing and solving a series of relevant subject based question. Using PBL techniques, the objectives of the project were addressed in the following terms: 1. Increase collaborative Learning through quality learning teams; 2. To enhance academic outcomes of individual members of the quality learning team; 3. To inculcate a constructivism culture within the quality learning teams through PBL; 4. To enhance both learning and instruction strategies through PBL; 5. To encourage and increase motivation of both the quality learning team and each of its individual members by immersion in PBL techniques; 6. To increase student achievement and create a positive technology teacher attitude within the quality learning team and its individual members. The use of small PBL learning teams to enhance technology teacher learning not only created extremely motivated student teachers whose reflective skills constantly improved, but, also engendered a much improved attitude in language acquisition skill as each team confronted the difficulties of a second language. In adopting the PBL technique within small learning teams it has been found that in the case of Hong Kong the Confucian precept of learning and of collectivism fits well with the Chinese culture. Cultural perspectives in the five countries in which the authors conducted their research added to the learning psychology of this intervention, thus increasing understanding and reflection.

The project was presented at the first PBL Conference held in Hong Kong in 1999. What follows is a progress report of the findings of the project during the past year. The objectives of the project remain as follows: · Increase collaborative learning through quality learning teams and PBL; To enhance academic outcomes of individual members of the quality learning team using PBL techniques; To inculcate a constructivism culture within the quality learning teams through PBL; To enhance both learning and instruction strategies through PBL; To encourage and increase motivation of both the quality learning team and each of its individual members by immersion in PBL techniques; To increase student achievement and create a positive student attitude of quality learning teams and their individual members by adopting PBL. It has been found that using small PBL learning teams not only created extremely motivated students whose reflective skills constantly improved, but, also engendered a much improved attitude in language acquisition skill as each team confronted the difficulties of a second language. In adopting PBL techniques within small learning teams it has also been found that the Confucian precept of learning and of collectivism fits well with the Chinese culture. Cultural perspectives added to the PBL psychology thus increasing understanding and reflection.