The promotion of creativity has come to be seen as a vital component in the development of a knowledge-based globalised society, and Hong Kong, like other countries around the world, has been responding to this challenge through a raft of educational policy reforms. However, despite the last ten years of policy reforms aimed at encouraging creativity, traditional teacher-centred didactic practices still dominate. This chapter will argue that before creativity can be promoted, it is essential to understand teachers' beliefs in relation to creativity and then to establish whether these beliefs are actualized in practice. Drawing on research that was undertaken within a number of Hong Kong early childhood settings, this chapter will exemplify how it became possible to utilize a Western-orientated pedagogical framework for creative practice (PFCP). Using examples of illustrative data, the chapter will draw out the complexities that surround the interrelationship between teachers' beliefs and practice whilst also foregrounding the necessity for the development of culturally and contextually appropriate pedagogies. The chapter suggests that because creative practice is complex, changing, and developmental, more effort is needed in searching for culturally and contextually appropriate pedagogies. This may involve some fusion of Chinese and Western creative pedagogies. Copyright © 2018 selection and editorial matter, Kerry J. Kennedy and John Chi-Kin Lee; individual chapters, the contributors.

Recent years have witnessed changes in the curricula used in Hong Kong international schools. Primary schools of the English Schools Foundation (ESF) and several in the private sector were previously using the National Curriculum of England and Wales (NC). The curriculum, however, was replaced with the International Baccalaureate's (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) in all ESF primary schools and in the international school discussed in this chapter. First-hand experiences as a primary classroom teacher during and after the transition phase with regard to the implementation of the PYP shall be discussed. Parents in terms of their initial concerns regarding lack of assessment and students in terms of adapting to changes in teaching style and the choices they had in personal learning approaches will also be discussed. Copyright © 2017 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

The concept of “Assessment-of-Learning” (AoL) has long been the tradition in most school assessment practices in Hong Kong. In view of the deficiencies in the assessment mechanism, the Education Commission (2000) recommended “Assessment-for-Learning” (AfL) as one of the major areas of action in the current education reform. This paper reports the outcomes of a research study designed to investigate the practice of assessment for learning by Hong Kong teachers. The project was a collaborative one, involving the School Development and Evaluation Team (SDET) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and teachers from 20 kindergartens. In the project, central seminars, workshops and meetings were provided to the participating schools for the purpose of enhancing teachers’ Assessment for Learning (A fL) competency in their daily teaching. A questionnaire of 60 items was administered twice to teachers from the participating kindergartens at the beginning as well as towards the end of the project in order to assess their uses of the nine AfL strategies, namely, informing teaching objectives, informing success criteria, effective questioning, quality feedback, self-assessment, peer assessment, collecting learning evidence and teacher reflections in their daily teaching. Results indicate that there is a remarkable improvement regarding teachers’ habits in utilizing AfL strategies after the intervention. This research has pioneered a quantitative study of the practice of AfL in kindergartens and has validated an instrument for assessing such a practice. The framework, the instrument, the findings and insights generated from the study may have significant contributions to the improvement of classroom teaching in kindergartens. Copyright © 2014 ICSEI.

Valid feedback is essential for the administrators, educators, parents and, of course, for children to be able to steer their development in a sustainable way. Key influential theorists such as Montessori, Piaget, Vygotsky, and others all used observations extensively to understand how children learn and use knowledge about children's learning to improve pedagogies and children's lives. However, most adults including teachers in the ECEC settings have not always observed children and tracked their growth. Based on the research and professional development programs conducted in Finland, Taiwan and Hong Kong with more than 100,000 observations, we found some relationships between young children's involvement, adaptation and agency in early childhood settings through systematic observations. We will introduce observation strategies with video clips and demonstrate our latest mobile application for observation for practitioners to contribute to a big data pool aimed to enhance the teaching quality in ECEC settings. Copyright © 2018 EARLI.

This study examined the design of a computer-supported environment using online discussion for alignment of learning, collaboration and assessment. Participants were 155 student teachers attending a course in psychology of classroom learning in a teacher education program in Hong Kong. The design included students contributing to online forum; engaging in regular discussion; and reflecting on their discourse. For reflective assessment, student teachers identified three best examples (clusters of notes) from the class community’s discourse and explained why they were important for their inquiry. Data consisted of questionnaires on epistemic beliefs and collaboration; students’ postings on online forum; reflective assessment notes (3 best clusters of notes); and end-of-term theory-practice summary paper. Correlation analysis show that students’ beliefs about collaboration was related to their beliefs about knowledge (development); as well, regression analysis indicate that reflective assessment scores significantly predict summary paper (domain understanding). Implications of examining both individual and community learning through reflective assessment in computer-supported environments are discussed. Copyright © 2018 EARLI.

This paper explores the integration of critical pedagogy and sociocultural learning in developing more engaging and rigorous teacher education practices for institutions that are looking to advance their ‘international standards’ in education for the shorter and longer term. The context is a program in Hong Kong that helps develop diverse undergraduates, often the first in their family to attend university, to be more effective teachers and researchers and be concerned with addressing social justice issues in their work and everyday lives. This paper discusses what can be called an educational pipeline that begins with early undergraduates and then branches off into teaching, postgraduate studies, and research. In examining this process, the paper discusses sustainable contributions that can be made when the pipeline is grounded in methodologies which help to reframe what is considered teacher and student knowledge, and promote a teacher education praxis towards greater agency, equity, and a more humanizing education. Copyright © 2017 Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong. All rights reserved.