The latest music syllabus for Form I - III was published in 1983. It has been put into practice for more than fifteen years. To review the syllabus, the Curriculum Development Institute conducted in 1998 a survey on its implementation. A special meeting of music experts was also organized to examine the future trends of music education of Hong Kong. In anticipation of the revision of the syllabus, this chapter aims at reviewing the music contents stated in the syllabus and discussing the reform implications for teachers, students, schools heads, policy makers, and music teacher educators.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

In many parts of the world, dance and arts education are now recognized as school subjects. In fact, primary and secondary physical education curricula in Hong Kong include dance education. Furthermore, education reform urges teacher education programs to promote innovative teaching approaches which will enhance lifelong learning skills. Despite the wishes of Education Reform, traditional teacher-centered pedagogy continues to dominate dance education teacher preparation. A radical change must be initiated in order to redress this philosophical dilemma. The purpose of this research was to investigate a teacher education model that would implement the shift from teacher-centered to student-centered pedagogy, thus from replication learning to learning by critical thinking. This presentation highlights critical thinking theory (Ennis, 1991) as an alternative teacher education perspective and how it can be utilized to promote higher-order thinking skills in dance education. The model includes three components: content (what is taught), method (how it is taught), and outcome (what is learned). The proposed dance education content emphasizes the three essential arts appreciation elements of performance, choreography, and assessment. The method stresses a dynamic learning environment which capitalizes on critical thinking via creative and collaborative problem-solving learning tasks. It is argued that the model's content and method result in the learning of not only motor skills, but also higher-order thinking strategies that will be used across the life span. In addition to revalidating dance education, this dynamic model offers future teachers a tool to provide all learners with meaningful lifelong holistic experiences. Finally, three recommendations are made for teacher training institutions to successfully apply the dynamic teacher education model to foster higher-order thinking skills in dance education.

Choral singing has become one of the major cultural and artistic activities in Hong Kong primary schools. It is also the extension of the classroom singing experience and served as a platform for students to nurture their singing skills, enhancing musicianship and facilitating artistic experience through choral performance. In view of the tight rehearsal arrangement, conductors are required to manage the rehearsal efficiently and effectively. In order to achieve the musical tasks and objectives being put forward within each choral rehearsal, the teaching and learning effectiveness are crucial within the process. The current paper looks at four elite choirs and their conductors focusing on their conducting and rehearsal behaviors in relation to successful and effective rehearsal performance. Besides, this study also investigates the modes of communication utilized by the choral directors within the rehearsal structure, including conductor’s task presentation, ensemble interaction and conductor’s feedback. The unique contribution of this paper to music education research is that it takes both the experimenter’s perceptions, those of the conductors and the choristers into account and triangulates these data in a detailed analysis. Certainly, such investigation could contribute valuable information on the teaching and learning effectiveness within the choral performance preparation process.
[Copyright © 2003 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

The aims of the recent arts education reform is to build on the strengths of existing practices, to allow greater autonomy for schools to fully develop their school-based arts curriculum and to provide space for more new art forms for students to pursue their preferences in the arts. This paper investigates the effects of the ‘Arts-in-Education’ project (2001-2002), piloted in two secondary schools in Hong Kong, on the school curriculum and student learning. Results of the case study where the artist worked collaboratively with the schoolteachers during formal and informal hours on a musical production revealed that special timetabling arrangements could greatly facilitate a successful model. Other factors contributing to effective student learning included the commitment and dedication of the artist, a strong artist/school partnership, common goals, sufficient funding and full support from the school management and parents. Qualitative data, collected from lesson observation, interviews, focus group meeting and project documents had revealed successful ingredients for the across-the-arts and the interdisciplinary approaches, while pressing issues also emerged, to which educators need to pay special attention when responding to arts education reform.
[Copyright © 2003 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

Current issue of education reform advocated by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has induced numerous discussions within the education sector and the community at large. Music, being one of the long established cultural subjects in the secondary school curriculum, is also under rigorous discussion. The purpose of this chapter is to have an investigation of the past two music syllabi for junior secondary schools (published in 1975 and 1983) in order to collect and analyze data for support of reform. Changes and differences between the two syllabi are analyzed in order to have an understanding of the development of the trend of thinking of the colonial government in the pre-1997 era, of which concerns music education in Hong Kong. In order to have a reference point for the review of the two syllabi, curricula of the three frontier countries, including England, Australia, and the United States, are being examined. Common criteria and standard of these three curricula are summed up and used as guidelines to investigate the two Hong Kong music syllabi. Implications for future reform of the current music syllabus are discussed for the better future of the teaching content and standard of achievement in music in junior secondary schools in Hong Kong.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

Many music teachers in Hong Kong secondary schools have ignored creative music making. In order to encourage creativity and imagination in music education, the Hong Kong Education Department is undertaking an education reform in which creative music making is advocated. However, recent studies reveal that many music teachers do not have relevant and sufficient training in these activities. This paper reports a study of designing and implementing a new teacher education module, which aims to equip in-service music teachers to undertake creative activities in school teaching. Results indicated that the trainees preferred learning more existing teaching packages to learning theories in creativity. Owing to the poor discipline and other contextual constraints, some of the trainees expressed a negative attitude towards creative activities. However, the lack of discipline-based knowledge and composition skills of the trainees was one of the major reasons leading to the negative attitude. These results imply that theory and practice should be closely related when preparing teachers to understand why and how creative projects should be delivered, with a number of teaching strategies derived from the study. The discipline-based knowledge should be more emphasized, which should be well integrated with pedagogical skills in teacher education programmes.
[Copyright © 2004 International Society for Music Education.]

香港政府近年大力推動教育改革，目的在培養更具能力、更全面發展的人才。而人才以生命為本，如何使每個人都有充實的生活，便正是生命教育的目的，本交嘗試從介紹生命教育的歷史、特質入手，探討生命教育如何與教育改革配合。作者建議以生命教育為核心、組織不同範疇的教育活動，並勾劃實踐的具體架構，供教育工作者討論。
[Copyright © 2006 優質學校教育學報.]