This article reports the results of a study that assesses the effectiveness of a Philosophy in Schools (PIS) programme in developing students' thinking skills and English competence in Hong Kong. In the study, training and support were provided for three Integrated Humanities (IH) teachers to enable them to teach PIS to their Secondary 3 English as a Second Language (ESL) students. The students were found to be capable of reasoning and arguing in a competent way about philosophical problems arising from various stimuli prepared by their teachers according to the IH curriculum. PIS was also found to play a major role in promoting the students' critical and creative thinking and to enhance the development of their English language proficiency to a significant extent. The findings of this study suggest that integrating philosophy into the IH curriculum can promote critical thinking, creative thinking and English language proficiency in ESL students. Copyright © 2020 University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education.

The aim of this paper is to examine blended learning as an integral component of a learning culture. By drawing on two concepts- habitus and field - we consider the cultural learning experiences of postgraduate students within the context of a Hong Kong University. It is an examination that allows for an appreciation of both an individual as well as a collective experience of blended learning and in so doing it demonstrates how power is (always) an issue within learning cultures. The paper goes on to argue that if blended learning is to achieve its goal in terms of enhancing learning there is a need to have a better understanding of learning itself where questions are asked concerning the learner, the locations where learning occurs and processes of learning. Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). All Rights Reserved.

In this article, the processes and patterning of translanguaging and trans-semiotizing in facilitating Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) are examined in Cantonese-English bilingual contexts. Classroom interaction data and students’ written exercises/assignments were collected to analyse the processes of feeling-meaning making among junior secondary students and their teacher in English-medium Integrated Humanities classrooms in Hong Kong. Discourse analysis on classroom data and student exercises/assignments shows that translanguaging and trans-semiotizing naturally emerge in the dynamics of feeling-meaning making and the teacher and students have challenged the dominance of English and contested the previous stabilized cultural patterns of academic and non-academic registers via orchestrating Cantonese and English, formal and social languages, visual elements and physical items in the immediate environment. It is therefore suggested that translanguaging and trans-semiotizing should not only be seen as a spontaneous, naturally occurring process but can also be incorporated in multilingual CLIL classrooms as planned systematic scaffolding.本文針對雙語環境中學科與語言整合式教學(CLIL)，嘗試探討以跨語際、跨符號實踐作為課堂教學鷹架的過程與模式。本文以香港初中英文綜合人文(Integrated Humanities)課堂為例，蒐集、分析課堂互動錄影及學生課後習作，剖析師生共同建構情感意義的過程。分析表明，師生為令課堂連貫流暢，協調粵語、英語以及正式和非正式語言的運用，調動視覺元素及課堂環境中的相關物件，自然地以跨語際、跨符號實踐表情達意。英語的主導地位以及關於學術及非學術語域的傳統觀念也在無意中被挑戰。因此本文提出除了作為即時的自發現象，跨語際、跨符號實踐還可作為有計劃及系統的鷹架支持，運用於帶有多語言背景的CLIL課堂中。 Copyright © 2020 National Taiwan Normal University.

This paper examines the unintended consequences of state language policy and planning (LPP) that adopt subtractive approaches on teachers' subsequent receptivity to policy fine-tuning. A comparative approach is adopted in this statistical study of two strategic contexts, where the influence of the world's two leading languages—English and Mandarin—manifests in the home language conversion patterns of ethnic Chinese teachers of Hong Kong and Singapore. The interplay among state, education, and family linguistic domains provides the framework to understand how teachers exercise agency underpinned by their sociolinguistic background (childhood home language—CHL) and home language conversion preference (home language as adult—HL). The results show that teacher CHL–HL conversion preferences underlie their response to state LPP initiatives and influence LPP outcomes in the education domain. The results are theorized in terms of the prevailing values in Hong Kong and Singapore that shape teacher agency, the unintended outcomes of subtractive LPP in education, and the probable outcomes on the linguistic vitality of local and dominant languages in Hong Kong, with the interplay between future subtractive LPP and teacher agency. Copyright © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This paper aims at extending the understanding of principal leadership in support of teachers' development of robot-based pedagogy for students in a cross-school professional learning community (PLC) of Hong Kong's special education. Sixty representative teachers from over 30 special schools, that is 50% of the total number of special schools, participated in the community over the past 2 years. The teachers not only developed the pedagogy but also observed and collaborated in the schools regarding their technological, pedagogical and content knowledge. The development of robot-based learning for individual students' different special educational needs is an innovative differentiated approach to fostering socially just learning in schools. The key research question is: How could teacher professional development of robot-based pedagogies for all students build a social-justice school? We adopted a qualitative cross-case study of four schools participating in the PLC. Although the professional development did not aim at principals' and teachers' social-justice practices for all students, the case study demonstrated the principals' leadership support and the teachers' enthusiasm for learning to change their pedagogies with the use of new robotic technology for socially just differentiated teaching. Implications of the cross-school PLC for building social-justice school communities are also discussed. Copyright © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This paper examined the effect of using an online collaborative learning platform on students’ learning outcomes in higher education. An online collaborative learning platform called GMoodle was implemented at The Education University of Hong Kong. To investigate the benefits and drawbacks of online collaborative learning, students were invited to complete the pre‐test and post‐test questionnaires to evaluate their learning outcomes. The quantitative and qualitative studies of 75 undergraduate students were conducted based on the pre‐test and post‐test questionnaires and focus group interviews, and the results showed that students’ learning outcomes especially self‐management skills and collaborative skills were enhanced through the online collaborative activities. In the pilot study, training was provided for in‐service and pre‐service teachers. Most of them reflected that GMoodle is a useful platform for educators to understand students’ learning progress, promote active collaboration and facilitate team teaching across different disciplines. Not only the students but also the teachers benefited from this online learning platform for collaborative learning, fair assessment, and team teaching. Copyright © 2019 The author.

Collaboration between students is particularly important in tertiary education because most courses include group activities in which they need to work together to reach a common goal. Unlike individual learning, collaborative learning involves interaction and cooperation. However, it is difficult to assess individual contributions in a group. Teachers usually collect the final product and give the same mark to all members in the group, so this may cause unfair marking and lead to conflicts in case of uneven workload. To encourage student collaboration and provide a reliable assessment system for teachers, we proposed an online evidence-based assessment system called GMoodle (https://gmoodle.eduhk.hk) with the Teaching Development Grant (TDG-T0210) in the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). GMoodle provides the basic functions of Moodle plus customized features including chatroom, Wiki and real-time progress report. It is a centralized platform for students to discuss, share resources and work out the solution together. Detailed reports, such as the number of posts/replies, weekly trend of contribution, ranking in group and class, can be retrieved by both students and teachers. The objectives of this system are to promote active and collaborative learning environment through peer motivation and facilitate an evidence-based assessment for setting assessment criteria and identifying free-riders. GMoodle was launched from September 2018 to April 2019 with 337 users involving 10 courses in IT, Mathematics, English language and law in EdUHK. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from pre/post-test survey, system log and focus group interviews. The effectiveness of GMoodle on group collaboration and assessment was evaluated by statistical analysis by SPSS using ANOVA and t-test. The results showed that the improvement of problemsolving skills and collaborative skills were statistically significance. Furthermore, decision tree was used to discover interesting

教學模式和教材應當創新，這種創新是「帶有目的」的，即為了讓學生更好地，並且更快樂地掌握中國語文能力，體會中華文化之美。本書收錄了十篇討論如何在語文與文化教學使用多媒體科技的論文及教材，作者既有香港教育大學人文學院專研語文教育的學者、也包括資深或新晉的前線中、小學老師，期望為學界提供兼備理論基礎和實踐分析的示例，拓闊中國語文教與學的視野，並聯繫香港中國語文教育「知識」、「共通能力」、「價值觀和態度」等核心理念，通過語文教育，呈現中華文化特色。Copyright © 2020 學術專業圖書中心.