In this paper, taking as our point of departure the importance of China's " boya " education (BYE) and the West's liberal arts education (LAE) in an era that will be increasingly dominated by information technology (IT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), we examine the importance of BYE in Mainland China and LAE in the U.S. and Hong Kong. We argue that (a) the recent resurgence and growing significance of LAE in the world has been due to the right skill sets it provides in the information technology era in which many new jobs will be created and existing jobs destroyed ; (b) professional or technical training is not only compatible with the fundamental values of boya or liberal arts but also important in showcasing the strengths of BYE and LAE; (c) the combined benefits of BYE or LAE and professional or technical training may be achieved by adopting the main features of LAE such as its broad-based curriculum and whole-person development approach to undergraduate education or by combining a student's undergraduate and postgraduate studies over time; and (d) for BYE to achieve its goals in China it should occupy a central rather than tangential role in the undergraduate curriculum. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier.

This study adopted a case-study approach to examine how associate degree sociology graduates evaluate their learning in a Hong Kong community college. Through focus group interviews, the learning experiences of sociology graduates were examined, specifically paying attention to their identification of enhancements in learning. The results of this examination indicate that the delivery of sociology education requires a strong emphasis on the integration of acquisition of sociology knowledge with social practice. It is important to consider how the curriculum engages the worldview of students beyond the personal and allows them to directly experience the social in a way that reflects what is going on around them. This study contributes to the discussion on the quality of associate degree education in Hong Kong and highlights the centrality of examining the issue from the point of view of students, particularly in the context of outcome-based education. Copyright © 2021 SAGE Publications.

Background: Holistic competencies comprise various holistic skills (e.g., communication) and positive values and attitudes (e.g., empathy). There have been increasing efforts worldwide to foster students' holistic competency development within engineering curricula. While recent studies indicate a positive shift, it remains unclear whether such efforts are driven by only a handful of individuals or more widely supported by systemic changes to constructively align competency development with the engineering curriculum. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study investigates the extent to which endeavors to promote holistic competency development in Hong Kong's tertiary engineering education are supported by a broader, constructively aligned curricular system. The three key components of constructive alignment developed by Biggs in 2003—intended outcomes, teaching activities, and assessment—form the conceptual framework guiding this study. Design/Method: This study conducted document analysis of 245 engineering courses and interviews with five engineering instructors from three Hong Kong universities. Results: Only 34 of 245 syllabi analyzed incorporated holistic competencies in their intended outcomes. These outcomes were associated with both traditional and experiential pedagogies but were not matched with direct or explicit assessments. Data show that program leaders' conceptions of holistic competencies, instructor's limited capabilities, and issues assessing competencies pose challenges to constructive alignment. Conclusions: Challenges for achieving constructive alignment and recommendations for addressing them are discussed. Our findings highlight the need to train all levels of engineering instructors in student holistic competency development, to acquaint instructors with industrial experiences and expectations, to develop top‐down and bottom‐up reforms to refine engineering curricula, and to provide increased recognition for teaching quality and efforts. Copyright © 2021

This study aimed to examine the relationships between motivational variables, self-regulated writing strategy use and writing competence with 511 fourth graders in Hong Kong. The high writing achievers reported a higher level of motivation, i.e. self-efficacy, task values (i.e. interest and utility) and growth mindset in English writing than the low writing achievers. The high achievers also used various self-regulated writing strategies more frequently than their low achieving counterparts. Self-efficacy and growth mindset were found to be almost equally important predictors of strategy use, while the impacts of interest and utility were weaker. The results indicated that self-regulated learning and competence in English writing can be improved through the promotion of motivation. This study highlights the influence of the social-cultural context on motivation. More importantly, growth mindset may emerge as a new research agenda in English as a Second/Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) writing. Copyright © 2021 Routledge.

The critical mass of modern educational provision in Hong Kong has long been provided by the private sector. The public education system was created by the charities and religious bodies during the colonial period, though the government was later involved in the management of the system (see Choi & Kan, forthcoming, for the development of educational governance in Hong Kong). Thus, the presence of the private sector in ‘public’ schooling has long been the norm. When the educational privatisation trend, which started in the US and UK in the 1980s, reached Hong Kong, the government opened doors for further privatisation of public schooling, in the form of educational outsourcing. Educational outsourcing soon became prevalent: a document-based study on outsourcing in English teaching in a third of publicly funded secondary schools (Choi, 2018) showed that three-quarters of schools outsourced, with three contracts per year on average. However, the practice did not draw much attention from the public or scholars, in this ‘already outsourced’ education system (Bates, Choi, & Kim, 2019, p. 10). The lack of attention partly came from the fact that the introduction of educational outsourcing was subtle. It was conducted as part of a wider initiative of the privatisation of public services and occurred through system change rather than through legislation or policy. For instance, the Education Bureau (EDB), a counterpart of the Ministry of Education of some countries, instituted the School-based Management (SBM). The SBM allowed for schools to deploy their funds with maximum autonomy. EDB additionally created funds to support schools through outsourcing. Because English is recognised as a crucial social capital for securing higher education and prestigious jobs, schools mobilised the extra funds to purchase English teaching, making it the most popular area for outsourcing (Choi, Walker, Tang, Ko, & Chiu, 2018). Drawing on data collected through three interrelated research projects

The purpose of this study was to explore how instrumental teachers reflect their professional development pathways with reference to their own apprenticeship experiences. The participants were three female instrumental teachers who taught the piano and violin. Reflections of teachers’ own learning experiences on their career pathways and professional development were collected from the participants through interviews, teaching diaries, and field notes. Several themes emerged from the data collected over an approximately six-month period. First, all the participants experienced long musical apprenticeships. Second, the teachers rarely perceived pedagogical skills are ‘learnable’ skills as performing skills. Finally, all the teachers were only interested in practical, examination-oriented professional development programmes, as opposed to academic or pedagogically-oriented outcomes such as journals or conferences. The unitisation of professional development choices would appear to be the most urgent and pressing problem faced by instrumental teachers. Copyright © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Purpose - This study investigated the effectiveness of a professional development project on digital citizenship education (DCE) conducted by a team at the Education University of Hong Kong. The project aimed to promote digital citizenship education in local junior secondary schools in Hong Kong and support the professional development of in-service teachers.Design/methodology/approach - This study was based on a departmental knowledge transfer and curriculum development project that provided professional development training workshops to in-service teachers from seven partner schools. This paper analyses some findings from the quantitative research questionnaires, lesson observations and qualitative interviews.Findings - Eleven of the 12 participants reported that they were satisfied with the training workshops in the end. We also conducted paired sample t-tests of inferential data. The results show that after the workshops, the teachers tended to teach their students more about aspects of digital law, digital commerce and digital safety and security when teaching digital citizenship. This selection helps us to better understand the priorities of teachers in teaching digital citizenship.Originality/value - This paper is the product of an original knowledge transfer and curriculum development project supported by the Education University of Hong Kong in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong SAR) of China. The topic of digital citizenship education has also been under developed since citizenship education has always been about conventional citizenship in the physical world. Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited.

The Education Bureau (EDB) of Hong Kong has published an official document related to computational thinking (CT) and coding education in 2020, named as the “Computational Thinking - Coding Education: Supplement to the Primary Curriculum”, to facilitate teaching and learning of computational thinking and coding education in local senior primary schools. At the same time, the Curriculum Development Council (CDC) of Hong Kong has also encouraged and recommended schools to promote a school-based CT education, to meet the needs of 21st century learners. To examine the effect that integrating computational thinking into mathematics education in senior primary education, a 3-year research will be conducted from January, 2021 to December, 2023, to demonstrate the importance of the concepts of integrated teaching which may change teachers’ views from teaching computational thinking to programming independently, to considering teaching computational thinking as applicable to any other fields, especially in mathematics education. In addition, the study aims at helping computational thinking educator to understand what computational thinking is, how to teach computational thinking in mathematics education as an integrated subject, and to develop computational thinking educator the essential skills and pedagogical knowledge in teaching computational thinking activities. Copyright © 2021 Global Chinese Conference on Computers in Education.

隨著世界“漢語熱”和漢語的國際推廣，對外漢語教學各方面取得顯著進步，但漢字教學整體方面還相對薄弱。筆者認為，這與漢字的性質有關。對外漢語的漢字教學，可以從解決漢字與拼音文字的性質差異著手，針對不同程度的學生，設計相對應的教學活動和遊戲，可以幫助提高學生漢字學習的興趣和提升學習動機。漢語漢字是世界三大古典文字之一，屬於獨立形成的文字體系，即兼用意符和聲符的文字。這對於單純使用音符的拼音文字為母語的學生而言，具有很大的學習難度。漢語作為第二語言的教學和學習，既包括了口頭語的教與學，也包括了書面語的教與學。漢語書面語的教與學，自然離不開語言的書寫系統，也就是漢字教學。因此，漢字教學在對外漢語教學中佔據重要地位，同時一直被認為是漢語國際教學中的難點，學生學習的動機不強，學習興趣也不高。本研究以香港及深圳共三所不同背景的國際學校為對象，根據不同中文程度的學生，設計相對應的漢字學習遊戲，讓學生在遊戲中學習，通過參與遊戲的學生進行投票，統計分析學生最感興趣的漢字學習遊戲，並且結合國際學校教師的訪談和反饋，得出提高學習動機的漢字識字教學方法。希望能夠通過本研究，為國際學校漢語教師提供針對不同學習背景及不同中文程度的學生，學習漢字的有效途徑和方法，提升實際教學中，學生學習漢字的興趣和動機。 Copyright © 2019 國際漢語教學研討會.