This work-in-progress poster discusses our preliminary work on exploring the possibility of harnessing spherical video-based immersive virtual reality (SV-IVR) in learning and teaching of Physical Geography. In particular, it focuses on delineating (i) the rationale behind our initiative, and (ii) the proposed direction of how to adopt SV-IVR in the context of formal schooling in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2019 Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.

Until the reforms of the late 1990s, the music curriculum for Hong Kong primary schools focused largely on singing, instrumental playing and listening. Musical creativity, on the other hand, had been largely neglected. In 1997, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China announced that Hong Kong would be transformed to become a ‘knowledge-based’ society. The old school curriculum deemed to be deficient in terms of the intended policy initiatives. A reform of the education system took place with nine generic skills, in which creativity is regarded as one of the main foci, being introduced.Undoubtedly influenced by a large body of research findings that support the contention that Information Technology is a powerful tool for assisting students to learn to compose music, fourteen primary schools in Hong Kong have been set up with computer-based music rooms with the financial support of the Quality Education Fund (QEF). Of these fourteen schools, twelve have focused on the application of technology on musical creativity and teachers in these schools employ various forms of information technology to promote learning through creative music activities. Some methods have proven successful while others have been less so.This paper discusses the implementation of technology-based teaching of musical creativity and analyses the teaching strategies used by the twelve QEF-supported schools. The paper concludes by proposing alternative technology-based strategies — derived from the experience of other countries — that may have the potential to increase the effectiveness of teaching for musical creativity in Hong Kong schools. Copyright © 2005 School of Music, University of Washington.

This paper discusses how IT changes the way of teaching and learning of music composition at school. Four music teachers in Hong Kong took part in a series of semi-structured interviews. They described how they had employed IT in teaching music composition and what types of musical products their students were able to create. It was found that the teachers were simply substituting IT for paper and pencil to notate musical pieces, and they were using a rather traditional “practice and drill” approach to teach music composition. A teaching framework, called Pedagogical Framework for Music Composition with Information Technology (PFMCIT), was thus formulated. The purpose of the framework is to promote the more effective student-centered approach in teaching music composition. It is hoped that the framework can help to improve pre-service and in-service music teachers’ knowledge and skills in the area of IT-assisted music composition education, and to establish a better technological environment for teachers to develop students’ creativity. Copyright © 2012 International Society for Music Education (ISME).

Many Hong Kong Chinese parents believe that music training enhances the academic achievement of their children. The current study investigates the relationship between the extent and outcome of students' music training, their perceptions of the value of the subjects they study and their academic achievement. A total of 286 students in Primary 4, 5 and 6 from one school in Hong Kong reported the extent and outcome of their music training, including the number of instruments they studied, the number of years spent training, highest grade and highest level achieved. For value, students completed a subscale of the Achievement Task Value Questionnaire to measure their "liking and interest," perceived "importance" and "usefulness" of their school subjects. A nested structural equation model showed that, for both boys and girls, the extent and outcome of music training positively predicts academic achievement in Chinese, English and mathematics. Furthermore, the model shows that for both boys and girls, students' perceived value of their school subjects negatively predicts academic achievement in Chinese, and age has a direct and negative effect on mathematics achievement. For girls, age positively moderates the extent and outcome of music training on academic achievement whereas the moderator effect of age on students' perceived value of academic subjects is non-significant. For boys, in contrast, the moderator effect of age on extent and outcome of music training is non-significant, whereas its effect on students' perceived value of academic subjects is negative. In broad terms, the results show that parents are justified in believing that music training is positively related to academic achievement. However, the results differ for boys and girls in connection to the role of age in this relationship.
[Copyright of Research Studies in Music Education is the property of Sage Publications Ltd.]

戲劇教育自1980到1990年代輸入臺灣和香港的幼兒教育，作為一個課程改革的方法，過去多數研究集中在教學的實踐，很少以社會文化對照的角度分析這個來自西方的教育模式在地化過程。本文以「全球在地化」的理論，運用視像人種誌的研究方法，透過臺港兩地教學案例，探索與描述兩地幼兒機構進行戲劇教育全球在地化的實踐。研究結果發現，在戲劇教育模式、課程定位及教學方法等面向，臺灣具有調和、主軸及兒童本位的特點，而香港則是單一、邊陲與劇藝的特性。究其因多半和社會文化背景、教育體制、教師培訓和戲劇教育推動方式等方面的差異有關。另外，兩地戲劇教育研究員也從對話中找到可互相參考的全球在地化策略，做為未來亞洲國家發展戲劇教育在地化的借鏡。As a pedagogy for curriculum innovation, drama education was introduced to Taiwan and Hong Kong early childhood education in the period between 1980 and 1990. Previous studies have mostly focused on the use of drama education, but rarely looked into the localization of this western teaching mode from a socio-cultural perspective. Based on the theories of glocalization, this paper examined lesson samples from Taiwan and Hong Kong by visual ethnography to explore and describe the processes and modes of glocalization of drama education in the two regions. The results showed that with respect to the drama education approaches, curriculum positions and teaching methods, Taiwan implements drama education with a mixture of various approaches and views it as a child-centered, core practice, while Hong Kong uses it in a relatively homogeneous, peripheral and theatrical manner. This discrepancy mostly resulted from different colonization backgrounds, education policies, teacher trainings and ways of promoting drama education. In addition, through dialogues the researchers of drama education from these two regions have made reference to each other's strategies of glocalizing drama education, with which they may provide suggestions for the attempt to localize drama education in other Asian countries. Copyright © 2018 中華民國課程與教學學會.

The implementation of a school-based integrated curriculum enables schools to plan a balanced, flexible and coherent curriculum in order to reduce subject specification, especially in kindergartens. Despite kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) being encouraged to integrate music content across subject areas, these boundaries still exist and prove challenging. This instrumental case study shows how one kindergarten teacher attempted to integrate other subjects into the music curriculum through movement and games, and encourage children's creativity. Eight detailed observations of music lessons and an interview with the kindergarten teacher depict her efforts at integration. Findings show that some progress was made and that the support of the principal was pivotal. They also suggest ways in which kindergarten teachers might begin to incorporate more creative integrated approaches to music education and have some applicability to other kindergarten settings where transmission approaches tend to dominate and teachers want to encourage music integration and children's musical creativity. Copyright © 2018 Cambridge University Press.

綜合課程是香港幼稚園的主流模式，但音樂及其他藝術科目的學習卻未被有效的綜合與融入現有課程之中。本文以藝術範疇中的「音樂」科目作為核心，以綜合藝術中的音樂活動為例，詳細介紹在幼稚園運用「視覺組織圖表」(graphic organizers) 進行綜合藝術課程的理論與方法。透過「視覺組織圖表」及相關教學範例的展示，與教師分享如何以趣味的音樂活動來推動幼兒的綜合藝術學習，從而促進本港幼稚園實施有效的綜合藝術課程，確保兒童全面和充分的發展。
[Copyright © 2013 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

This study attempts to explore the implementation of the New Senior Secondary (NSS) music curriculum and senior secondary school music teachers’ perceptions towards the NSS music curriculum in developing students’ creativity. In Hong Kong education reform, the necessity of developing students’ creativity was emphasized and “developing students’ creativity” was addressed as one of the four learning targets of music education. As the last step of Hong Kong education reform, senior secondary curriculum reform has been implemented in 2009. Compared with the previous senior secondary music curriculum, the NSS music curriculum contains more diversified teaching contents and assessment methods. Besides, since senior secondary students who select music as one of their elective subjects have to participate in a public examination, and the results directly related to whether they can be accepted by universities, senior secondary music teachers who are undertaking to teach the NSS music lessons are under a pressure of assisting students to get a positive result in the public examination. Under this circumstance, to what extent the learning target “developing students’ creativity” can be achieved through undertaking the NSS music should be further studied. In this study, seven in-service senior secondary music teachers were invited to share their arrangements of offering the NSS music and their perceptions towards the NSS music curriculum in developing students’ creativity. Since “Creating” was stated as the most effective module in developing students’ creativity in the NSS music curriculum guide, music teachers’ teaching practice for teaching the “Creating” part was asked particularly. Findings indicate that 1) the NSS music was only offered by a few of senior secondary schools; 2) most of the interviewees displayed a positive attitude towards the importance of creativity; and 3) most of the interviewees considered that students’ creativity cannot be significantly developed through

Music listening occupies a central part of music studies at all levels of education. However, according to the relevant research, teachers have been emphasizing students’ cognitive responses with limited connection to the affective domain during. Undergraduate music majors have little interest in those teaching materials chosen by their teachers. This study is based on motivation theory, which emphasizes cognitive and affective responses during the learning process as well as requiring teachers to understand students’ behaviors, thoughts and feelings. The aim of this study is to investigate and explore teachers’ beliefs and pedagogies toward students’ affective responses during music listening in higher education under the context of mainland China and Hong Kong. The following two research questions guide the whole study: a) what are university music teachers’ beliefs and pedagogies toward affective response during music listening and learning in higher education? (b) How do their teaching pedagogy represent their belief? This study uses a mixed-method approach and includes two phases. Phase I aims to investigate the current situation regarding teachers’ belief and pedagogy towards affective responses while listening and learning to music. A questionnaire surveyed the views of 185 university music teachers recruited from 17 universities in mainland China, together with ten university music teachers from two universities in Hong Kong. From the questionnaire survey findings, three major issues were identified by teachers and considered critical to informing their beliefs and pedagogies when teaching music: (1) the correlation between teachers’ beliefs and pedagogy, (2) perspectives and pedagogic strategies toward affective response in music listening and learning, and (3) the factors influence teachers’ beliefs and pedagogies. Phase II aims to explore what the teachers’ actually teaching and the influences upon teachers’ belief and pedagogy towards affective responses

Critical thinking is regarded as a higher-order thinking skill, which is important in developing a comprehensive competency in modern times. Nurturing children’s critical thinking at an early stage thus becomes an essential target that should be pursued by all school teachers. Facing such a trend, the Education Bureau of Hong Kong started to reform the school curriculum in 2000 in order to develop students’ generic skills through eight Key Learning Areas (KLA), one of which is Arts Education that includes Music. Nine generic skills, including critical thinking, have been identified that should be nurtured through all KLAs. Published in 2003, the Music Curriculum Guide (Curriculum and Development Council, 2003) proposed four learning targets for music. Among all, cultivating critical responses in music is the target achieved by the integrated learning activities of creating, performing and listening. Nevertheless, there are very limited studies investigating the extent to which current primary music teachers can nurture students’ critical thinking in Hong Kong. Furthermore, Hong Kong music teachers may not be capable of developing students’ critical thinking through these integrated activities. This study aims to examine the current situation of cultivating critical thinking in music in Hong Kong’s primary schools and explore how critical thinking skills can be effectively developed. A questionnaire, interviews and class observation were used to collect data for current situation of nurturing critical thinking skills in primary music lessons. The results of the study demonstrate a positive indication of the acceptance of and beliefs in the implementation of critical thinking skills in Hong Kong primary teachers. Difficulties are found that impeded the effectiveness of the implementation, namely, teachers’ professional commitments by using critical thinking skills, teachers’ understanding of and abilities for the implementation, students’ involvement and differentiation