One of the roles of music teacher education is to produce music teachers with proficiencies in delivering music education at different educational levels. The impact of the development of IT in education in Hong Kong has been tremendous. The Hong Kong Education Department and the teacher education institutions are urging teachers in every discipline (including music) to apply the technology to a certain proportion of teaching and learning. Teacher proficiency requirements in IT have been developed quickly. As such, the philosophy that has prompted the inclusion of technology in music teacher education must be evident. The paper aims to investigate some aspects of the philosophy behind promoting IT to a level of such importance. A paradigm shift has come about in the approaches of teaching and learning from teacher-centered to student-centered for a range of reasons including the advent of IT. The teacher has to take on more of a facilitator role in stimulating students to learn how to learn rather than teaching what to learn. This aligns with the advocacy of flexible and life-long learning which are prevailing thoughts in the education world nowadays. These generic values are to be considered with the more unique values of IT in music teacher education. A new philosophy could imply more drastic changes in education in the near future. This could affect music teacher education as well as music education. The issues of how far a philosophy will induce quality learning and whether this application of IT could equate to quality teaching are to be considered. In a world which calls for reflective thinking as well as quality assurance and excellence, it is hoped that this paper will contribute to the discussion on the philosophy of the application of IT in music teacher education.
[Copyright © 2001 Aichi University of Education.]

Computer-based technology, a relatively recent innovation, has taken an important place in both teacher education and in school education. In music teacher education programs, since computer-based music technology has been included in Hong Kong, it is the concern of music teacher educators to know how well their student teachers are implementing what they have learnt, and whether what they have learnt are practical. This paper reports on an investigation of the perception of a class of music student teachers on the curriculum of a computer-based music technology course, the self evaluation of their standard after taking the course and how well they have applied the technology to their music teaching and learning. The data has been collected through a questionnaire administered to the students at the end of a music technology course and then a phone interview of these students when they were teaching in schools. The analysis of the data revealed situations encountered by these music teachers. Recommendations are made regarding further development of the computer-based music technology curriculum in the music teacher education programs.
[Copyright © 2003 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

Teachers may be one major agent in shaping students’ gender identities construction through schooling. This paper reports the rationale, development and evaluation of a “women studies modules” at the Hong Kong Institute of Education which uses teachers’ subjectivities and lived gender experiences in its conceptualization. Post-structural theory of fluid gender identity is used as conceptual framework. Evaluation of the module draws particularly on two cohorts (the 2004 and 2004 year groups). Data were obtained from student teachers’ personal reflections in their end-of-term paper as well as end-of-module open ended evaluation questions. Student teachers reported awareness of gender lived gender practices. Implications of this module to teaching education and gender equity education are discussed.
[Copyright © 2008 Nova Science Publishers.]

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.

This chapter presents the Unified Professional Development Project for Teachers and Student Teachers (UPDP), an educational initiative at the Department of Curriculum Studies, the University of Hong Kong. UPDP attempted to link teacher education with school improvement and was committed to enhancing the professional development of teachers from teacher preparation throughout their entire teaching careers by means of collaboration between Hong Kong schools and the University of Hong Kong in partnership. This chapter describes the major components of UPDP – the School-University Partnership Scheme, the Unified Professional Development Fellowship, and the School-based Development Consultancy. It also examines the project’s impact on schools, particularly student teachers and school mentoring teachers, and how UPDP interacted with the culture of the schools to contribute to teachers’ learning and professional development. It also explores the possible contributions of the development of a mentoring force in schools to improving the quality of education in Hong Kong.
[Copyright © 2004 The Chinese University Press, Hong Kong Institute of Educational Research.]

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.]

中、小學體育教師在全面實施素質教育，培養具有創新精神和實踐能力的新型人材中扮演著重要的角色。高等師範院校體育教育專業則是培養和訓練這支跨世紀新型體育師資隊伍的搖籃。如何在體育教育專業的教學大綱和課程設置中體現實踐的重要性，創造機會讓學生走出課堂，通過觀摩、交流和實踐的手段來提高其教學能力，是關係到能否培養出適應未來挑戰的中小學體育師資的關鍵。本文介紹了香港教育學院體育及運動科學系舉辦的首次體育沉浸課程 (Immersion Program)(中國─江蘇) 2002 交流活動，並就該課程的目標、內容、效果進行了分析，及在對香港中、小學體育教學的現狀與內地體育教學進行了比較後，作者探討了香港體育教育專業教學改革的方向，並提出了一些可行的建議，以供香港體育工作者參考。
[Copyright © 2003 Department of Physical Education, Hong Kong Baptist University.]

《比比和朋友》是一個為期 24週的校本課程，旨在促進兒童的社交發展及情緒健康，增強兒童的抗逆能力。本文闡述在香港進行的《比比和朋友》培訓計劃，並說明兒童和老師在計劃中的得益。
[Copyright © 2007 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]