Gifted students usually require much less time spent in practising and revising basic skills; instead, they benefit greatly from opportunities to work through the curriculum at a faster pace (acceleration). Teachers currently working with mixed-ability classes do not always find it easy to differentiate their teaching approach in this way, so there is a need to facilitate in-service professional development to provide teachers with practical strategies for implementing effective differentiation for gifted learners. In response, a project for primary school teachers was organized by a university in Hong Kong. The purposes of the project were (a) to "enhance the confidence of teachers" in planning and delivering differentiated lessons in specific key learning areas (KLAs) with particular reference to gifted students; (b) to "empower teachers with knowledge and strategies" necessary for designing and implementing a differentiated curriculum in KLA domains and (c) to establish a "professional development practice" that connects local academics with schools and teachers. The project was implemented by inviting curriculum leaders, panel chairpersons and subject teachers from primary schools to attend a 3-hour lecture and a 6-hour workshop in which differentiation practices were explored. The project was later evaluated based on feedback from participants and university consultants. Overall, the feedback was positive, but suggestions are provided here for enhancing future projects of a similar nature.
[Copyright of Gifted Education International is the property of SAGE Publications]

STEM（科學、科技、工程與數學）教育，是近年香港教育當局力推的教育項目，並由政府以專項撥款的形式支援學校推行（小學為十萬港元、中學為二十萬港元）。政府在 2015年發表諮詢文件，並且計劃在 2016 年起的三個學年，推出不同的項目以推行 STEM 教育。本文將以香港三所小學（浸信會天虹小學、天主教博智小學、慈幼英文學校）為例，透過他們推行 STEM 教育的經驗，檢視現時政策與學校實踐之間存在著什麼問題，並且以他們的經驗，嘗試為香港未來推行 STEM 教育提出建議，供各界參考。

This chapter reports on a one-year study, investigating how students in a primary school in Hong Kong advanced their content knowledge of science in a seamless inquiry-based learning environment leveraged by BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), taking the topic of “Flowers and Seeds” in the Biodiversity learning unit as an example. One teacher and 28 Grade 6 students were involved in this study. The students’ inquiry learning activities were documented using various apps. Qualitative data including pre-and post-domain tests, class observations, student artifacts, online postings and field notes were collected and analysed to examine students’ learning. The findings suggest that effective use of apps such as Skitch, Edmodo and Evernote with BYOD using an inquiry-based learning approach, could help younger students advance their knowledge in science, develop personalised learning skills and gain a better sense of ownership in science learning. In addition, the results indicate that tracing individual and group inquiry activities in multiple spaces can make the learning process and outcomes visible that may inform teachers and learners of their enhanced educational practices.

The trend to extend science education to include STEM education in the US in the recent decade also takes place in many other countries in the world. In Hong Kong, the future development in education proposed in the Policy Address 2015 included: “The Education Bureau will renew and enrich the curricula and learning activities of Science, Technology and Mathematics, and enhance the training of teachers, thereby allowing primary and secondary pupils to fully unleash their potential in innovation (item 152).” However, the integration of science with technology, mathematics and engineering is still to be established and further research along this line is necessary. Therefore, this study attempts to analyze the written reports in an inquiry project event for a better understanding of STEM activities demonstrated by the primary students. The primary students’ inquiry project reports were chosen from those 140 teams (with 4-5 members in a team) with 1000 primary students who were aged 10-12 participated in the 2015 “Innovations in Science and Environment Studies” event in Hong Kong. Under the main theme of “Go Green at Home”, the participating teams had to present the processes and results of their inquiry projects and to submit a written report which recorded their ideas, methodology and inquiry processes and results. 10 project reports were randomly chosen from each group of outstanding, merit and consolation projects with a total of 30 projects being analyzed. Content analysis was first conducted to code STEM activities demonstrated in each project report. The coded data were then changed into numerical data for quantitative analysis. The results showed that more engineering and science activities were adopted than technology and mathematics activities in the inquiry projects. Outstanding group conducted more STEM activities than the merit and consolation groups and significant group differences existed in science and mathematics activities. Furthermore, science activities

The English and Chinese reading proficiency of 1376 Grade 4 students in 24 Hong Kong primary schools were assessed using measures developed for the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study. Students' parents provided information about home reading activities (HRA) aimed at supporting their children's reading prior to them entering school ("early home reading activities", EHRA) and during Grade 4 ("home reading activities"). Results indicated that EHRA was a stronger predictor of reading performance in both Chinese and English than HRA. Moreover, 'typical' HRA such as reading books, telling stories and singing songs were found to be predictive of reading performance in both Chinese and English. In English, in addition, playing word games or character puzzles were also activities beneficial to reading performance. Together, these results provide evidence for the beneficial effects of traditional early childhood activities at home such as book reading, telling stories and singing songs for reading performance in later primary school in children's first as well as second language.
[© Australian Council for Educational Research 2017]

Social diversity is now commonplace in many communities in today's globalised world. This diversity can be seen in any classroom of learners, and international studies have shown the complex ways in which disabilities, race, ethnicity, gender and social class can determine a child's opportunity to succeed or fail in the education system. In Hong Kong, like in many educational contexts around the world, teachers are grappling with increasing diversity amongst their students, including teaching students with special educational needs (SEN) and non-Chinese speaking students (NCS) living in Hong Kong. This paper examines how three primary TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) teachers are constructing identities as inclusive practitioners as they grapple with enacting the inclusive education policy recently introduced into Hong Kong schools. The data are drawn from a small-scale collaborative reflective inquiry for teacher professional development. Drawing upon a sociocultural and critical framing of identity theory, we trace the three teachers' identity construction as EFL teachers and inclusive education practitioners. We view the role of discourse, self-positioning and social context as key processes in teacher identity formation. Implications for furthering the development of inclusive education in EFL classrooms are offered.

The Hong Kong Education Bureau recommends that primary school pupils' mathematical achievement be enhanced via collaborative discussions engendered by group work. This pedagogic change may be hindered by Confucian heritage classroom practices and Western-dominated group work approaches that predominate in Hong Kong. To overcome these obstacles, we introduced a relational approach to group work in a quasi-experimental study. Our sample included 20 teachers randomly allocated to experimental (12) and control (8) conditions and their 504 mathematics pupils (aged 9-10). The relational approach focused on the development of peer relationships in a culturally appropriate manner and was implemented over 7 months. Pupils were pre-/post-tested for mathematical achievement and systematically observed, and the teachers were assessed for subject knowledge and pre-/post-tested for pedagogic efficacy. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) results show enhanced mathematical achievement, supported by improved peer-based communication skills and time-on-task for the experimental pupils. Experimental teachers raised their pedagogic efficacy. Results indicate the potential of the relational approach for boosting academic achievement via enhanced child-peer-teacher interaction and the need to reassess the role of peer-based latent collectivist learning in Confucian heritage classrooms.

As digital technology is increasingly a part of all sectors of society, educational approaches must be developed in order to nurture students’ ability to see the world through a computational lens. One way to achieve this goal is to promote Computational Thinking (CT) for young learners. The CoolThink@JC project is a four-year curriculum pilot designed to integrate CT into Hong Kong upper-primary level schools. The CoolThink framework for curriculum development is structured around computational concepts, practices and perspectives adapted from the framework of Brennan and Resnick (2012). This adapted framework motivated the choice of learning activities for CoolThink. This paper focuses on one aspect of that framework, namely computational practices. Here, we describe how activities in the CoolThink curriculum can promote the computational practices highlighted by the framework.
[Copyright © 2017 The Hong Kong Jockey Club.]

This study adopted a researcher-generated framework to analyze STEM activities demonstrated in primary students' science projects in an annual extracurricular event held in Hong Kong. Ten students' project reports were randomly selected from each of the three groups of 24 outstanding, 45 merit, and 68 consolation awarded projects. Content analysis was conducted to code the activities in each project. The coded information was then changed into numerical data for quantitative analysis. The results showed that, in general, more engineering and science activities than technology and mathematics activities were adopted by the primary students in their projects. More projects with the Outstanding Award conducted STEM activities than those projects with Merit and Consolation Awards, and significant group differences existed in the science and mathematics activities. Besides, science activities significantly positively related to engineering and mathematics activities. Furthermore, STEM-related content knowledge of discipline core ideas and crosscutting concepts were reported. This study sheds light on the pattern of STEM activities in students' science projects, and has implications for promoting STEM integration in primary education.
[Copyright © 2017 Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan.]