Purpose - In the current study, the author tests a conceptual model in which teachers' knowledge and skills of multiculturalism and teaching relationship (cultural harmony) are associated with developmentally appropriate practices (DAPs), developmentally appropriate (DABs), developmentally inappropriate beliefs and developmentally inappropriate practices (DIPs) in the classroom.Design/methodology/approach - Participants were 347 preschool teachers from 12 preschools including 342 women ( 98.6%) and five men (1.4%) aged 24–45 years located across all five districts of Hong Kong. The hypothesized model of multicultural teaching competency as a predictor of DABs and DAPs is confirmed in the present study.Findings - Multicultural teaching knowledge can enhance developmentally appropriate teaching beliefs and practices and reduce DIPs. It is highly recommended that multicultural education can be embedded in early childhood education (ECE) programs for both in-service and preservice teachers.Originality/value - A new conceptual model of teachers' knowledge and skills of multiculturalism and teaching relationship (cultural harmony) associated with DABs, developmentally inappropriate beliefs and DAPs in the classroom was firstly examined. Copyright © 2020 Emerald Publishing Limited.

There has been little effort in developing life education programmes that focus on students’ character strengths and life skills, which can help them solve present and future life challenges. In this presentation, we propose a strength-based programme focusing on positive value and life education delivered using educational technology for primary, secondary, and university students in Hong Kong. This programme aims to cultivate students’ character strengths, foster their leadership and entrepreneurship, and optimize their human functioning. To introduce and cultivate positive life values, internet technology and mobile application are the most cost-effective approaches to address students’ needs for feasibility, practicality, and sustainability. The life education programme can consist of several modules for different learning objectives, tailored to a target population, with each module focusing on a specific theme consisting of hands-on experiential learning exercises. Gamification techniques to enhance the learning experience and promote engagement in the exercises will be discussed. Through rigorous scientific methods, the effectiveness of this programme for enhancing students’ character strengths, positive life values, leadership and entrepreneurship, and life functioning can be assessed. This presentation will provide valuable insight into the development of positive value and life education programmes using educational technology in Hong Kong and beyond.關注學生性格優勢和生活技巧的生命教育課程有助於他們戰勝目前乃至未來生活中的挑戰。但在這些課程的開發方面，我們的努力還遠遠不夠。在本次簡報中，我們提出了一個「強項為本」項目。該項目致力於通過教育科技向本港大中小學生傳遞正向價值觀和推行生命教育，旨在發揮學生的性格優勢，培養領導能力和創業精神，並充分挖掘和激發他們的個人潛能。在引進和培養正向人生價值觀方面，網絡科技和手機程式因其靈活性、實用性和可持續性成為滿足學生所需最具成本效益的方法。生命教育課程由不同模塊組成，每一模塊均為特定目標群體度身打造，各有學習目標，並附設不同主題的實戰演練。此外，我們還將探討在課程中加入遊戲化技巧以加強學習體驗並提升實戰演練的參與程度。我們將採用嚴謹的科學方法對本項目在增強學生性格優勢、樹立正面人生價值觀、培養領導能力和創業能力及激發人生潛能方面的有效性進行評估。希望本次簡報能對本港乃至其他地區以教育科技推行正面價值觀和生命教育之項目有所啟發。 Copyright © 2019 Learning & Teaching Expo.

Student-driven approaches have generated positive results in student development. This study reports a Students as Learning Experience Designers (Student-LED) Project as one example of employing student-driven approaches to develop learning abilities, leadership skills and reflective habits, in the context of the new senior secondary curriculum reform in Hong Kong. In such reform, schools are encouraged to offer other learning experiences (OLE) to facilitate students’ all-round development. This Student-LED project can be seen as pioneering in its cultural context and for the target participants. Students in Hong Kong were traditionally described as lacking independence, which seemed to contradict the premise of student-driven approaches. The present study as a pilot shows that Hong Kong secondary school students could potentially benefit from a student-driven approach. Sense of autonomy and positional leadership opportunities were found to be important factors to student learning. The concerns of students and teachers during the process were also identified through reflective statements. This study provided some insights into the use of student-driven approaches with Hong Kong learners. Copyright © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Private tutoring, or shadow education, has become a widespread phenomenon globally. Its growth can be attributed to the expansion of cram schools offering live and video tutoring. This study critically analyses students' perceptions of video-recorded classes. Specifically, it problematises students' preference for video-recorded classes by exploring their reasons for enrolment and their perspective on the benefits and shortcomings of video tutoring in a Hong Kong cram school. It adopts an exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach. Data were collected through classroom observations, student interviews and questionnaire. The findings reveal that students chose video-recorded classes mainly because of their flexibility of timeslots and locations. A critical discussion of the findings unveils students' contradictory attitude towards the presence of tutors in classrooms, their preference for passive learning and anxiety about tutor–tutee interactions. This study contributes to the growing literature of shadow education and offers implications for potential policy change in the private tutoring context. Copyright © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The purpose of this study is to examine students’ creative thinking skills in STEAM-based activities by using the Makey Makey invention kit in designing the human-centred design instruments (HCDIs). Human-centred design is a process of designing for people (IDEO, 2011). This research aims to investigate the application of students’ creative thinking skills in developing solution to problem in human perspectives in everyday life through designing the human-centred designed instruments with the combination of creative exchange of knowledge and personal experiences between the designers (students) and users in different age group.Data were collected from 264 adolescent females (n = 264) in the age between 11 and 13, who had participated in the STEAM-based activities in a Hong Kong local secondary school. The STEAM project was provided through the school curriculum to examine the students’ level of creative thinking across disciplines in designing the human-centred design instruments (HCDIs) with Makey Makey to match the actual needs of different age groups, including children (aged 3-6), adults and elderly (aged over 65). The research objectives are concerned with the students’ involvement and attitude in participating the STEAM-based activities as well as their application of their creative thinking skills in the real-world context. The students’ experiences of thinking creatively were investigated through the five stages of creative thinking under the framework of “Creative Learning Spiral” by Mitch Resnick (2007) in STEAM-based activities in Hong Kong context.Pre- and post-treatment attitudinal questionnaires, two class observations and four interviews with both teachers and students were conducted to examine the change of students’ attitude towards creative thinking. Data findings revealed that 1) a slight increase in the students’ level of attitude change towards creative thinking through designing the human-centred design instruments (HCDIs) with the invention kit

This study presents a systematic review of previous research on e-book-based language learning. E-book-based language learning has been increasingly investigated in the field of language education, whereas previous review studies of relevant literature were relatively low in volume and incomprehensive from aspects of research participants and research perspectives. In the present study, we identified 52 relevant journal articles on e-book-based language learning published in the recent decade, coding them from three dimensions: methodology, e-book devices and features, and research issues and findings. The results indicated that: (a) most studies on e-book-based language learning were of a large sample size and one-session investigation; (b) pre-school children and university students were the most frequently investigated sample groups; (c) computers and tablets were the most frequently used devices; (d) multimedia, feedback giving, gamification and personalisation were the four features most frequently applied in enhancing the efficiency of e-book-based language learning; (e) researchers collected and processed data mainly through pre- and post-tests and group comparisons; (f) learning outcomes, learning behaviours and learners’ psychological states were investigated in most studies, whereby the findings indicated overall positive effects of e-book on language learning. Copyright © 2020 Laboratory for Knowledge Management & E-Learning, The University of Hong Kong.

The education reform in Hong Kong advocated the Project Approach as an effective pedagogy to support childrens' learning through exploration and play. This paper outlines a case study of a Hong Kong kindergarten which implemented the project approach using a picture book and digital picture book as a stimulus to begin the project topic and develop the inquiry process. The qualitative data sources included analysis of documentation such as teacher lesson plans, teacher questionnaire on reflection, documentation of children's works and activity photos of the project. The findings revealed that picture book was a good stimulus to arouse children's interest. The children were observed to be highly engaged in the investigation and the benefits from the picture book in project were not limited to literacy learning but also integrated learnings such as in the domains of music and movement, drama, and science. Additionally, the project provided opportunities to use the 21st skills of collaborating, communicating, creativity and critical thinking. The case also acts as an example of implementing the project approach in a non-Western context and recommendations are made for Hong Kong early child educators who participate the education reform. Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). All Rights Reserved.

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.