'Liberal Studies' has been fervently promoted as an initiative aiming at redeeming the quality of education in Hong Kong for the past year. This paper is the result of a critical analysis of its discursive formation process and particularly explores how teachers' role has been defined. An extensive study based on government documents and media both printed and electronic will be conducted and analyzed. It is observed as revealed by the current discourse that the role of teachers has been shaped within a positivist paradigm, which conceptualizes knowledge construction and the notion of teaching and learning within an input-process-output model. Consequently, teachers only serve to implement what has been passed down, a role likening to a technician meant not for provoking thought. It is argued that the capacity of leading thought provoking dialogue, which a technician is by nature not able to accomplish, is the fundamental prerequisite for teachers who are entrusted to teach the subject of 'Liberal Studies'. This paper argues that the notion of 'Liberal Studies' has to be re-conceptualized within the post-positivist paradigm which considers knowledge as something that emerges inter-subjectively. It entails that the encounter between teachers and students plays a pivotal role in co-constructing the world. Knowledge constructed in such a way implies the importance of what Gadamer has coined the 'fusion of horizons', based on which Mikhail Bakhtin's and Martin Buber's dialogism will be used under the umbrella term 'dialogic hermeneutics' to assert that the key of cultivating the spirit of 'liberal studies' in our students is an ethical rather than a technical issue. In short, in response to the positivist's deficiency in shedding light on how 'Liberal Studies' should be oriented, a post-positivist way of thinking is proposed and is regarded more illuminating in terms of its emphasis on divergent thinking, which celebrates dialogue - the breeding ground for liberal inquiry

For the past 150 years, the government of Hong Kong has had no clear-cut policy on the implementation of moral and civic education in schools. So far, the Education and Manpower Bureau (previously the Education Department) has issued two Guidelines for schools' reference: the 1985 Guidelines and the 1996 Guidelines on Civic Education in Schools. The 1996 Guidelines seek to prepare young people to be responsible and participating citizens. To understand how civic education is implemented in Hong Kong schools, in 1999-2000, a working group of the Hong Kong Institute of Education carried out case studies of five secondary schools of different background. The study focused on the following areas: aims, curriculum planning and information, deployment of resources and teacher training, problems encountered and conductive factors. The conclusion is that school tradition, consensus of teaching staff, teachers' attitude and cooperation, teacher expertise, teaching resources and students' attitude are the main factors affecting the effectiveness of civic education.

This study investigated students' interpretation of diagrams representing the human circulatory system. We conducted an interview study with three students aged 14–15 (Year 10) who were studying biology in a Hong Kong school. During the interviews, students were asked to interpret diagrams and relationships between diagrams that represented aspects of the circulatory system. All diagrams used in the interviews had been used by their teacher when teaching the topic. Students' interpretations were expressed by their verbal response and their drawing. Dual coding theory was used to interpret students' responses. There was evidence that one student relied on verbal recall as a strategy in interpreting diagrams. It was found that students might have relied unduly on similarities in spatial features, rather than on deeper meanings represented by conventions, of diagrams when they associated diagrams that represented different aspects of the circulatory system. A pattern of students' understanding of structure–behaviour–function relationship of the biological system was observed. This study suggests the importance of a consistent diagrammatic and verbal representation in communicating scientific ideas. Implications for teaching practice that facilitates learning with diagrams and address students' undue focus on spatial features of diagrams are discussed.
Copyright of International Journal of Science Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2014.969359

This paper analyses and reports on the action processes of a Hong Kong secondary school adopting a multidisciplinary, project approach. It is written from an observer's perspective exploring the initiation, the nature, the learning activities and the assessment tasks of the student projects, teacher development programmes as well as the technical aspects of implementation. The author has observed how practitioners problematised and reconstructed habitual practices in a cyclical mode where they 'plan-act-observe-reflect' on their daily professional experience and developed practical knowledge. The yearlong processes depict key elements of an action research (Kemmis, 1988; Elliot, 2003). It is found that teachers' tacit knowledge had a significant impact on early identification of problems and suggesting solutions to ensure the smooth running of the curriculum. The learning logs and verbal presentations provided evidences that students had a sense of achievement wherever there were independent learning and decision-making. Both teachers and students reported team spirit, student-teacher rapport, and reflected enhanced self-efficacy. This matches what Katz and Chard (2000) describe as the '(cultivation) of the life of the young child's mind', which means not only knowledge and skills, but also social, emotional, moral, aesthetic and spiritual sensibilities. This paper also illustrates other multifaceted benefits to the school. Conscious of the impact of action research and the contributions of teachers' tacit knowledge in professional practice, the author argues that it is time for university academics or experienced researchers to help teachers publicize the 'tacit' to enrich the knowledge base for teaching and learning.

Physical education (PE) teachers of Hong Kong are now facing challenges like no other time before. In the current climate of education reform, PE teachers are now encouraged to provide a more holistic education to students, including learning goals related to social development, creativity, imagination, problem solving, as well as intellect. In order to attain these physical education goals, there is a heightened emphasis in the area of dance. However, the Hong Kong education culture stresses the academic subjects and dance is not usually a popular subject, although it is recognized as one of the components of PE. Physical education teachers' unwillingness to teach dance has been attributed to inadequate dance experience, lack of confidence, low interest, limited dance exposure, cultural differences between the East and West, and limited participation in dance training after graduation (Chow, 2001, 2002). Out of the many possible factors that limited dance instruction by PE teachers, teacher self-efficacy may be the most critical one. This study investigated the factors that influence pre-service PE teachers' decision to teach dance. Results provide information that may be used to enhance teacher self-efficacy with regard to teaching dance in Hong Kong.