This study aimed at using a mixture of direct observations and interviews to investigate kindergarten teachers' knowledge and pedagogical approaches to visual arts. An adapted version of the Early Childhood Teacher Behaviour Observation (ECTBO) instrument was used to investigate the possible reasons for teachers' current behaviours in Hong Kong visual arts classrooms. In an observation study, a total of 18 classrooms with 76 children in two local kindergartens in Hong Kong were observed during a 30-min visual arts activity. Altogether, 540 min of video data were recorded and analysed using field notes and a time sampling strategy. In addition, 18 class teachers from the observed classrooms were invited to give post-observation interviews, and 810 min of data were recorded. The interview participants supported the importance of non-directive early childhood arts. However, the observation findings revealed that they still relied heavily on directive teaching in implementing early visual arts teaching. Thus, a discrepancy was found between the teachers’ subject matter knowledge in visual arts and the integration of their pedagogies in their actual classroom practice. The findings of this study in a local setting have the potential to significantly change the way in which early childhood visual arts teaching is conceptualised and discussed in international contexts. Copyright © 2023 Elsevier.

Although visual arts teachers have free access to high quality online artwork images offering them immense teaching resources, making meaningful use of them remains a pedagogical challenge. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the transition from face-to-face to online teaching caused an immediate need for teachers to enhance their digital competencies and technological capability for planning and delivering a blended art curriculum. Herein, I propose a ‘teacher-curator pedagogy’ via a study in six primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong to assess its effectiveness. The study took place in the academic year of 2021-22 with 331 student participants. The proposed pedagogy puts visual arts teachers in the role of ‘digital curators’ who create virtual exhibitions for teaching art appreciation and artmaking. This paper addresses the theoretical framework, implementation strategies, and the results of the study highlighting its effectiveness, impact and limitations on teaching when using teacher-curated virtual exhibitions in both physical and virtual learning contexts. It was found that the technological capacity and confidence of the teacher participants was enhanced through the use of online resources and virtual exhibition tools. Making use of the 3D presentation of exhibits in themes and context through digital content curation, the teachers engaged students with deep interaction through the blending of online and face-to-face teaching. However, the proposed pedagogy was limited by the high demand of training and preparation work, hardware and software support, and difficulties in assessing and monitoring learning beyond class. Copyright © 2023 The Authors.

Adopting the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), this sequential mixed-methods research investigates Hong Kong kindergarten teachers’ reported beliefs and practices regarding early visual arts education (EVAE). The qualitative part (Phase 1) is an interview study of 19 kindergarten teachers in two focus groups, aiming to develop a conceptual structure of teachers’ behavioural, normative and control beliefs. The quantitative part (Phase 2) is a survey study of 243 teachers from the randomly sampled 21 kindergartens regarding their EVAE beliefs and practices. Most teachers believe in child-centred teaching while practising teacher-directed instruction and support creativity while delivering closed-ended instruction. Four influential factors are identified to account for this gap: (1) practising child-centred pedagogies as a result of behavioural beliefs; (2) undervaluing visual arts as a result of normative beliefs; (3) instructing children directly as a result of normative beliefs; and (4) delivering subject knowledge in studio teaching as a result of control beliefs. These findings imply that Hong Kong kindergarten teachers struggle between two approaches and suffer from a lack of support from educational authorities and society. There is an urgent need to develop appropriate practices for visual arts education in Hong Kong kindergartens. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This study analysed the content of 30 in-service primary school music teachers’ lesson plans for mobile music creation during a 5-week professional development course from 2019 to 2022 in Hong Kong. During the course, the teachers were taught by the researcher on how to use the mobile application GarageBand in their instructional design for classroom music teaching. Various mobile learning pedagogies were discussed during the course to facilitate listening, performing and creating in music teaching and learning. As a learning outcome of this course, the teachers were asked to upload their lesson plans to the Knowledge Transfer website to exchange ideas for further discussion and professional sharing with other in-service teachers from their respective schools. The purpose of this study was to provide an analysis of their teaching plans based on previously published research on mobile learning and motivation. This study aimed to a) deepen the understanding of music lessons in mobile music creation, and b) analysing the lesson plans and suggesting how different teaching strategies and approaches can be used in classroom teaching. Based on the results of the study, a pedagogical model is proposed as a reference point for knowledge exchange in the research and practice of music education. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s).

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges to education systems around the world, resulting in a ‘new normal’ for school music education in which teaching and learning can no longer rely only on conventional classroom practices. Concerns have also been raised over music teachers’ digital competencies, given the perceived importance of the use of technology within the new educational landscape. This article presents the results of a study that examined the challenges and experiences associated with the digital competencies of music teachers during the pandemic period. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with full-time music teachers (N = 18), all of whom taught music as a subject at mainstream primary or secondary schools in Hong Kong. The findings revealed challenges and upskilling of music teachers during the lockdown period, including the technological constraints imposed by the school and the online environment, how they made use of technology to teach music online, and the different ways they developed their digital competencies. Alongside with the catalyst effect of the pandemic that stimulated their upskilling, curriculum changes in teacher training programmes are necessary to better prepare music teachers for the digital transformation of music education and future challenges under the post-pandemic ‘new normal’ situation. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s).

Museums provide direct learning experiences. In museums visitors can encounter objects and exhibits from specific times and places, related to concepts and disciplinary subjects in the arts, history, science, and social sciences. A museum is an educational fair. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government’s recent primary school General Studies curriculum guide recommends learning through museums as an informal learning pathway for all students. This project is an up-to-date exploratory study of why and how Hong Kong primary school teachers and students visit museums educationally and how they perceive those visits and the accompanying learning experiences. A survey study from a sample of five local primary schools, 90 teachers and 415 senior form students, shows that although teachers and students may not visit museums very frequently for academic purposes, they do have a strong interest and motivation to visit more often, attracted by different elements. Students’ learning and interaction with technology, adults and peers, and the museum environment during a visit, as well as the attractiveness of museum content, tend to correlate with their motivations. This has a range of implications which we discuss. This study will be useful for museum experts, educators and the wider public to map meaningful museum education journeys for students. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). All Rights Reserved.

The use of educational apps in teaching the humanities in higher education is increasingly widespread and commonplace. Understanding the efficacy of using such apps, however, presents a challenge due to the proliferation of countless different apps, each with unique and overlapping functions, often used in courses with very different content and objectives. The PICRAT model provides a framework to compare the educational efficacy of integrating various education apps, even when used in a variety of different courses. This paper presents the results of a project conducted at the Faculty of Humanities at a Hong Kong university. The objective was to develop examples of effective technology-enhanced teaching in the humanities that could be shared as models with other instructors teaching in the humanities. The PICRAT framework focuses on the students’ and teachers’ roles in using technology. All the project courses aimed to change the students’ role from one of more passive to more active and ultimately more creative engagement; and to advance the teachers’ use of technology from merely replacing traditional pedagogy to providing a more amplified and, whenever possible, transformative approach to its use. Examples from three of the twelve project case studies will be described; teacher and student perspectives of the efficacy of using the apps will be analyzed; and the PICRAT model will be used to analyze the overall conclusions that can be drawn from the range of diverse exemplars developed in the project. Copyright © 2023 ICLT.

Growing evidence indicates that early exposure to music and movement (M&M) positively impacts young children’s self-regulation. However, little attention has been paid to what kindergarten teachers know and believe about the relationship between M&M and self-regulation, and even less to how teachers’ background in M&M relates to their knowledge and beliefs. This study investigates these topics using survey data from 306 Hong Kong kindergarten classroom teachers. Descriptive, correlation, and independent sample t-tests were conducted. Most teachers believed they possessed a high level of understanding on the topic, particularly those with M&M background. These participants held stronger beliefs that M&M fosters children’s self-regulation, specifically motor-coordination skills, impulse control, and emotional management. We conclude that kindergarten teachers’ knowledge of, and beliefs in the role of M&M to support children’s self-regulation are influenced by their own M&M background. Indeed, the more M&M activities teachers have been exposed to, the deeper their understandings on how M&M contributes to children’s self-regulatory skills. The main implication is the need to further expose kindergarten teachers to M&M learning experiences, be it formally or informally. Copyright © 2023 Authors.

In K-12 schools, classes are forced to transform online due to the class suspension amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Educators began to design alternative ways to conduct some meaningful learning activities for their students. However, not all subject disciplines could be easily transformed online, especially for those requiring much social interaction and creation processes. In this article, we explore the learning processes through learning Shubailan, a form of music folk-talk-singing, with a mobile instrument application called muyu in an online flipped classroom among 122 secondary school students in Hong Kong. The opportunities can encourage students to learn music theories and instruments about Shubailan, and create a Shubailan piece through 6-lesson music learning. To gain more online face-to-face time for collaboration, flipping the online classroom is adopted in this study to engage students in lesson preparations via preassigned recorded videos and collaborative activities during face-to-face online lessons. In this study, a mixed research method was employed with the use of a learning satisfaction survey, teachers’ observations and semi-structured interviews. We found that this strategy could effectively motivate students to learn music and improve their music knowledge in Shubailan. This article presents evidence of implementing the online flipped classroom approach to enhance students’ satisfaction and knowledge acquisition throughout Shubailan music making processes, and offers recommendations for online music educators. Results provide a set of innovative pedagogical approaches to teach music in an online alternative mode during the difficult times. Copyright © 2022 Springer.