While most lessons shifted to synchronous online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of asynchronous online learning materials is becoming essential to supplement regular classes. To improve teaching effectiveness through virtual teaching and learning, this study is determined to develop a new set of self-paced online learning materials that focus on developing postgraduate students’ essential generic research skills. It is hoped that the online materials can provide flexibility for research postgraduate students to direct their learning. Guided by situated cognition theory, the virtual materials are designed in a way to immerse learners in eLearning activities with content that mimics real-world situations. Interactive elements in each module, such as open-ended quiz questions, references to other online academic materials, and useful web materials, are integrated into the teaching packages. By clicking the H5P link, students will be diverted to Padlet, where they can start to post or review and respond to what others have posted. Academic staff and postgraduate students conducted pilot tests and provided valuable feedback to further enhance the training materials. The completed online modules have incorporated many interactive elements, including but not limited to videos, multiple-choice questions, audio notes, and audio tracks, which proved that these highly interactive materials stimulated students’ learning motivation. Qualitative focus group interviews will be carried out after the completion of all modules. Copyright © 2023 The Education University of Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong Education Bureau (EDB)’s “Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)” has prompted primary and secondary schools to invest in iPads and Chromebooks in an effort to provide every student with a web-connected computing device. This scheme allows students to use their own mobile computing devices for personalized learning activities, with aim of developing knowledge understanding and generic skills required in the curriculum syllabus. However, the effective integration of pedagogy, e-learning tools, and the required learning objectives from syllabus has been the main issue in schools because of different factors from schools, teachers, students and parents. To address the issue, this study designed and implemented an inquiry-based virtual learning environment enabled by PhET platform supported by mobile technologies at a senior secondary school in Hong Kong. The HKDSE Physics topic "Gas Laws" was taught in this study in which 21 pupils conducted simulated experiments and engage in inquiry-based learning by summarizing their findings in graphs. Their understanding was measured by their ability to solve numerical problems based on Gas Laws with little or no guidance. The Simulated platforms, besides promoting students deeper conceptual understanding, also helps in the implementation of student-centered learning with hassle-free activities to explore the abstract topics of Physics understandably and enjoyably. As in real physics experiments, the students revel in determining cause-and-effect links and guide their learning through research. The goal is to improve their abilities rather than replace them so they can confidently and competently undertake physics experiments with real equipment. Copyright © 2023 The Education University of Hong Kong.

The potential impact of creative thinking and its contribution to successful arts practice has been argued over the last decade. Meanwhile, creative thinking has also been identified as making valuable contributions to arts and management. Cetinkaya (2014) and Kuo, Chen, and Hwang (2014) indicated that the application of creative thinking to management education is highly recommended, which needs to be developed through the learning process and still is a teaching challenge to date. This study implemented the project-based learning (PBL) approach as a treatment for tertiary arts education students over one academic year to examine its effect on their creative thinking disposition. Given this context, this study aimed to determine the improvement of creative thinking skills of art students through PBL in the arts management discipline. Consequently, the research question addressing the three dimensions is proposed and analyzed as to how they interact: creative thinking, project-based learning, and arts management education. Two theoretical frameworks were applied in this study: 1) the Creative Thinking Skills Development Framework from the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER, 2020) and 2) the Essential Project Design Elements of PBLWorks (2015). The subjects were 52 art students from the Cultural and Creative Arts department at the Education University of Hong Kong. A qualitative approach was employed, while the data on students’ creative thinking skills were obtained from observations, interviews, and reflective journals. The results indicated that the integration of creative thinking and project-based learning could significantly uplift students’ learning outcomes in arts management education as they are in a complementary relationship. It provided opportunities for students in art management learning engagement and several areas of thinking skills development in relation to the current curricula objectives. Copyright © 2023 Association of Arts Administration

Facing the immense pressure to catch up with the international trend, our city, Hong Kong’s education authority has pronounced creativity, play and ICT as the key aims in the kindergarten curriculum (Curriculum Development Council, 2017). However, it is not easy to promote changes in schools which usually ends with ostensible technology integration (Law et al., 2011). Identifying the quality of lessons and barriers to teachers’ profession on this topic is the initial step to developing strategies for improvement. This paper aims to explore the potential for combining these three aspects and ground uses for teaching Creativity with ICT-Play, as well as reforming a better Early Childhood Education (ECE) curriculum of the concept. This article defines creativity and ICT-Play in ECE and studies an integration model applicable to local kindergarten curricula with feasible pedagogies, followed by an evaluation of the current practices and problems in this issue based on interview data with the support from the i-CREATE model and Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice. The study shows how are the quality of teaching creativity with ICT-Play and the impacts of different capitals mentioned in Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice on teachers affect their implementation of ICT-Play pedagogies in local kindergartens. Copyright © 2023 EARLI.

There are always concerns about teaching quality worldwide. However, there has not been any systematic qualitative or quantitative study in the context of immersion education, as a form of content-based language teaching (CBLT), about the content-language teaching strategies from content-trained teachers with differing levels of L2 respectively. This qualitative study aims at providing rich descriptions about the content-language teaching strategies used by three content teachers with different L2 levels in Hong Kong. Hence, the study can provide insights into whether there is a need to adjust the current requirement for the immersion education teachers in Hong Kong; such teachers are only required to have achieved Band 6 from the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). Also, with the traditional wisdom that good English means good content-language teaching, the study explored the possible relationships between Hong Kong’s immersion education teachers’ L2 levels and the content-language teaching strategies adopted by such teachers.The three teachers of the study had three different English proficiency levels: an advanced level, an upper intermediate level and an intermediate level respectively. The students of the three teachers were from the same high school class from a local secondary school in Hong Kong. The three teachers involved were from three different subjects but the teaches had similar backgrounds in terms of teaching experience, teacher training, specialised content subject training. The three teachers had not received any training about immersion education.As a constructivist grounded study, this research made use of lesson observation and also stimulated recall interviews. The lessons from the three teachers were not only observed but also recorded. There was lesson observation time equivalent to 5 single lessons (each lasting for 40 minutes) from each teacher; saturation was reached after the fifth lesson was observed from each teacher.

There is a global trend in the increased adoption of e-assessment in school classrooms to enhance learning. Teachers, as classroom-based assessment designers and implementers, play a vital role in such assessment change. However, little is known about school teachers' classroom-based e-assessment practices and the underlying reasons. To address this research gap, this study identified the factors influencing Hong Kong primary school teachers' e-assessment practices underpinned by the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). A large-scale survey was issued to 878 teachers via Qualtrics. Structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis shows that primary school teachers' intentions of using e-assessment and perceived behavioural control of it were the two strongest factors predicting their e-assessment practices in a general way. Specifically, teachers' intentions outweighed perceived behavioural control in determining their use of alternative e-assessment tasks and e-feedback, but this reversed for e-tests/exercises. The impact of perceived behavioural control was consistent across the three types of e-assessment practices. Furthermore, teachers' attitudes significantly influenced their intentions to use alternative e-assessment tasks, while subject norms primarily predicted their intentions to use e-feedback. The findings have implications for primary schools to take countermeasures to facilitate the successful implementation of e-assessment at the classroom level.Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic E-assessment has the potential to influence learning. E-assessment has often been used in a controlled environment with a relatively small sample size. The past 3 years have seen a surge in discussions and research around using e-assessment in classroom settings, mostly in higher education. What this paper adds Primary school teachers used more e-tests or exercises than alternative e-assessment tasks and e-feedback in their daily teaching. Teachers' intentions

Language choice and code-switching are commonplaces for peer interaction among bilingual children from various language backgrounds in Hong Kong. However, few studies concern these linguistic practices of immigrant children proficient in Mandarin and English. This study adopted a qualitative research approach to investigate three Mandarin-English preschoolers’ language choice and code-switching by analyzing their conversations in interaction with a Cantonese–English bilingual peer under the framework of translanguaging. The findings reveal that these Mandarin-English preschoolers’ priority language for interaction is English, indicating that choosing a shared language is an essential communicative strategy for integrating with their Cantonese–English peers. The factors for those language choices include social environment, interlocutor’s ability, and sense of identity and belonging. Both inter-sentential and intra-sentential code-switching are adopted in verbal interaction. However, intra-sentential code-switching occurs more frequently and with greater diversity in Mandarin-based sentences, where nouns are the most easily switched component, followed by verbs and adjectives. This study enriches the study of bilingual children in Hong Kong, extends the application of translanguaging to peer interaction outside the classroom in multilingual contexts, and provides pedagogic implications. Copyright © 2024 Informa  UK  Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Critical content and language-integrated learning (CLIL) has been advocated to attest raciolingusitic ideologies in plurilingual educational settings. However, little is known about how to help students in contesting inequalities about other structures of domination in bilingual education programs. This study aims to address this gap by examining the construction of gender identities in Secondary 4 (Grade 11) English-medium Liberal Studies lessons, which aimed to enhance awareness of gender equality and subject-specific English skills about the topic. The study shows that gender was constructed and reconstructed by conflicting multilingual and multimodal gendered discourses, including the formal curriculum, school lesson materials, and classroom interaction. The paper reveals that teachers and students jointly constructed masculinities of “real men,” “good men” and “gay men” in CLIL classrooms imbedded in curriculum contexts infused with gender dualism and alternative gender values began to emerge after the CLIL lessons. The results suggest that CLIL teachers can facilitate development of critical literacies about gender by enabling encounters of different voices in translanguaging and trans-registering spaces created by students’ familiar L1 everyday discourses and multimodal practices. Pedagogical implications were also discussed. Copyright © 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

This article reports on a study exploring primary students’ after-class social interactions in English vocabulary acquisition using a mobile learner-generated-content (m-LGC) tool. A total number of 29 grade 4 students from an elementary school in Hong Kong were involved. A case study approach was adopted. Data collection included log data on the m-LGC tool and semi-structured interviews. Data analysis included content analysis, visualisation using Gephi, and thematic analysis. The results show two types of students’ social interactions in a m-LGC learning environment. The interview results indicate that students held different perceptions of social interactions using the m-LGC tool. The implications are discussed. Copyright © 2022 Yin Yang, Yanjie Song.