There is a strong belief that critical thinking should be cultivated in schools. But it is not clear how critical thinking is understood by front-line teachers who are given the responsibility of training critical thinkers. Based on a study conducted in Hong Kong, we found that some school teachers were in favor of a “positive” image of critical thinker who is knowledgeable, prudent, being critical to the critics who are ready to criticize, and being constructive after making criticisms. We try to argue that such a positive portrayal, although uncontroversial from a detached point of view, may not be adequate in the context of Hong Kong where a critical stance toward power holders and established interests is badly needed. Without paying due attention to the “aporetic” dimension, such understanding of critical thinking would make it difficult for students to adopt a critical stance to the prevailing cultural beliefs, social values, political institutions, or economic ideologies that merit the greatest attention.
[Copyright © 2016 The Author(s).]

The understanding of oneself has become an important area of study in the school curriculum. This is usually done through the guidance curriculum to enhance children’s self-understanding, empathy, and relationships with others. This is a worldwide trend in a comprehensive school guidance system (Gysbers & Henderson, 2000; Luk-Fong, 2005). This chapter documents students’ active learning about their own selves, as well as the selves of their future students, in a “Self-Personal Identities Module” in a teaching preparation institute in Hong Kong. The learning and understanding of oneself can best be done with other people in a group (in this paper, in a class) in a safe and inviting culture/environment. Grounded in the core values of respect, trust, optimism, intentionality, and care of invitational education, which was founded on democratic values, the perceptual tradition, and self-concept theory, this chapter demonstrates how educators can create an inviting learning culture and environment in a higher education setting to help student teachers to study their own personal identities and learn how to study the identities of their future students. Implications for student teachers’ learning in other higher education settings are discussed.

This article explores novice teachers’ perspectives on their teacher leadership roles and their principal’s facilitation of their leadership development. A cohort of 20 novice teachers teaching in Hong Kong participated in this study. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and documentary evidence during a two-year period. The results show that six novice teachers performed principal-delegated and teacher-initiated teacher leadership roles facilitated by principals’ practices. Interplay of the teacher’s and principal’s roles as an interface of developing teacher leadership is evidenced. This has important implications for the roles of teachers and principals in fostering teacher leadership in schools. Teacher educators are also informed for enhancement of initial teacher education.
[Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd.]

Learning study has been used to enhance teacher professional development in many cities and countries all over the world, including Hong Kong, Sweden, United Kingdom, Singapore and Brunei. Since Learning Study has been regarded as an effective approach for teacher professional development, it was introduced as a core course in the training programmes for pre-service teachers in the Hong Kong Institute of Education in 2007. This paper explores the impact of learning study on pre-service teacher professional development by looking into an English language learning study conducted by a group of pre-service teachers in Hong Kong. It reports how the pre-service teachers learned to teach via participating in Learning Study and discusses what challenges they had encountered in the process. The paper concludes with implications on the further development of learning study and its application in educational programmes for pre- service teachers.

This study addressed the variations between key staff and ordinary teachers in perceiving principal leadership practices and school capacities. In a similar study on secondary schools, Walker and Ko (2011) found that in order to ensure better support for student in schools, key staff teachers found their principals' practices on strategic direction and policy environment more important initially, but its significance was superseded by his/her leadership practices on leader and teacher growth and development. In the present study, data collected in primary schools distinguished key staff teachers who held leadership roles in administration or instruction and ordinary teachers who did not have any leadership roles. Their differences in perceptions were expected to impact on the overall support for student in schools. Regression analyses were performed to test whether the two groups of teachers perceived differently the impacts of principals' leadership practices the support for student in schools, and whether the differential perceptions in the two groups would affect the overall staff perception in schools. The results showed only a minor difference in the perceptions of key staff and ordinary teachers. Both groups found a negative impact of principals' leadership practices related to strategic direction and policy environments, but a positive impact of their staff management and resources management practices on enhancing support for students in the school. The key staff tended to emphasize the importance of staff management more, while ordinary teachers treated both types of leadership practices almost equally important. Overall, the perception of key staff seemed to prevail when the views of both groups were considered. These findings seem to be less compatible with the emphasis of strategic direction and the role of principals as the goal setter of a school as suggested in transformational leadership theory or strategic leadership theory. Instead, in facing

Performance tasks This paper reports the initial stage of a learning study on enhancing kindergarten teachers' teaching of performance tasks in Hong Kong. Data from classroom observation and post-lesson interviews with two kindergarten teachers were analysed to identify the existing teaching practice focusing on four typical classroom performance tasks: storytelling, drawing pictures, singing nursery rhyme and physical movement. The findings have indicated that both teachers often simplified the object of learning into declarative knowledge and used passive receptive activities and neglected the specific disciplinary skill-related aspects and seldom used active productive activities, which will more probably lead to deeper learning. The factors shaping these teaches' practice are also discussed and elaborated. The room for further improvement of these teachers is then identified as the object of learning for the teachers and the critical features of these performance tasks specified for student learning in the coming learning study projects. The paper concludes with implications and recommendations on teacher education for pre-school teachers in Hong Kong.

Enhancing teacher quality and reforming teacher education has attracted international attention. This chapter provides an overview of the book. It examines some of the international trends of teacher education and issues related to quality and change in teacher education. The book consists of three parts. The first part touches upon the contexts, status, and issues of quality in teacher education in the US, England, Australia and the Greater China region (China, Taiwan and Hong Kong SAR). The second part focuses on innovative and effective curriculum, teaching and assessment practices of teacher education. The final part discusses issues of managing change in teacher education.

This chapter first examines the changing international context of teacher education and then the status of teaching and pre-service and in-service teacher education in Hong Kong including the contexts of change that have shaped teaching and teacher education over the last decade. These latter contexts include educational and curriculum reforms, the decline of the school population, and the increase in both student diversity and the children of recent immigrants in local schools. The literature related to teachers’ belief, teachers’ perceptions of success as well as those on teaching and student learning and the development of professional learning communities in Hong Kong are also drawn upon to highlight implications for the future development of teacher education. It is suggested that teacher education programmes could reinforce pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy specifically in classroom management and catering for student diversity as well as teachers’ communication and interaction skills with students. Teacher education institutions could also explore the establishment of partnerships with schools and other organizations which provide policy and resources support for teacher education. Moreover, stress management and stress training activities could be enhanced to help teachers build up habits of work-life balance and enhance their hardiness.

In the Greater China region, there were unprecedented curriculum and teaching reforms around the early years of the new century which have stimulated teacher education institutions to echo changes. This chapter first examines the notion of “quality” of curriculum reforms and teacher education and their contexts of change in Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan. Then innovative curriculum, teaching and assessment practices of teacher education are highlighted. Finally, several directions for the future development of pre-service and in-service teacher education in the Greater China region are proposed.

This longitudinal study investigates how in-service study abroad can improve the professional skills of teachers in regard to the strategies and attitudes they use to better motivate their students to learn English. The subject of this study is an in-service English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher from China who undertook a one-year teacher training course in Hong Kong and Australia, including taught modules, school attachment and teaching practicum. A series of interviews and classroom observations were conducted as the course progressed in order to collect the participant's views and practical strategies she plans to employ to enhance student motivation. Benefits of the one-year overseas training course are that the participant has become more sensitive to individual student potential, can more effectively tailor relevant teaching approaches to students' levels of understanding and will better comprehend that a teacher is of critical importance in motivating students to learn English. These three benefits, it is argued, will not only make the teacher more effective, but also tend to further draw out the potential in each student, resulting in better student performance.
[Copyright © 2016 Pedagogy, Culture & Society.]