Dialogic teaching has been demonstrated to be conducive to the development of important competencies and skills such as creativity, communication skills and critical thinking skills. Yet, the literature confirms that teacher–student interactions in the classroom are predominantly monologic rather than dialogic across subjects, grades and countries. This article reports the results of a study that evaluates the effectiveness of a Philosophy for Children (P4C) programme in facilitating the development of dialogic and inquiry teaching in teachers in Hong Kong. In the study, training and support were provided for teachers to enable them to teach P4C to their students during Integrated Humanities and English lessons. P4C was found to help enhance the teachers’ effectiveness in the classroom in terms of their ability to engage in dialogic and inquiry teaching. The findings of this study suggest that P4C plays a significant role in promoting the professional development of teachers. Copyright © 2022 University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education.

This article describes the current teacher professional development (PD) infrastructure of Hong Kong, one of the world’s top performers in education. Drawing on contemporary policy frameworks, institutional websites, and research literature, we outline how teachers from primary and secondary local schools are supported to enhance their professional capacity. After introducing the structure of the Hong Kong education system, we describe pre-service teacher education and the Professional Ladder framework, designed by the Education Bureau (EDB) to regulate in-service PD. We then describe the work done by the leading PD providers and the PD-related obstacles, difficulties, and constraints reported in the literature. The article shows that Hong Kong has developed a solid PD infrastructure with hybrid characteristics. While the system is based on compliance and external accountability mechanisms, teachers are encouraged to design their PD journeys based on their interests, needs, and career aspirations. Every three years, teachers are required to complete 90 to 150 hours of PD (depending on seniority), including core and elective training (approximately 1/3 and 2/3 of the PD allotment, respectively). Structured, on-the-job, project-based, whole-school, and individual PD activities are available. The article also describes the strategies recently adopted to tackle the challenges of COVID-19. We conclude that Hong Kong has made great efforts to design a high-quality PD infrastructure within a hierarchical educational system, in which quantity of provision and content coverage have been prioritized over teacher agency and autonomy. More research is required to investigate the actual impact of PD on teachers’ practices and students’ learning.تصف هذه المقالة البنية التحتية الحالية للتطوير المهني للمعلمين في هونج كونج، أحد أفضل الدول أداء في العالم من الناحية التعليمية. استناداً على أطر عمل السياسة المعاصرة، المواقع المؤسسية والأدبيات البحثية، وتوضح كيفية دعم المعلمين من المدارس

The potential of digital fabrication technology (DFT) in education has attracted the attention of many educational stakeholders over the last decade. However, there is scant literature on how in-service teachers take part in teacher professional development (TPD) to equip themselves with necessary DFT skills and knowledge. In response, this qualitative exploratory study aimed to identify characteristics of effective DFT-related TPD and the current status of the implementation of DFT in K–12 education in Hong Kong through interviews with local teachers and stakeholders. The findings reveal that DFT-related TPDs have had positive effects on teachers’ skills and knowledge overall, but they were found to lack in-depth hands-on training and guidance on pedagogical aspects with practical class models. Teachers flexibly adopted formal and informal TPD depending on their own backgrounds, competencies, and needs. In addition, the following barriers to applying TPD learning outcomes to classroom practices were identified: limited hardware availability and access as well as a lack of open-learning classrooms, technical support and sustained professional development for teachers, technology integration into different subjects, and government-provided guidelines and frameworks. However, these limitations were found to afford new opportunities with respect to student-centered and collaborative teaching and learning environments. Copyright © 2021 International Council for Educational Media.

The quality of teachers is an essential element of a strong vocational education and training (VET) system. VET performs many important functions in society, including responding to a constantly changing labour market as a result of rapid changes to the economy and society. Recent changes in VET have focused specifically on meeting the needs of the world of work in order to support countries’ development agendas. These improvements, which target the efficiency and effectiveness of VET systems, also need to be reflected in VET teacher training. This has become a priority for governments and other stakeholders, however, there are numerous challenges related to different aspects of VET teacher training, including curriculum design. This chapter provides an overview of VET teacher training in Mainland China (with some reference to Hong Kong SAR), and highlights the approaches/models used for teacher training, as well as the challenges encountered in improving the effectiveness of teacher training in response to the various development trends in VET. The overview is based on a review of literature, curriculum and policy documents. Copyright © 2022 selection and editorial matter, John Chi-Kin Lee and Timo Ehmke; individual chapters, the contributors.

Building on the previous works on Western and Chinese perspectives on quality and change in teacher education (Lee & Day, 2016), this anthology of an international group of scholars from China, Hong Kong (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People’s Republic of China) and Germany aims to provide an analysis of issues related to teacher education in both educational systems. Our target group is an international readership that is interested to learn more about the specific challenges and current developments in the field of teacher education in both educational systems. Copyright © 2022 selection and editorial matter, John Chi-Kin Lee and Timo Ehmke; individual chapters, the contributors.

In the recent decades, there has been a trend of adopting community of practice (CoP) approach to a university-school partnership (USP) to promote teaching and learning and teacher professionalism since the Hong Kong education reform in 2000. Particularly, a CoP project entitled ‘Support Programme on Fostering Communities of Practice to Enhance Small Class Teaching’ has been lunched in 2015, which aims to enhance teachers’ pedagogical knowledge and effective teaching practice in applying self-directed learning (SRL) to students. Given that it is a pioneering initiative in promoting SRL in Hong Kong, this chapter intends to offer a conceptualization of CoP-USP within the local education context. In this chapter, the successful criteria and challenges of USP will be discussed, with brief introduction on the development of USP and SRL development in Hong Kong. A single-cluster case study method was adopted to review a case from a CoP project, a comprehensive scope of professional development programme for in-service teachers (ISTs) in Hong Kong, aiming at examining how the CoP project can work out as a USP to help develop teachers’ SRL-based instruction skills and strategies. The findings were revealed in themes through qualitative data analysis, with discussion on whether the CoP Project is a successful USP. Finally, this chapter attempts to offer further insights for future development of USP in other contexts. Copyright © 2022 selection and editorial matter, John Chi-Kin Lee and Timo Ehmke; individual chapters, the contributors.

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education has continued to attract attention and sizeable funding worldwide. Given the important role that teachers play in the provision of quality STEM education, this chapter provides an overall landscape of STEM teacher education in China and Hong Kong. The chapter presents an overview of policies, practices and research in teacher education and professional development in STEM education that have been and continue to be implemented in Mainland China and Hong Kong for the purpose of supporting teachers to effectively implement STEM education. Literature from a range of sources, including discussion and research papers, government reports and policy papers with respect to STEM teacher education in Mainland China and Hong Kong have been selected. The analysis of policies and practices is useful to provide a review of what has been done and to inform new directions for teacher education for STEM education. Copyright © 2022 selection and editorial matter, John Chi-Kin Lee and Timo Ehmke; individual chapters, the contributors.