Personal definitions of creativity are described as the implicit theories of creativity, while the conceptions offered by scholars or researchers are referred to as explicit theories of creativity. The implicit theories of creativity may vary from one person to another, from one field to another, and from one culture to another. In this study, twenty pre-service student teachers and ten teacher trainers of Hong Kong Institute of Education are interviewed or asked to complete a questionnaire. They are invited to give their own opinions on: (1) What is teacher creativity? (2) How can you describe a creative teacher? and (3) How do you decide whether a teaching idea is creative or not? The results of this study reveal that, not only imaginative and novel teaching ideas are considered to be creative, however, flexibility in teaching, modifications and improvements of existing teaching ideas and abilities to solve daily problems are also regarded as forms of teacher creativity. As another difference to creativity defined in other (artistic) fields, respondents refer creativity of teaching ideas not only to their newness, but put strong emphasis on their effectiveness in teaching and how interesting they are to students. Unlike findings in western societies, being humorous is not considered necessarily to be a personality trait of a creative teacher. Study on these implicit theories of teacher creativity are important because they usually act as standards for judging and assessing creative behaviors in teaching, and also serve as the basis for training and self-development in the area of teacher creativity.

‘Gazing about with a checklist’ as a kind of method of observation is employed by the Hong Kong Institute of Education to supervise student teachers’ classroom performance in their teaching practicum. Using this as a case, the current paper analyzes this method of observation as a form of supervision. Focusing on some of its advantages and disadvantages in practice, this paper argues that although the method works in some situations, it is not very effective in enhancing the student teachers’ professional development. To make up for its deficiencies, some other observational techniques are suggested.

This is a self-study of three teacher educators in Hong Kong who introduced narrative inquiry as a means of professional development to a group of pre-service teachers during their eight weeks of teaching practice in 2005. The three teacher educators have reflected on their roles in the initiative in this report. How did they introduce narrative inquiry to the student teachers? How did they help the student teachers realize the importance of their own personal experience in shaping their professional practice? How can narrative inquiry be introduced into the formal curriculum of teacher education in Hong Kong? The primary objective of this self study is to document and reflect upon the experience in promoting the narrative inquiry in Hong Kong.

In this presentation, I will report on a network of learning that connects teachers and researchers for the main purpose of improving student learning and analyze the critical conditions that support its development. The term teachers' professional development, and what teachers' should have learnt as a result, may be interpreted in many different ways. The network that I will describe focuses on one specific aspect of teachers' work: helping students to learn specific objects of learning, and so, here, teachers' professional development means the enhancement of teachers' capability to teach for better student learning. It takes place through an arrangement called 'Learning Study' that takes its inspiration from Japanese lesson studies and teaching studies in China, and derives its conceptual framework from the Variation Theory. Through a series of projects over the last six years, our research team in Hong Kong has supported over 200 schools in developing over 260 Learning Studies, with a direct involvement of over 1000 teachers. Although the main aim of the Learning Study is to improve student learning, in the process, it is found that the Learning Study has become a platform for professional learning of all who participated, i.e. students, teachers and researchers. The Learning Study team facilitates the development of a network of learning in schools and across schools by working simultaneously at three levels, firstly, the students' learning; secondly, the teachers' learning; thirdly, the researchers' learning. The network has now grown beyond Hong Kong and is connecting up with many other teacher research groups all over the world through the World Association of Lesson Studies and a web forum. One important achievement of this network is the development of the knowledge base of teaching by teachers themselves. Some critical factors that have an impact on this network will also be discussed.

This paper is based on a study of five primary English teachers within a professional development programme established by the British Council, the University of Nottingham/Hong Kong Institute of Education and the Taipei City Bureau of Education. The research is based on analyses of semi-structured interviews and specially written teacher’s packs for English language teaching (ELT) in schools in Taipei City. The data chart teachers’ perceptions of the impact of three stages in their professional development: improving ELT methodological skills, becoming a trainer and becoming a writer. Teachers’ professional development usually consists of in-service training (INSET), although many studies show that it may have little impact on teachers’ classroom practice. (Lamb, 1995); Bax (1995, 199) stresses the importance of context-sensitivity in teacher education courses; Freeman (1996) outlines factors in successful research on teacher learning, while Tsui (2004) examines features of teachers’ developing expertise in the East Asian context. Three key issues in the development of projects include the levels and quality of support provided, sustainability and ownership. Support was provided and sustainability maintained in five ways: the outside “expert”, a select professional development team, a networking project for primary English teachers in Taipei City, an effective project leader and an excellent level of collegiality established over three years. Ownership was achieved by building in aspects of teacher autonomy and context-sensitivity in the programme, including interviews with local practicing primary teachers for the writing project. Within the three stages of professional development, the data provide insights into teachers’ perceptions of the role of the “expert” and their colleagues. The data also chart teachers’ reflections on their learning processes, showing the extent to which they feel confident enough to continue supporting other English teachers. Longitudinal

In Hong Kong, curriculum is centrally developed and teachers are expected to implement it as designed (Morris P., 1995; Nicholson A.Y.W., 1988, 1993). During the process of curriculum change, professional development plays a significant part to engender desired changes. These professional development efforts are top-down and mainly in the forms of centrally organized activities such as seminars and workshops for teachers (Cooke B.L, 1996). With a few teachers and educators involved during the development process and limited efforts to disseminate the curriculum initiatives, teachers are often left to implement the curriculum with little understanding of the rationale of these changes. Successful implementation, therefore, is left with individual teachers. Continuous professional development has been recognized as the key to school improvement (Rudduck J., 1991). It was even suggested that the extent to which professional development activities succeeded was the extent to which change succeeded (Fullan M., 1992). A whole range of activities has been identified (Huberman M, 1995). They might be individual teacher-centered, school-based or system-wide. However, traditional in- service training and staff development have been shown to be inadequate and"... network can provide fresh ways of thinking about teacher learning" (Lieberman A. & McLaughlin M.W., 1992, p.673) This paper proposes the concept of a cross-school teacher network, and shares the experience of the development of a teacher network in Hong Kong. Such network attempts to provide opportunities for practising teachers and school heads to share their concerns and their ways to deal with imposed curriculum changes. It is an ongoing process involving decisions about details of implementation, which aims to facilitate change. This is also based on the belief that teaching in Hong Kong suffers from the lack of opportunity to share as individuals, and particularly interact' with other teachers to reflect, to discuss

In the Hong Kong Institute of Education, Co-operating Teacher Scheme (CTS) is an important element of the School Experience. Its aims are to let students obtain various forms of support as they first enter the school, progressively learn about a teacher's work and progressively develop professional ability and reflective skills and habits. It was implemented in the initial primary teacher education programmes in 1994. The focus of the present study is to view from the perspective of student-teachers and study what they have really learned from the CTS; how they perceived the relative effectiveness or importance of different phases of the scheme; how they perceived the difference between the roles of the co-operating teacher and the practicum tutor. In the Hong Kong Institute of Education, Co-operating Teacher Scheme (CTS) is an important element of the School Experience. Its aims are to let student teachers obtain various forms of support as they first enter the school; progressively learn about a teacher's work and progressively develop professional ability and reflective skills and habits. The study was conducted within a month after the completion of the CTS. There are quantitative and qualitative components. From the list of 130 schools participating in the Scheme in 95-96, eighty schools were selected randomly. School heads and co-operating teachers were invited to complete a questionnaire. At the same time, in the Institute 71 practicum tutors and 707 student teachers also completed a questionnaire. Futermore, 6 school heads, 12 co-operating teachers, 10 practicum tutors and 10 student teachers were interviewed in order to collect information in addition to that obtained from the questionnaire. The present paper only focuses on the data obtained from the student teachers in order to study the CTS as a learning experience from the perspective of student teachers. From the data of the questionnaire, on the whole, the student teachers supported the implementation

This paper examines the statistics on the official provision of teacher and teaching training in Hong Kong primary schools. It is found that there is no clear and operational definition of the expertise of teaching in the primary workforce, nor teachers are well-prepared for their development of teaching expertise. Under such an unfavourable teacher preparation and development, the writer called for teachers' self-initiation to develop "group expertise among themselves and make improvement in primary education. Introduction: This paper intends to evaluate whether the provision of teachers and teacher training can facilitate the identification and development of teaching expertise with, and for primary school teachers in Hong Kong. Data of such provision are compiled from the official teacher surveys and will be used for analysis. It is noticed that 'provision' of teachers and teacher training is the input to the education system and is only one of the many aspects that constitutes the development of teaching expertise. Other aspects like 'teaching and learning processes', 'teacher performance' and 'pupil achievement' are related and influential. Nevertheless, attention to the input condition can never be dispensable. The Theoretical Framework: Sternberg et al. (1995) argued that there exists 'no well-defined standard that all experts meet and that no nonexperts meet.' A prototype view is proposed to consider teaching expertise as a category of resemblance that 'is structured by the similarity of expert teachers to one another rather than by a set of necessary and sufficient features'. They postulated the following categories which they called the 'expert teaching prototype': The prototype expert teacher has 'extensive, accessible knowledge of subject matter and of teaching per se as well as knowledge of the political and social context in which teaching occurs. The prototype expert teacher posseses a broad perspective of well-organized domain knowledge which is contributive

Curriculum initiatives in both primary and secondary mathematics are nderway in Hong Kong. New visions of learning and teaching expected to be found in the new curricula would make new demands on teachers: to help students to investigate, to explore, to discover mathematics, to solve mathematical problems, to learn and to appreciate mathematical structures, to enjoy mathematics, and to prepare themselves for a rapidly changing technological world. Are the teachers of mathematics sufficiently prepared for the new curriculum ? Because teaching and learning is so complex, there can be many factors which influence students' achievement and attitude in mathematics. However, it cannot be denied that a teacher's classroom practices and his/her abilities in implementing the curriculum could be one of the many factors affecting students' chance of acquiring the relevant knowledge, skills and attitude. To enable an informed planning of the Refresher Training Course (Secondary) (RTC(S)) with particular reference to the teaching methodologies part offered to course participants taking mathematics as an elective, the general and specific teaching strategies acquired by some of the inservice teachers of secondary mathematics were studied. A questionnaire of two parts was constructed. The first part was intended to elicit the general practices by teachers, and the second part teacher activities relating to the specific strategies in the teaching of mathematical skills, concepts and principles. An unstructured group interview was conducted after each part of the questionnaire was completed, results collected, processed, and distributed. The first part of the questionnaire consists of open ended questions.The teachers were asked to state the most and least frequently used teaching strategies during their last two weeks of mathematics teaching. Only three teachers claimed to use the discovery teaching often and the rest teachers simply used exposition as the only means in order to cover

Research in the area of student's learning approaches has been conducted by numerous educators since the late 1970's (e.g. Marton & Saljo, 1976; Ramsden & Entwistle, 1981; Biggs, 1985, 1987). Marton & Saljo (1976) have suggested two basic approaches to learning, viz. "surface" and "deep" approach. A surface approach describes the intention to reproduce information in compliance with externally imposed task demands while a deep approach involved an intention to understand. Biggs (1985, 1987, 1993) added a third one, the "achieving" approach. According to Biggs (1993), the achieving approach is based on the ego-enhancement aiming at the achievement of high grades. Similar to the surface approach, the focus is not task-centred but on the recognition gained from top performance. The strategy is to organize time, workplace, and syllabus coverage cost effectively, with much use of cue-seeking, systematic use of study skills, planning ahead, allocating time according to task importance. Biggs (1985, 1987) has developed two different versions of questionnaires in his survey study with Australian tertiary and high school students, viz. "Study Process Questionnaire" (SPQ) and "Learning Process Questionnaire" (LPQ) respectively. Many of these studies of learning approaches were conducted with university / college students in western countries to identify what kind of study approaches were adopted and to relate the chosen study approaches with other variables such as academic achievement. Judith's (1992) study of the learning processes in distance learning students concluded that deep motivation was a way to success, but to succeed in gaining credit and good grades, deep strategy, achieving motive and achieving strategy were also needed. This was in support of the meaning assigned by Biggs to achieving approach. Studies employing Biggs' instruments have also been replicated in various situations and contexts, (e.g. Biggs, 1992; Watkins & Hattie, 1981, 1985; Watkins & Ismail, 1994