Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with ethnically Chinese adolescents enrolled into a school-based mentoring programme at a private secondary school in Hong Kong. Interview data were analysed thematically and two themes developed: 'experiencing mentoring' and 'experiencing the mentor'. The mentees, although initially sceptical about mentoring, were surprised by its helpfulness. Through the development of an informal and collaborative relationship in which students experienced their mentor as a trustworthy, mature and objective adult, students found an important source of emotional support and practical help which benefited their academic work. Students' experience was influenced by their mentors' role in the school, length of service and gender match. School-based mentoring programmes in a Hong Kong context have the potential to offer emotional and academic support to students. Cultural factors may have an impact on the experience of mentoring which schools should take into account when setting up such programmes.
[Copyright of Asia-Pacific Education Researcher is the property of Springer.]

Using a holistic support framework, this study investigated teachers' conceptions of effective play-based learning development and how their perceptions of its effectiveness related to whole-child development. Data were collected from a mixed method study. A total of 286 questionnaires from 50 Hong Kong kindergartens were collected and then 29 principals, head teachers and teachers were interviewed after the completion of the survey. Results of quantitative analyses showed that school collaborative culture facilitated various aspects of children's development through the mediation of teachers' enactment of play pedagogy and home-school cooperation. Qualitative interview data also confirmed the survey results that the roles and functions of parents and teachers were significant in supporting the implementation of play-based learning in kindergarten settings. Findings of the study have shed light on the conceptualizations of effective play-based learning which are perceived by teachers as part of a school collaborative culture, teachers' enactment of play pedagogy and home-school cooperation. The practical and policy implications of the study may suggest adopting a holistic support model in the analysis and actively seeking to integrate parents, teachers and kindergartens in constructing an optimal play learning experience for young children.
[Copyright of Early Childhood Education Journal is the property of Springer Netherlands.]

兒童天生有好奇心、愛玩、也愛結交朋友，並喜歡主導自己的學習。對兒童來說，遊戲與學習兩者實為不可分割。遊戲驅使兒童學習，兒童也從遊戲中獲得寶貴的成長經驗。因此自由遊戲是超越了教學目標的工具，而且是自我成長的空間。幼稚園教育指引（2017）的推出，鼓勵教育工作者推行自由遊戲。當大家只聚焦於時間及空間不足對推行自由遊戲的阻礙，往往忽略了成人「不當的介入」，會削弱了自由遊戲的成效。智樂與11間種子學校及香港教育大學合作，創設了一個超越時間及空間限制的自由遊戲模式。透過種子學校Playwork培訓計劃的設立，亦有助加強教育工作者實踐自由遊戲的能力。此計劃不單改變教育工作者對實踐自由遊戲的信心，更啟發他們在設計教學模式時，重視兒童的看法及自主學習。Children are born with innate curiosity, playfulness and sociability to direct their own experience. For children, play and learning are inseparable - Play drives children to learn, at the same time children also acquire valuable learning experience through playing. Therefore, play, especially free play should go beyond a learning tool but a self-development space. The implementation of the Kindergarten Education Curriculum (2017) encouraged educators to try out free play. While many teachers believe that “lacking of time and space” is the greatest barrier for free play, not many of them realize that “adulteration” – the inappropriate intervention from adult, would significantly undermine the effectiveness of free play. In partnership with 11 seed schools and the Education University of Hong Kong (EDUHK), Playright has developed a free playtime model with limited time and space. A Seed Schools Playwork Training Program was also developed to strengthen educators’ capacity of the essence of free play. A study indicated that free play opened up new perspectives about children’s abilities and thoughts. It also inspired teachers to reconstruct their understanding about free play. More emphasis on child initiated learning was promoted. Copyright © 2018 Learning & Teaching Expo.

Many studies have found that the preschool curriculum in Hong Kong still reflects the influences of its social and cultural context that emphasises teacher-directed learning. Developing creativity in preschools requires teachers to change their familiar practices. A good understanding of teachers’ actual practices for facilitating creativity in the classroom is an important first step for educators dedicated to pedagogical change. This study aims to investigate the creativity-fostering pedagogy that teachers actually use in their classrooms to draw attention to the crucial aspects of effective creativity-fostering pedagogy in Hong Kong preschool settings. This study employed a qualitative research approach to explore and analyse the characteristic features of creativity-fostering practice in Hong Kong preschools with results presented in the form of case studies. Semi-structured interviews and classroom observations were used as data sources and content analysis was performed to examine the features and the effectiveness of teachers’ creativity-fostering pedagogical practices. Findings revealed that the three Chinese teachers held similar perspectives about creativity-fostering pedagogies and their perspectives were mainly rooted in Western pedagogies. However, the three cases demonstrated the different interpretation of these pedagogical perspectives, ranging from being strongly teacher-directed to strongly child-centred. A balance between teacher-directed and child-centred was found to be more effective pedagogic practice in the Chinese classroom. Results suggested that different creativity-fostering pedagogies might work for certain contexts and certain children and an awareness of both cultural and contextual appropriateness is important for creativity reform. Copyright © 2018 The Asian Conference on Education.

There are about 17,000 kindergarteners (for 3 to 6 years old) learning Chinese as a second language (CSL) in Hong Kong (HK). Research shows that these children’s Chinese language (CL) ability is at least 3 years behind their native Chinese counterparts while encountering difficulties in learning (Tse & Loh, 2014). It is also a challenge for the teachers to cater for such huge learning diversity, as HK kindergartens mainly use the theme-based approach without deliberate consideration of CL curriculum (HK Education Bureau, 2006). Without professional training in CSL teaching, teachers have little knowledge of how to provide these students with adequate support. The present study aims to examine the possibility and effectiveness of implementing a CSL curriculum for CSL students in “content and language integrated learning” (CLIL) classrooms where Chinese is used as the medium of instruction (Lin, 2013; Lin & Wu, 2015; Lin & He, 2017), and how well it works with the existing themebased curriculum. “Dynamic Enrichment Learning Mode” (DELM) was developed and implemented in six kindergartens with 131 CSL learners. This CSL-focused DELM was designed based on the Second Language Acquisition (Krashen, 1982) and CL orthographic (Leong et al., 2011) theories and comprises the following: (1) tailormade individual (one 30-minute session every fortnight) and group (two 30-minute sessions every week) enrichment learning activities; (2) using both CSL and mainstream theme-based curricula; (3) authentic learning materials (e.g. picture books and specially written children’s songs based on the learning objectives of each unit); (4) diversified learning activities (e.g. interactive language games, matching games, free writing games etc.). CSL students learn together during the enrichment activities, and then return to their ordinary classes to learn with their native Chinese classmates to benefit from both the CSL and theme-based curricula. This enables them to immerse in a safe, comfortable

Learning Study, an enriched version of lesson study, developed during the education reform era in Hong Kong and evolved into a participatory action research model with a theoretical underpinning framework and collaboration between teachers and university researchers. It has once been used as a major model for enhancing partnership between a university and schools for the preparation of pre-service teachers in Hong Kong. In recent years, a shifting focus of this partnership model has been witnessed with recognition of broader needs of schools as well as the accomplishment of a wide range of educational goals including: promoting peer observation through open lessons which serve as a platform for professional exchange; fostering assessment for learning; developing self-directed learning and e-learning strategies, etc.. With the university school collaboration under the Learning Study approach, the value and applicability of the above new initiatives are put into empirical research.This paper reviews the Learning Study programs and projects developed since year 2000 in one of the major teacher training university in Hong Kong, the Education University of Hong Kong. Documents including reports, program books, case studies reports, monographs and related research papers are collected and reviewed in order to identify the challenges encountered and the resolutions found in developing the Learning Study approach in the school community in Hong Kong. Using the framework of Walse & Backe (2013) about the characteristics of effective university-school partnership, this paper analyzes the strategies and critical elements of the Learning Study approach to be developed as a long-lasting and major universityschool partnership model.This paper first illustrates the development of the Learning Study approach in Hong Kong since year 2000 to explicate the shifting focus of university-school partnership - from meeting the need of school placement to accomplish broader education goals by

Adopting a phenomenographic approach, Learning Study utilises diagnostic approaches to identify students’ ways of understanding before teaching to tailor-make teaching to cater for students’ needs and after teaching to evaluate the effectiveness of pedagogical designs in research lessons. Yet in the existing publications, there was little discussion on the methodology of designing and analysing pre- and post-tests in Learning Study to ensure the test validity and reliability. This paper reports a study that attempted to fill the knowledge gap by analysing the pre- and post-tests adopted in 16 Learning Study projects in Hong Kong (4 from each of the four key learning areas, i.e., Chinese, English, mathematics and science, 2 from primary schools and 2 from secondary schools respectively in each area). It reviewed the frameworks of test validity and reliability by Heffner (2014) and designed a comprehensive checklist of test validity and reliability for analysing the 16 sets of pre- and post-tests in terms of purposes, contents, structures, types of questions and ways of test analysis. It was found that the application of Variation Theory helped identify the critical features and their structure, which enhanced construct and content validity of the tests. The use of pilot tests and team meetings promote Inter-Rater Reliability. Observations of teaching and pre- and post-lesson interviews were often employed to triangulate with test data to increase the credibility of evaluation. The paper concludes with recommendations for developing valid and reliable pre- and post-tests for diagnostic purposes in schools. Copyright © 2017 World Association of Lesson Studies.

This presentation will address the Conference Theme by sharing the findings of an empirical study of a values education programme, one using Circle Time (CT) as the major classroom strategy. Existing studies reveal the positive impact of CT on students’ personal development, social skills and peer relationships, especially in the contexts of personal, social and health education. However, CT’s applicability to the teaching/learning of values is still being examined. The presentation focuses on the programme's implementation and the role of CT in teaching values education, particularly with regard to how teachers design the curriculum and teach the lessons by using CT, and how the students become engaged in the circle. Data were collected in two primary schools through multiple methods, including observations during meetings and classes, students’ portfolios, programme evaluations and interviews, and teachers’ programme evaluations and reflections. The study found that teachers and students appreciated the use of CT, as sitting in a circle clearly “opened up” teacher-student interactions as we find them in traditional classrooms, thus facilitating student-student dialogues. The students learned from sharing their daily activities, listening to their peers’ conversations and asking question. Copyright © 2018 APNME.

The present study examined how a group of Hong Kong in-service teachers improved their knowledge of how to promote self-regulated learning (SRL) in students when they participated in a teacher professional development program, which was designed according to the principles of Communities of Practice (CoP). A case study method design was employed and multiple sources of data were collected to investigate the teacher participants' improvement in the knowledge of SRL-based instruction. Findings showed that, over the period of six months, most teachers changed their knowledge of SRL-based instruction from providing students with full autonomy in self-studying a topic to strengthening teachers' role in creating a high-SRL classroom environment. Apart from the CoP experience, evidence of students' involvement in learning was also important to change the teachers' understanding of SRL-based instruction. Discussion and suggestions are provided at the end. Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

「繪本融合習式方法」為香港幼兒教育日漸普及的一種教育戲劇的教學方式。本文根據讀者回應理論，建立「創意空隙」（creative gaps）的概念框架，提出六種不同面向及程度的創意空隙，以評估教學案中能給予幼兒重新想像、探索和重述故事的機會與可能性。作者提出，教師在設計教案時，應發掘繪本的創意空隙，以選配和編排適當的戲劇習式。本文藉研究幼兒教師與戲劇導師共同設計的20個教案，探討這模式在香港的實踐狀況。結果顯示，教學設計雖未能完全擺脫文本的束縛以開放地讓幼兒參與，但當中的創意空隙能引導幼兒進行多方面故事探索和重新想像。不過，以現實生活經驗來重創故事，討論當中的品德情意與社會議題的表現，卻未見顯著。本研究建議師資訓練多強調有關繪本和創意空隙的分析與應用的知識和技巧。The use of Conventions Approach with picture books has become a popular teaching mode of Drama-in-Education in the early childhood education in Hong Kong. Drawing on the reader-response theories, the author constructs a conceptual framework called ＂creative gaps.＂ This framework includes six aspects and gradations of creative gaps which aims to evaluate the opportunities and possibilities given to children to re-imagine, explore and retell the story in a drama lesson. The author argues that teachers should identify the creative gaps of the picture book when assigning and arranging appropriate drama conventions to teach. Through analyzing 20 teaching plans co-written by preschool teachers and drama artists, the author examines the practice of this drama teaching approach collected from eight preschools in Hong Kong. The results reveal that although the teachers could not totally break through the confinement of the original text for open participation, the creative gaps identified in their teaching plans could support young children to re-imagine and explore the story in various ways. Still, attempts were made to facilitate the children to re-create the story through everyday experiences and to discuss the social and moral messages in the story. In the end, the author suggests that teacher training should put more emphasis on the knowledge and skills about analyzing and applying picture books and creative gaps. Copyright © 2017 Author.