In-person teaching abroad experiences, where pre-service teachers spend a defined period teaching in schools in a foreign country, have received considerable research attention in recent years. However, virtual alternatives have yet to be explored. This exploratory study sought to understand the effects a virtual teaching abroad experience had on pre-service teachers' professional learning. Data included teaching logs and reflective writings of two groups of pre-service teachers from Hong Kong who participated in a virtual teaching abroad experience hosted by a university in the United Kingdom and interviews with their course coordinators. The findings suggest that the PSTs found the virtual teaching abroad experience novel and unique, contributing to professional learning. Specifically, the experience (a) increased the PSTs' confidence and flexibility; (b) improved their synchronous online teaching skills; (c) gave them greater awareness of learner differences and needs; and (d) exposed them to innovative pedagogical approaches. The study suggests that virtual teaching abroad experiences could have a place within initial teacher education, especially as the financial costs associated with them are lower than in-person experiences. However, they do not seem adequate to replace a sustained period immersed in an overseas school context. Copyright ©2023 Routledge.

To prepare teachers for blended teaching, this study proposed ongoing teacher professional development activities that utilize the learning-by-doing approach within a professional learning community with the objective of developing the technological, pedagogical, content knowledge (TPACK) of teachers. The study explored the TPACK of 11 teachers and their perceptions of blended teaching through interviews and questionnaires. Analyses of interview data demonstrated that teachers perceived the technological benefits (e.g., supporting citywide resources) but noted that the teacher professional development training required high levels of self-regulation skills. The questionnaire results indicated significant improvements in TPACK, TCK, and TPCK but not for other dimensions of TPACK. Lastly, the study presented discussions and implications accordingly. Copyright © 2023 Education Research Institute, Seoul National University.

To transform existing education practices in tackling different challenges and future uncertainties, it is essential to engage teachers as active agents in students' learning, collegial collaboration, school development and societal issues throughout the career. This study investigates the change and continuity of teacher professional agency associated with the individual position and socio-cultural factors in Hong Kong. Data from semi-structured interviews were collected with 14 teachers over a two-year period in 2018 and 2020, and narrative analysis was utilized to examine teacher agency. The changes and continuity were categorized into four types: 1) expanding, 2) strategic, 3) exploring, and 4) withering agencies. The way teachers took and made work-related actions and decisions on their career trajectories could be associated with the changes in individual positions, the organizational culture, and the leadership style in the socio-cultural context. This study contributes to the existing understanding of the temporal development and enactment of professional agency. Despite the strong hierarchical structure embedded in the school managerial practices, a trusting management and collaborative work community that allow channels to receive bottom-up suggestions and spaces to enable individual learning could support positive changes and the continuity of professional agency. Copyright ©2023 Routledge.

Research Findings: Early childhood educators' own disposition has been suggested to contribute to their ability to promote physical literacy (PL) in young children. There is currently limited evidence of educators' own PL, and studies have not explored how PL relates to teaching knowledge and behaviors in the early childhood education (ECE) context. This current study examined the relationships of teachers' perceived PL with their self-efficacy and perceived professional competence in relation to promoting physical activities in ECE settings. A total of 338 early childhood educators from Hong Kong responded to an online survey that consisted of the Perceived Physical Literacy Inventory (PPLI), Chinese version of the Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (C-TSE(R)), and Teachers' Professional Competence (TPC) questionnaire. The findings revealed that educators' perceived PL is moderately associated with self-efficacy and professional competence when conducting physical activities in ECE contexts. The PL attributes of self-expression and communication, and knowledge and understanding were significant predictors of educators' self-efficacy in classroom management and teaching strategies, as well as their professional knowledge and attitudes. Practice or Policy: The findings suggest that ECE teachers' training should consider aspects of their own PL to enable their self-efficacy and perceived competence for conducting physical activities in ECE settings and thereby promote the PL of young children. Copyright ©2023 Routledge.

A lack of evidence bridging the chasm between professional learning practices and commonly used, publicly available resources such as YouTube videos, remains a long-term challenge in both research and practice. The study introduced a YouTube video club for female early childhood teachers in Hong Kong (N = 29) to view, analyse and discuss STEM teaching videos. The participants wrote reflections and discussed with peers to exchange views on teaching content and strategies. All participants completed pre- and post-intervention surveys reporting their teaching beliefs, and five participants from the experimental group were invited for individual interviews. The questionnaire survey data were analysed using statistical analysis, while the interview data were analysed through inductive thematic analysis. The study, which was pre-post quasi-experimental, showed that the video club enhanced teachers' beliefs and attitudes towards professional practices in early childhood education. Qualitative analysis of teacher interviews revealed benefits and constraints of using YouTube videos for professional learning. The study transformed video clubs into a web-mediated mode using YouTube, Google Classroom and Zoom. The results have implications for the design and implementation of video clubs in teacher learning programmes. Copyright ©2023 Wiley.

The disruptive effects of this pandemic are predicted to redefine the priorities of continuing professional development (CPD) in the educational sector and reconstruct the identity and role of educators in future educational systems. Accordingly, the primary aim of the proposed research is to critically assess the factors shaping post-COVID-19 identity formation amongst secondary school teachers in Hong Kong to determine the influence of CPD and systemic needs on teacher role perceptions and goal-setting. This study will apply a mixed-methods approach to the collection of quantitative (survey) and qualitative (interview) data from a sample of Hong Kong educators. Through a critical, comparative analysis of these findings and triangulation of the evidence with prior academic theories, a model of educator development and identity formation will be proposed to improve and target developmental support throughout normalisation and post-COVID-19 recovery. Copyright © 2023 Taylor & Francis.

Pre-service language teachers develop their critical thinking in teacher education courses. They learn to teach critical thinking mainly during the teaching practicum. Their learning to teach CT takes place through different forms of mediation. Their learning is impeded by the gap between the curriculum goal and its implementation. Informed by a socio-cultural perspective, this study investigated how two student teachers developed their CT-oriented pedagogies in a pre-service language teacher education program in Hong Kong. Drawing on multiple sources of data including semi-structured interviews, relevant documents, and informal communication, the findings revealed the participants' growing pedagogical knowledge and competence in CT teaching, influenced by various forms of mediation – i.e., object-regulated, other-regulated, and self-regulated – afforded in the situated context. The gap between the curriculum's goal and its implementation was identified as a crucial factor that impeded their learning to teach CT in the program. The paper concludes with practical implications that can help integrate CT into pre-service teacher education programs with a view to preparing future teachers with a high level of CT and CT-focused pedagogies. Copyright © 2023 Elsevier.

Teacher education for social justice aims to enable teachers to work toward equity and justice in society and humanizing the educational experience of their students. Conceptualizing teaching as a political and ethical endeavor, social justice teacher education must engage seriously with the local and lived experiences of both teacher educators and student teachers. How then does teacher education for social justice move across communities and identities, and through cultural, social, geographic and temporal spaces? This chapter presents an autobiographical narrative inquiry into social justice teacher education across sociocultural and sociopolitical contexts, across time, and within different educational communities. Bakhtin's dialogic theory (1981) helps to trace the narrative threads wherein "each word tastes of the context and contexts in which it has lived its socially charged life" (p. 293). The study examines my ideological becoming (Bakhtin, 1981) as a critical teacher educator in the context of a youth mentoring service-learning course for undergraduate teacher candidates. I examine the complexities and tensions in exploring experiences and co-constructing understandings of oppression, privilege and social justice with my student teachers on the youth mentoring course in dialogic struggles with my experiences of justice and education in the USA and Hong Kong as an English-speaking Chinese American. Providing an in-depth examination of the convergence of identity, social relations, place, and time in my knowledge formation, I critically reflect upon the notion of social justice to suggest that social justice teacher education is multi-voiced and lived both locally and globally. Copyright © 2023 Emerald Publishing Limited.

The paper traces the evolution of the Centre for Learning Enhancement And Research (CLEAR) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) from early 2002 to the end of 2021. The University needed a centre to support both institutional and local (department and faculty) needs and aspirations for enhancing teaching and learning. Five key strategies adopted by CLEAR are: embedding the practice of existing teachers into policy development, localizing quality-assurance processes, relating professional-development activities to career development, involving students, and producing research evidence from within the Hong Kong context. The evidence base that supports these strategies, and the cultural and community factors involved, will be woven into an evidence-based narrative that spans 20 years. Copyright © 2023 Georgia Southern University.

This chapter traces one student teacher's (Joan) experiences of learning to teach English as a second language in a cross-cultural context during a teaching practicum in Hong Kong. The school-based practicum is a core component of many initial teacher education programmes. During this induction period, usually an 8-week block, student teachers are placed in local schools to learn how to integrate theories into practice in real teaching situations. Specifically, I uncover how Joan grappled with the tensions and complexities of teaching young learners from a different cultural and linguistic background, in a small elementary school situated in the borderland between Hong Kong (an autonomous region of China) and Shenzhen (a province of Mainland China). Copyright © 2023 Emerald Publishing Limited.