Background: Artificial Intelligence (AI) literacy is a crucial part of digital literacy that all individuals should possess in today's technologically advanced world. Despite the potential benefits that AI education offers, little research has been done on how to teach AI literacy to children. Objectives: This study aimed to fill that gap by investigating how children were engaged in AI literacy activities that are supported by intelligent agents. These activities were implemented in a Hong Kong kindergarten with a class of six 5-year-olds (Mage = 62.83 months, SD = 2.91) over a 6-week period. Methods: The study gathered data from multiple sources, including classroom observations, teacher interviews, and documents/artefacts. Results and Conclusions: The results showed that children could learn about AI through interaction with intelligent agents in embodied learning contexts. The findings of this study have implications for the broader field of digital technology education, particularly in the context of early childhood education. Copyright © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

This study investigated 14 Hong Kong primary school teachers’ conceptions of and concerns about the implementation of integrated STEM education in primary school. Data were collected through concept maps and interviews with the teachers. Results revealed that in addition to representing STEM as simplistic models (e.g., STEM as an acronym), the teachers mostly seemed to model STEM integration conceptually using integrated disciplines, science as context, or real-world problem solving as context. Not many teachers were found to represent STEM using engineering design progress as context. Results also indicated that the teachers expressed intense concerns regarding personal inadequacy of STEM knowledge or skills (personal), student outcomes of STEM education (consequence), and limited instructional time (management). This study suggested providing sustained teacher professional development, creating supportive school environments, and building a collaborative STEM community as strategies to facilitate changes in teachers’ concerns and to advance STEM implementation in primary schools. Copyright © 2022 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden.

隨著二零一五年《施政報告》發佈，香港教育業界開始關注STEM（科學、科技、工程及數學）教育﹔然而，業界的討論主要聚焦於中小學教育，尚未觸及幼稚園處境。事實上，數學與自然科學是本地幼兒教育不可或缺的學習範疇，個別辦學團體及幼稚園已試行STEM教育活動，以培育幼兒的探索與科學精神。為了探討STEM在香港學前教育的出路，本文將運用質性研究方式，以五位幼兒教育工作者的個案訪談為基礎，透視在本地幼稚園推行STEM教育活動時的挑戰，並探討當中給予業界的啟示。 Copyright © 2018 香港教師中心.

Drawing on Lemke's (1990) “thematic patterns” theory, this research proposes a “Concept + Language Mapping” (CLM) approach and tried it out in an English Medium Instruction (EMI) biology classroom in Hong Kong. Lessons were observed and samples of student work were collected during the intervention with student/teacher interviews conducted afterwards. A quasi-experimental design was also adopted to estimate the impact of the CLM approach. The analysis indicated that CLM facilitated the development of both content and language knowledge.

This chapter introduces the reform of teacher preparation for primary General Studies teachers and secondary science teachers to implement STEM education in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong/ HKSAR) of China. In response to the call for the promotion of STEM education in recent policy addresses, STEM education is to be promoted through the Key Learning Areas of Science Education, Technology Education, and Mathematics Education in the school curriculum. Given the imperative role that teachers play in the provision of quality STEM education, the government, universities, and other stakeholders have contributed significant resources and funding to provide training programmes, workshops, projects, and research to prepare teachers to provide students with relevant school-based STEM learning opportunities. The discussion includes mainly pre-service teacher education comprising the degree programmes, subjects, and courses offered at undergraduate and postgraduate levels to nurture qualified teachers in STEM education and some brief information about in-service teacher professional development. Data is collected and analysed from government reports, policy documents, research articles, discussion papers, and programme information on STEM education and teacher education. This chapter provides an overview to inform future directions of teacher preparation for STEM education in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

In this study, we assessed the general marine environmental knowledge and attitudes of university students from eight public universities in Hong Kong. The Ocean Literacy Framework and revised New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) were used as tools for questionnaire development. Data were collected via in-person and online surveys. An in-person survey was conducted at the university canteen from 16 May to 24 May 2017, and an online survey was conducted via email from 1 May to 31 May 2017. A structured questionnaire was provided to interested students from different levels of study and majors. Data obtained from these surveys were summarized based on participants’ correct answers in the general knowledge section and five-point Likert scaling for attitude statements. Results show that Hong Kong university students possess moderate marine environmental knowledge and pro-environmental attitudes. Knowledge scores significantly correlate with demographic variables, such as major of study, gender, institution, and parents’ education. Students’ pro-environmental attitudes are associated with different factors, including participation in various marine recreational activities, taking marine-related courses, and attachment to conservative marine initiatives. The study results have implications regarding the advancement of marine environmental knowledge and the pro-environmental attitudes of university students, such as mapping a well-structured pathway for disseminating marine environmental knowledge, curricular involvement, and the development of an integrated web resource. Copyright © 2023 by the authors.

This study trialed a pedagogy of “To Play and Learn, To Inquire, To STEM and Code”. Supplementary with seven hands-on activity worksheets and 19 coding product templates and samples, the pedagogy was designed to expose students to the construction of electric circuits with Micro:bit in STEM classrooms for developing knowledge of electric circuits and problem-solving skills. The pedagogy was implemented as a 280-minute teaching in eight lessons for 23 selected Grade 5 classes, which involved 369 students from nine primary schools at Hong Kong. The results of pre-post-test validate the success of the pedagogy in students' statistically significant growth in all three topic-specific knowledge points. The results of questionnaire survey demonstrate the impact of the pedagogy on students' statistically significant growth in their awareness of and their confidence in applying the target problem-solving skills. The results of focus group interviews confirm that students were satisfied with the experiences and outcomes of the pedagogy in developing topic-specific knowledge and problem-solving skills. This study reveals that the pedagogy is well received by students; noticeably effective to enhance students' knowledge of electric circuits; and potential to promote their development of problem-solving skills. Future directions to extend the pedagogy for senior primary curriculum are discussed. Copyright © 2022 Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.

Current academic research bodies on STEM education focus on five perspectives of student ability enhancement, teacher training, curriculum integration, pedagogy and curricular implementation in intra-national/cross-national comparative studies. Noteworthy, there has been no comprehensive policy analysis of STEM education in secondary school curricula in Hong Kong. For STEM is not formally documented into school curricula and students mostly join inter-school and international STEM project competitions. International literature reveals that conceptions of STEM education are still fuzzy. In this paper, a 2 X 3 matrix is utilized to evaluate the extent of implementing STEM education in mainstream secondary schools in Hong Kong, and to envisage contextual difficulties and obstacles against STEM education. This paper then leads conceptual discussions on integrated approaches, draw policy implications and recommend further research agendas. Copyright © 2022 Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.

STEM education has taken on high importance in Hong Kong K-12 education landscape. Despite policy advocacy and curriculum endeavour, the quality of STEM education varies significantly between schools. Research literature indicates that high-quality STEM education requires teachers’ rigorous delivery of topics and appropriate pedagogies, and one approach to improve such practices is teacher professional development (TPD). However, because current research on TPD has not given explicit consideration to the complex nature of STEM education, there remains a lack of a clear blueprint of how TPD should be conducted to build teachers’ capacity for STEM education effectively. This paper presents a case study that explores the necessary attributes and identifies the missing links of STEM education TPD by understanding how various TPD models supported a Hong Kong K-12 school embracing STEM education. Qualitative data collection methods, including semi-structured interviews and classroom observations, were employed to draw a picture of TPD implementations in the selected school. The findings suggest that, at the macro-level, effective STEM TPD should not stop at employing mixed use of TPD models; the models have to be integrated organically with respect to a school-based STEM curriculum implementation approach. A collaborative culture between teachers must be cultivated for effective inter-disciplinary integration. Collaborative action research should also be promoted to develop collective wisdom of STEM pedagogies. At the micro-level, TPACK and cross-disciplinary integration skills need to be focusing areas of STEM TPD. With these guiding principles, some possible strategies for effective STEM education TPD are suggested. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.