This paper reports on an exploration into difficulties in junior secondary science lessons taught through English in the largely Cantonese-speaking context of Hong Kong. The study was carried out by an educational linguist and a science education specialist working in collaboration, and identified difficulties through student questionnaires, interviews with teachers, and classroom observation. Understandings of genre based in systemic functional linguistics were used in conjunction with knowledge of the science curriculum to investigate these difficulties. Extracts from lessons and teaching materials on energy conversion are discussed, with additional reference to interviews and questionnaires. Analysis revealed the influence of teaching materials on coherence between curricular objectives and teacher discourse. In particular, complex description detracted from explanations, affecting student understanding of the lesson. Copyright ©2024 Elsevier.

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.

Background: The number of artificial intelligence (AI) literacy studies in K-12 education has recently increased, with most research focusing on primary and secondary education contexts. Little research focuses on AI literacy programs in early childhood education. Objectives: The aim of this mixed-methods study is to examine the feasibility of an AI literacy program called AI4KG and explore how it might affect kindergarteners' perceptions of robots and attitudes towards engineering and science. Methods: A total of 26 child-parent dyads recruited from a Hong Kong kindergarten were involved in this study, consisting of 26 children (Mage = 4 years, SD = 0.28) and their parents. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through surveys and interviews designed to explore children's perceptions of robots and attitudes towards engineering and science, and parents' perceptions of the AI4KG intervention. Results: It is found that children have increased their perceptions of robots after the AI literacy program, but the AI4KG curriculum had no significant effects on kindergarten children's engineering and science attitudes. Most parents (22 out of 26) agreed that their children's AI knowledge, AI skills, and AI attitudes have been enhanced after learning through the AI4KG curriculum. Conclusions: This study suggests that the AI4KG curriculum is potentially effective in promoting early AI literacy and favourable attitudes towards the technology, but further research is needed to develop age-appropriate measures and assess its long-term impact on children's education and career paths. Copyright ©2024 Wiley.

While increasing the equitable participation in computer science (CS) education at schools, most existing studies focus on the acquisition of computational skills and measurements of cognitive skills as the learning outcome. The potential benefits of developing psychosocial attributes in the process of computational learning are of less concern, particularly for the underprivileged youth with Special Educational Needs (SEN) and from low-income family. To improve the inequitable learning in school, the "Project C program" has been developed to integrate computational participation and mentoring scheme through social-cognitive approach for underprivileged youth. The aim of this research is to investigate the psychosocial impact of the program, and examine the interrelation between hope, sense of community, and perceived social support in computational learning. The Project C program was piloted in a special school in Hong Kong under the category of "Schools for Children with Moderate Intellectual Disability," targeting 8th grade students (n = 51) with SEN (i.e., mild autism) living in low-income residential districts, and a self-reported pre/post questionnaire was administered to measure the psychosocial changes before and after the intervention. The findings reveal a statistically significant change in hope, sense of community, and perceived social support through the program, and the relation between sense of community and hope was fully mediated by the perceived social support. Based on the findings, theoretical and practical implications of social-cognitive approach to computational learning are discussed. Copyright © 2023 Springer.

Creativity, one of the cornerstones of students' 21st-century skills, is regarded as an important learning outcome of science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) education. Meanwhile, problem-based digital making (DM), which combines the child-friendly programming activities of DM with problem-solving elements, is an emerging instructional design to facilitate STEAM learning. This qualitative case study examines the implementation of a problem-based DM instructional program that used the block-based programming tool Scratch to cultivate the participants' creativity. Fifty-four middle school students (aged 10-14 years) in Hong Kong participated in the program, which totaled 10 contact hours over five consecutive weeks. Through triangulating students' DM artifacts, video recordings, field notes, and interviews, the researchers characterized the students' creative expression, examined the role of problem-based DM in encouraging creative work, and investigated the use of Scratch for mediating student creativity. The results showed that problem-based DM activities fostered students' creative expressions in the dimensions of novelty, utility, aesthetics, and authenticity. While Scratch mediated the way the students presented their solutions, it had limitations that hindered the students' digital artifact construction. The findings provide theoretical insights for framing creativity and offer practical implications for the implementation of problem-based DM in K-12 contexts. Copyright © 2023 SAGE Publications.

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.