Experiential learning can take many forms, but in all cases, teachers play a necessary role in the process. Consequently, nurturing teachers to be critically minded reflective professionals is paramount. This study uses two case studies to identify both the difficulties encountered when offering experiential learning to learners and the advantages to be gained from the process. One case study involves a teacher guiding Hong Kong students in experiential learning which took place at a national level in Mainland China. His approaches aligned with Justice Oriented and Charity Oriented. The second case study concerns a teacher who herself undertook experiential learning at a global level in Africa. Her approaches aligned with Personal Development Oriented and Justice Oriented. Their journeys are described in order to add to the fairly recent knowledge field regarding experiential learning and to help teachers become more skilled at managing experiential learning, particularly outside the local context. We suggest to add facilitating and hindering factors into the two dimensional typologies of experiential learning for civic education. The new three dimensional typologies of experiential learning would provide a more comprehensive conceptual framework to guide teachers and researchers in organizing and conducting experiential learning activities and studies. Copyright © 2021 Association for Moral Education.

This presentation aims at sharing the quantitative and qualitative findings of a pilot project on promoting the perspectives of teaching digital citizenship education in Hong Kong secondary schools. This pilot project also aims at supporting in-service teachers in professional development on curriculum development and teaching methods. Twenty teachers from seven Hong Kong secondary schools joined this pilot project and attended professional development training workshops in the school year of 2019/20. The training workshops delivered several digital citizenship related concepts to the teachers, such as the meanings of digital citizenship, media literacy, digital commerce, digital footprint, digital etiquette, and cyberbullying. Our professional team supported teachers to design their school-based digital citizenship curriculum for trial teaching and to discuss feasible teaching methods after the training workshops. By conducting pre-and-post quantitative tests after the training workshops, there is a significant statistical difference in preference of teaching digital citizenship in terms of digital law, digital commerce, and digital security and safety. Teachers are more convinced and willing to teach digital citizenship education topics after received teacher training, especially on digital commerce and digital law. Next, the qualitative interviews conducted after observing their classroom teaching revealed there is an urgent need to equip students with media literacy, e-commerce, and digital security in a social situation affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially since there are fake stories on social and political issues. In fact, people are increasingly used to buy daily necessities, obtain social and political information, and make judgements through the internet and social media, and they could be exposed to risks of personal data, fake information and stories, and online fraud unconsciously. Suggestions are made on reviewing the secondary school curriculum

Liberal Studies has been established as a mandatory senior secondary school curriculum in Hong Kong since 2009. As one of university-entrance required subjects that aims at developing students informed understanding and decision-making, Liberal Studies requires teachers to adopt critical thinking training and multiple perspectives in teaching and learning. Since then, Liberal Studies teachers and their students inquire into controversial issues about Hong Kong, modern China and globalization. This innovative and inquiry school curriculum, however, has been criticized as one of the culprits of making Hong Kong’s youths active participants in unconventional civic participation. In recent years, the pressures from the pro-establishment camp of the legislature have argued for either changing it from mandatory to elective curriculum, lessening the examination requirements, or relegating it from graded to non-graded assessment status. All these, if carried out, will possibly make Liberal Studies exist in name only, not to mention already causing uncertainties and bewilderment among teachers and students. This paper shall review the development and debates surrounding this innovative and inquiry curriculum. It will possibly shed some lights on how an invisible climate of authoritarianism can exert impacts on a school curriculum. Copyright © 2020 Charles University.

Purpose - This study investigated the effectiveness of a professional development project on digital citizenship education (DCE) conducted by a team at the Education University of Hong Kong. The project aimed to promote digital citizenship education in local junior secondary schools in Hong Kong and support the professional development of in-service teachers.Design/methodology/approach - This study was based on a departmental knowledge transfer and curriculum development project that provided professional development training workshops to in-service teachers from seven partner schools. This paper analyses some findings from the quantitative research questionnaires, lesson observations and qualitative interviews.Findings - Eleven of the 12 participants reported that they were satisfied with the training workshops in the end. We also conducted paired sample t-tests of inferential data. The results show that after the workshops, the teachers tended to teach their students more about aspects of digital law, digital commerce and digital safety and security when teaching digital citizenship. This selection helps us to better understand the priorities of teachers in teaching digital citizenship.Originality/value - This paper is the product of an original knowledge transfer and curriculum development project supported by the Education University of Hong Kong in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong SAR) of China. The topic of digital citizenship education has also been under developed since citizenship education has always been about conventional citizenship in the physical world. Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited.

This project aims at promoting the idea and implementation of digital citizenship education to Hong Kong schools and supporting in-serve teachers in professional development. Twenty teacher participants from seven local secondary schools joined the project and attended our 6-sessions (9 hours) of professional development training workshops in the academic year of 2019/2020. The training workshops delivered digital citizenship education framework and related concepts and teaching methods to the teachers, including digital citizenship, media literacy, digital commerce, digital footprint, digital etiquette, and cyberbullying. Our team also supported teachers to design their school-based digital citizenship curriculum for trial teaching and discussion of feasible pedagogies after the training workshops. After conducting quantitative data analysis before and after the training workshops, the result found that over 90% of teachers are satisfied with the training workshops. Moreover, there was a significant statistical difference in their teaching of digital citizenship on digital law, digital commerce, and digital security and safety dimensions between pre and posttest. They are more willing to teach these topics after the training. Facing the challenges caused by COVID19 in 2020, however, all Hong Kong schools were forced to close down. Therefore, our class observation has been delayed but we still found that teachers can utilize different online learning activities to implement digital citizenship education, though some teachers also reported that they were not confident to teach certain aspects such as legal dimension. This project suggests a need of equipping teachers’ understanding and teaching of digital citizenship education, and revisiting the relevant curriculum. Copyright © 2020 International Conference on Learning and Teaching.

This research study contributes to understanding teachers’ perceptions and views of using controversial issues and political neutrality in teaching, through an analysis of data gathered through questionnaire responses in a wider project and 41 semi-structured interviews. There are diversified views about the relationship between controversial issues and education. Some teachers feel that it is impossible to avoid controversial issues and that using them is educationally necessary. Three approaches were identified regarding their teaching of controversial issues: ‘open’, ‘critical’, and ‘committed’. The authors argue that teachers’ actions are influenced by factors which are discussed as ‘contextual’, ‘political’, and ‘pedagogical’. Teachers operate in specific places and times, have their own views about the nature of the good society, and prioritize their professional responsibilities. These findings contribute to our understandings of the teachers’ viewpoints and how those views are shaped. Such understandings will contribute to the development of reflective education policy and practice. Copyright © 2021 Teacher Development.

This article aims to generate a better understanding of Hong Kong teachers’ perception of national education as implemented in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (hereafter referred to as Hong Kong SAR) and the interrelationship between their perception and the methods they adopt to teach the topic. We outline the Hong Kong context relevant to our research and review the relevant literature to consider typologies and teaching methods about and for national education. Questionnaire data focused on the seven typologies of nationalism and the three teaching methods of national education identified in the literature review. A total of 601 questionnaires were returned from 198 schools. The typologies of cultural nationalism, civic and peripheral nationalism, authoritarian nationalism, unification nationalism and cosmopolitan nationalism, and the teaching methods of group discussion and an affective approach characterize the views of Hong Kong secondary school teachers about national education. We suggest that teachers’ diverse views about nationalism and their varied use of teaching methods to achieve their goals suggest the powerful influence of current initiatives from the Chinese mainland and the need to reflect on established academic literature that proposes the decolonization of the curriculum and interactive and critical teaching methods. Copyright © 2021 Intellect Ltd Article. English language.

This paper analyses the learning impacts of a social justice learning unit, which was implemented through three lectures in each of two undergraduate teacher education courses in 2017/18 across two semesters. The design of the unit allows for social inquiry and experiential learning in the undergraduate curriculum. A sequential mixed-methods design was adopted, with pre and post questionnaire and interview data gathered from undergraduate students. We argue that learning and applying social justice concepts through group inquiry and other learning activities on social justice related issues, together with an experiential learning site visit, can facilitate the development of understanding of both the concept and application of social justice, a positive perception towards ethnic minorities and a desire for further learning and engagement in the community. This study would be useful for any university educators who want to teach about and for social justice in ways that may help students to develop an increased willingness for community service. Copyright © 2020 The Author(s).