Today, Information Technology (IT) continues to bring tremendous changes in society. One of the challenges facing educational institutions worldwide is that the student body has dramatically changed, thus enlarging the range of individual differences in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to design an effective teaching and learning environment to accommodate individual differences in order to produce high-quality learning outcomes. The present study, undertaken in Hong Kong, analyzed student population diversity to identify its characteristics in terms of background, experiences, and subject knowledge, and designed instructional activities using IT (Blackboard) as a platform to cohere these diversities into a source of knowledge. Tow steps were taken in this study. First, specific instructional activities to guide students’ collaborative experiences were designed. Second, the Blackboard platform was employed to conduct collaborative interactions between instructor and students, and between students to accommodate diversity. A Blackboard-based course design was utilized as an example to demonstrate the executing procedures. The present study illustrates an innovative instructional structure that uses IT to establish a multiple-way communication network which transforms teacher-centered educational activities into student-centered collaborative learning activities. Through this innovative approach, students’ diverse experiences, physical and mental characteristics, attitudes, and perspectives are converted into a collaborative learning environment that transforms diversity into a positive source of knowledge.
[Copyright © 2008 The Chinese University Press, Hong Kong Institute of Educational Research.]

This study is designed to investigate the impact of a curriculum leadership project financially supported by the Quality Education Fund on teacher development and pupil learning, within the tradition of school-based curriculum development in a primary school in Hong Kong. Teacher and pupil interviews are used to evaluate the extent to which teacher engagement in curriculum decision-making processes within a school-based structural approach has led to teacher professional development. Pupils’ perspectives about how the innovation is perceived were collected in order to extend understanding of the underlying principles in implementing curriculum changes in schools, in particular the role of pupil feedback. Qualitative evidence has revealed positively that participating teachers have developed themselves professionally through the process of planning, experimenting and reflecting (PER model) upon curriculum practice and innovation under certain conditions. However, the complexity of these conditions – the structures and processes that were established for involving teachers in curriculum decision-making processes needs further empirical and theoretical work. This chapter reports only the findings from the semi-structured interviews with teachers and pupils taken before the tryout lessons and after the reflection meeting of the mathematics curriculum development team together with the data from the videotaped meetings and lessons for triangulation and further illumination purposes in the second action cycle of the project.
[Copyright © 2008 The Chinese University Press, Hong Kong Institute of Educational Research.]

This chapter presents the Unified Professional Development Project for Teachers and Student Teachers (UPDP), an educational initiative at the Department of Curriculum Studies, the University of Hong Kong. UPDP attempted to link teacher education with school improvement and was committed to enhancing the professional development of teachers from teacher preparation throughout their entire teaching careers by means of collaboration between Hong Kong schools and the University of Hong Kong in partnership. This chapter describes the major components of UPDP – the School-University Partnership Scheme, the Unified Professional Development Fellowship, and the School-based Development Consultancy. It also examines the project’s impact on schools, particularly student teachers and school mentoring teachers, and how UPDP interacted with the culture of the schools to contribute to teachers’ learning and professional development. It also explores the possible contributions of the development of a mentoring force in schools to improving the quality of education in Hong Kong.
[Copyright © 2004 The Chinese University Press, Hong Kong Institute of Educational Research.]

Classroom experience is shaped by a number of factors. In this paper, we report a classroom observation study in China, illustrating regional variation in students' classroom learning experiences. Through comparing and contrasting observed classroom practices in three different regions in China (Chongqing, Hong Kong and Shanghai), the paper provides an analysis of the variation in classroom learning experiences of primary school students in China. Our empirical classroom observation data illustrates some key differences in the pedagogy, the use of classroom activities, and the implementation of the curriculum between individual schools. More substantial differences in classroom practices are found when comparing schools from different regions than those within a given city, leading us to conclude that regional impacts on student experience appear to be more important than within-city factors such as the location of a school or its level of facilities.
[Copyright of Asia Pacific Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2013.860005]