This paper reports on the effectiveness and practicality of abstracting essential pedagogical methods that aim to promote high level thinking among junior secondary science students. Strategies include intensive professional development programme and design of lesson materials that can be integrated into the existing science curriculum in the Hong Kong schools. The professional development workshops focus on the distinction between the “Cognitive Skills Enhancing Lessons” (CSE) and regular science lessons. Teachers were stimulated to discuss ways to get students to discuss, think about and respond to teachers’ questions, and to ask questions. Classroom implementations of the CSE teaching materials tailor-made for the Hong Kong junior secondary science curriculum were initiated for 3 secondary two classes. The paper reports on the findings from the pre and post interviews, as well as interviews during the classroom implementations with all the participating teachers and a sample of 6 students from each class. Findings report on what teachers think about the CSE method, their general feelings about using CSE, their comments on the materials, the difficulties (if any) they met, the benefits to students and the perceived feasibility of implementing CSE-infused science activities designed by the project team in local classrooms.

Recently, the school and co-operating teachers have an increasingly important role, by offering stronger support during the teaching practice. Being congruent with similar developments in teacher education programmes in other countries, this development in Hong Kong is strengthened by research studies examining the process of learning to teach. By arguing that the process of learning to teach can be examined from a personal constructivist view of learning, this paper examines the experience from the student-teachers' perspective. The finding reports on the problems perceived by the student-teachers during the student teaching practice and the support provided by the co-operating teachers. The problems encountered and the support obtained were compared and contrasted to reveal the possible roles of the co-operating teachers. The process of learning to teach is extended from a personal view to include support from the social milieu. This paper proposes to consider the process from a social constructivist view of learning. Drawing on the findings, it concludes with implications on how the school and the teacher education institute can collaborate and support the student-teachers from a social constructivist view of learning.
[Copyright © Nanyang Technological University & National Institute of Education.]

Participating in Schools Around the World Project (SAW) provides local participating primary and secondary teachers a good opportunity to look into their current teaching practices. Science has been taken as the first investigation subject, which is an area that demands more attention in Hong Kong. Joining the SAW project, it may improve and enhance the quality of Hong Kong science education by promoting and encouraging professional development of the participating teachers through local and international sharing and discussion on the collected samples of student work in science with the aid of technology advancement. This paper focuses on how student work and technology can act as a means to achieve this aim.
[Copyright © 2000 HKIEd APFSLT.]

This study aims to examine the design of approaches for inquiry learning with multimedia resources in primary classrooms. The study describes the development of a multimedia learning unit that helps learners understand the natural phenomenon of the movement of the Earth. An analysis of the use of the multimedia learning unit by a teacher in two classes of pupils aged 10-12, with different pedagogical approaches, was reported. The multimedia learning unit was used by the teacher in the first class with her own understanding of inquiry learning, which is a teacher-oriented approach with mainly teacher control of the learning. She shifted to a more learneroriented approach of inquiry with another class after receiving suggestions from the lesson observers. A comparison of the prelesson and postlesson tests was conducted to study the learning achievement of the two classes of learners using the same multimedia unit. The results showed that though there were significant improvements in learning achievement in both classes, the teaching with a learner-oriented approach with less teacher controlled over the use of multimedia components resulted in learners' better achievement. The study concludes with suggestions on design of teaching based on inquiry learning with multimedia learning resources and the shift to a more learner-oriented inquiry approach.
[Copyright © 2007 Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education.]

Elsewhere, serious research attention has been paid to the needs and concerns of beginning teachers so that rational efforts can be expanded to optimize the benefits of teacher education programs for supporting and reinforcing those teachers’ professional development. Hong Kong researchers, however, have yet to place a premium on collecting and analyzing those teacher needs and concerns. The authors perceived the research need and had conducted a study that involved the administration of a questionnaire to 500 final year student teachers and interviews with 19 student teachers. The principal findings are that the student teachers in Hong Kong were at the stage of task concerns and had begun to realize the importance of academic impact concern, that they stressed more on impact concerns with regard to the role of a primary teacher and on task concerns when they considered the daily assignments of a teacher, and that the female student teachers were more concerned with student discipline and welfare than the male counterparts.
[Copyright © 2002 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

This presentation examines the obstacles and difficulties in implementing cooperative learning in Hong Kong elementary and secondary schools, and proposes a framework for integrating cooperative learning with Hong Kong basic education so as to optimize teaching and learning. It was pledged by the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR that small-class teaching will be implemented in primary schools by phases from the 2009 academic year. However, small-class teaching will not enhance the quality of teaching and learning without appropriate use of teaching approaches or strategies, and research shows that cooperative learning works well in a small-class teaching environment. This presentation starts with a summary of the 3 major schools of cooperative learning, and follows with a discussion of the expectations of principals/teachers, as well as of the difficulties observed in implementing cooperative learning in local classrooms. The analysis of the expectations and difficulties provides valuable insights in designing a framework to support teachers in systematic implementation of cooperative learning in their classrooms. The framework consists of two stages. The first stage provides a foundation to teaching and learning with cooperative learning, with 3 implementation phases of teaching strategy, lesson design and cooperative learning environment. The second stage is the enhancement of learning with cooperative learning in Inquiry in Science, Problem Solving in Mathematics and High Order Thinking in languages. Finally, this presentation provides a conceptual framework for systematic implementation of cooperative learning. Different modes of implementation are also suggested to meet the needs and cultures of individual schools. The audience will be invited to comment on the design of the framework.

In the Hong Kong Institute of Education, Co-operating Teacher Scheme (CTS) is an important element of the School Experience. Its aims are to let students obtain various forms of support as they first enter the school, progressively learn about a teacher's work and progressively develop professional ability and reflective skills and habits. It was implemented in the initial primary teacher education programmes in 1994. The focus of the present study is to view from the perspective of student-teachers and study what they have really learned from the CTS; how they perceived the relative effectiveness or importance of different phases of the scheme; how they perceived the difference between the roles of the co-operating teacher and the practicum tutor. In the Hong Kong Institute of Education, Co-operating Teacher Scheme (CTS) is an important element of the School Experience. Its aims are to let student teachers obtain various forms of support as they first enter the school; progressively learn about a teacher's work and progressively develop professional ability and reflective skills and habits. The study was conducted within a month after the completion of the CTS. There are quantitative and qualitative components. From the list of 130 schools participating in the Scheme in 95-96, eighty schools were selected randomly. School heads and co-operating teachers were invited to complete a questionnaire. At the same time, in the Institute 71 practicum tutors and 707 student teachers also completed a questionnaire. Futermore, 6 school heads, 12 co-operating teachers, 10 practicum tutors and 10 student teachers were interviewed in order to collect information in addition to that obtained from the questionnaire. The present paper only focuses on the data obtained from the student teachers in order to study the CTS as a learning experience from the perspective of student teachers. From the data of the questionnaire, on the whole, the student teachers supported the implementation