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.

Moral education is not a new concept in universities; however, university students’ firsthand learning experience and valuation of moral education have not been fully explored. As part of a teaching and learning study conducted in two undergraduate classes in a Hong Kong university, this study explores the university students’ perceptions of learning moral education. Data were mainly collected through student interviews and their reflective journals. Most students supported the learning of moral education. They asserted that moral education has a lifelong nature; thus, they should learn it in universities. The study reveals that moral education can facilitate the university students’ personal and social betterments, showing the intrinsic and instrumental values of moral education. This small-scale case supplements the literature on the understanding of the development of moral education in higher education. This study also reflects the necessity to rethink the moral aim and the moral education curriculum of higher education. Copyright © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The discussion of moral dilemmas has long been a teaching strategy for moral education. However, the questioning techniques teachers use to lead moral discussions are not fully understood. With reference to a collaborative teaching research project on a values education video-story, this study explored the authentic practice of teacher questioning in moral education classes. Data were collected in a Hong Kong primary school through lesson observations, interviews, document reviews and field notes. Teachers used three techniques when leading moral discussions: posing hypothetical questions, asking role-switching questions and playing devil’s advocate. Collectively, these three techniques helped to enhance students’ thinking. The study suggests that teachers’ questioning in moral discussions can be seen as a contextualised activity that involves the analysis of the key characters, plot points and moral values embedded in the story throughout the processes of curriculum planning and teaching. Teacher questioning strategies offer directions for future studies of moral discussions. Copyright © 2020 Journal of Moral Education Ltd.

This presentation will address the Conference Theme by sharing the findings of an empirical study of a values education programme, one using Circle Time (CT) as the major classroom strategy. Existing studies reveal the positive impact of CT on students’ personal development, social skills and peer relationships, especially in the contexts of personal, social and health education. However, CT’s applicability to the teaching/learning of values is still being examined. The presentation focuses on the programme's implementation and the role of CT in teaching values education, particularly with regard to how teachers design the curriculum and teach the lessons by using CT, and how the students become engaged in the circle. Data were collected in two primary schools through multiple methods, including observations during meetings and classes, students’ portfolios, programme evaluations and interviews, and teachers’ programme evaluations and reflections. The study found that teachers and students appreciated the use of CT, as sitting in a circle clearly “opened up” teacher-student interactions as we find them in traditional classrooms, thus facilitating student-student dialogues. The students learned from sharing their daily activities, listening to their peers’ conversations and asking question. Copyright © 2018 APNME.

The human development (HD) model for religious education (RE) emphasises how students benefit from studying religion. However, detailed teaching practices for ‘learning from religion’ are not fully understood. In this article, lesson observations, school documents and interview data were collected from two Christian primary schools in Hong Kong (HK) . Two lessons were analysed as paradigmatic examples of the teaching for student development in RE lessons. This study found that the teachers helped their students engage in religion by giving them opportunities to associate religion with their lives through religious and moral-related contents. The use of daily life and religious experiences with discussions was the pedagogical approach for moving RE from just ‘the teaching of religion’. Moreover, various opportunities for student reflections to enhance personal and moral development were observed. Future studies should consider examining the theory of the adopted model and its classroom practice, which can aid understanding regarding the role of RE for student development and its global identity. Copyright © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Numerous recent studies have discussed religious education in a multi-religious context. However, few have explored single religion-based curricula in a multi-religious setting. With reference to Hong Kong, this chapter aims to fill this research gap by providing empirical evidence regarding religious education for all students with religious or secular backgrounds in four government-subsidised religious schools. The chapter first examines the social and educational contexts of religious education in Hong Kong. Religious schools have autonomy in implementing religious curricula, whereby both religious and secular teachers and students work together. Second, it introduces the specific settings of the schools, investigating religious education from a single-religion perspective with educational contents concerning moral and values education. Finally, the chapter explores the practices implemented in the schools, emphasising the special position of the sponsoring bodies of religious schools and their autonomy in curriculum development regarding religious education.
[Copyright © 2018 Symposium Books.]

Religious education is one of the ways traditionally used to implement moral and values education in schools. In Hong Kong, more than half of the schools are religious schools. It is important to understand how the religious schools promote moral values in Hong Kong schools. In particular, based on the data collected from document reviews, individual interviews and observations in three religious elementary schools, this paper explores how the schools carry out moral and values education and how teachers teach values in religious lessons. The paper has three major research questions: (a) What are the schools’ curriculum of moral and values education?; (b) What are the teachers’ perceptions of teaching values, especially in Religious Studies lessons?; and (c) How do the teachers teach values in the observed Religious Studies lessons? The study finds the teachers rely on textbooks, other teaching materials or on their own understanding of religious beliefs, etc to teach in the observed lessons. The paper argues that the teacher plays an important role in moral and values education and that relevant teacher education is necessary.

Moral education receives much attention in higher education and teacher education around the world. To nurture university students' (including pre-service teachers') moral values and moral awareness is one of the aims of higher education in Europe, America, mainland China and Hong Kong. However, their perceptions of learning moral education and the accompanying curriculum development are at present under-researched. This paper reports on a study aimed at exploring: (i) what are the university students' (and pre-service teachers') perceptions of the learning of moral and values education?; and (ii) how do they learn moral and values education in a curriculum and pedagogy course? This case study took place in an undergraduate class in Hong Kong. It adopted multiple methods to collect data and the results showed that the experience of values education curriculum planning enhanced the university students' learning of moral education. They learnt moral education through traditional and innovative ways, involving (i) discussion/sharing in moral dilemmas and circle time (as university students), and (ii) the related curriculum planning and teaching (as pre-service teachers). With reference to the study, this paper supplements the understanding of the curriculum development and learning of moral and values education in higher education in Hong Kong.