The field experience component in the four year Bachelor of Education programme (Primary) at The Hong Kong Institute of Education offers a number of opportunities for students to observe or teach in a school. The aim of this article is to analyse the learning of the studentVteachers and the supporting teachers during the field experience period in the second and the final years of the programme and to explain this learning using a sociocultural view of learning. StudentVteachers and their supporting teachers in their second year of study in 1999-2000 as well as those in their final year of study in 2001-02 were interviewed. The findings describe the professional development of the studentVteachers and the construction of knowledge in teaching. The article analyses the role of supporting teachers as social agents, and describes their use of mediational means, including teaching resources, and information about pupils abilities and habits, in facilitating the learning of the studentVteachers. The findings also compare the sharing of aims between the lecturers and the supporting teachers. Finally, the paper summarizes suggestions on how professional development of the student-teachers during the field experience may be analysed by adopting a sociocultural view of learning.
[Copyright of Teacher Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530500200259 ]

Changing educational priorities are reflected both in the literature and the models that seek to describe initial teachers' professional formation and learning. However, do new teachers' experiences conform to these models? A sampling of Hong Kong secondary school teachers over their first year as full-time teachers provides data from questionnaires and longitudinal interviews supporting a variety of processes and related models which highlight that becoming a teacher reflects individual differences. To account for this array of individual differences an interaction model is proposed that reflects the Chinese cultural context of this study - the 'dim-sum' model - a model that sites initial teachers' professional formation and learning within a multi-perspective and interactive learning context.
[Copyright of Teacher Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530500200252 ]

Preparation for school leadership has become a major global educational issue since the late 1990s. In Hong Kong, the establishment and implementation of school-based management in the 1990s have made significant demands on principals. In 1999, a leadership development and training programme for serving and aspiring principals was initiated by the Government of the Special Administrative Region, after visits to and study of similar programmes in England, Scotland, Australia (State of Victoria) and Singapore. In 2002, further suggestions were made to draw up a framework for principals' training in Hong Kong. With an adapted evaluation framework, and based on the evaluation findings of a principals' training programme developed by a tertiary institution in 1998, this paper attempts to give answers to: (1) why do serving principals attend principals' training programmes? (2) what sort of training programme do principals regard as useful? (3) are the findings consistent with the proposals of the Government? (4) do training programmes bring about changes in attitudes and behaviours of principals? The paper concludes with recommendations for (1) and (2).
[Copyright of School Leadership & Management is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13632430410001695796]

This article traces the processes for encouraging and/or ensuring the accountability of teachers in Hong Kong. It is argued that, if examined historically, the nature of teacher accountability has been determined by the government, whose approach has been ambivalent and paradoxical. Up until the mid-1980s, through inertia and non-decisions, the low level of professionalization of teaching was reinforced. Subsequently, from the late 1980s onwards, the government resisted and diluted attempts by the professional community to regulate itself. Most recently it has sought to introduce systems to allow the government to scrutinize teachers in an ostensible attempt to promote the level of teacher professionalism, whilst at the same time attempted to maintain the low status of the main institution dedicated to teacher education. These are analysed in terms of the differences between professionalism and professionalization, the government's own legitimacy and the changing political context.
[Copyright of Research Papers in Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0267152032000177007]

The idea of active learning was first introduced to kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong in 1981 when they received their in-service teacher education. In a two-year, school-based project, 60 teachers in five schools were asked to create collaborative videos about models of good practices after sharing "effective" teaching episodes with peer teachers who were experimenting with "desirable" learning activities in their classrooms. This study reports on the planning, implementation, classroom ethos and adult support displayed in the project deliverables (videos) so as to portray the kinds of emergent innovations that were being adopted. The findings of the study suggest that there was some significance to the use of collaborative reflection to activate teachers' creativity and sensitivity in giving children's learning first priority in their pedagogy. As well, it points toward using collaborative reflection as an element of teacher education.
[Copyright of Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10901020701634864]

This paper characterizes early mathematics instruction in Hong Kong. The teaching of addition in three pre-primary and three lower primary schools was observed and nine teachers were interviewed about their beliefs about early mathematics teaching. A child-centered, play-based approach was evident but teachers emphasized discipline, diligence and academic success. Observations also revealed practices reflective of both constructivist and instructivist pedagogies. Results from interviews suggest that teachers' traditional cultural beliefs about instruction were challenged by western ideologies introduced in continuing professional development courses and by notions promulgated by the educational reforms. Both consistencies and inconsistencies between teachers' beliefs and practices were identified. Implications of the findings are discussed.
[Copyright of Early Years: An International Journal of Research and Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09575140802020917]

Reviews of teachers professional development show that it is a highly complicated area, in which it is difficult to offer a unified and comprehensive view of the growing development of teachers. This study looks into the development of teachers by tracking their practices in a problematic teaching area: 'learning through play'. Four Hong Kong kindergarten teachers participated in a qualitative study that investigated their implicit knowledge of teaching. The findings show that there is a close relationship between the informants' teaching approaches and their self-learning patterns. The result raises doubt about the staged developmental perspectives of teacher development. The significance of meta-learning ability, which is found to be an essential component for the professional development of teachers in a changing context, is revealed.
[Copyright of Teacher Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530701827764]

This paper presents a study that shows the use of professional standards in field experience assessment in initial teacher education. A Professional Development Progress Map was developed in field experience assessment in a teacher education institution in Hong Kong. The study enriches our understanding of the holistic nature of assessing professional competence in teaching, problems of using the Progress Map in summative assessment, and the enhancement of professional learning in field experience assessment. While the discussion cautions the limitations of professional standards, it advocates the empowerment of the assessors and the assessed to be agents striving for good assessments. Suggestions on engaging supervisors and student teachers in 'assessment dialogue' are proposed for this empowerment - making explicit judgments on professional competence in teaching and sharing supervisory practices among supervisors, engaging student teachers with the assessment criteria, and reframing supervisory practices to empower student teachers to take an active role in supervision.
[Copyright of Journal of Education for Teaching is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02607470701773416]