In the knowledge economy, many companies are well aware of the vital need to maintain the professional expertise of their workers at a high level. Though there have been a lot of research studies in the areas of professional expertise and workplace learning, few examined the learning pathways novice workers went through to become experts in their professions. Most of the research studies on expertise focused on the nature of expertise and few on its development. As for workplace learning research, most studies focused on the learning resources and methods workers used and the affordances of the workplace in making learning possible. Based on the accounts of expertise development collected from individual information technology (IT) workers in Hong Kong, this paper proposes a four-phase model of professional expertise development in the workplace and discusses its similarities to and differences from extant theories of expertise and skill development.
Copyright of Studies in Continuing Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2014.967347

This editorial provides an overview of the articles which are featured in this issue of Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice. This issue includes a number of contributions which deal, directly or indirectly, with teacher learning, and particularly with the development and role of teacher professional learning communities. It also addresses the issue of learning from teaching as teachers describe, analyze and reflect upon their teaching experiences in the classroom, including the connection between their behavior and beliefs and student learning. One of the ethnographic studies focuses on the development of a community of practice for sustainable professional development among 18 teachers of English as second language in Hong Kong. Another article discusses the complex role of special education teachers in Israel. All seven papers included in this issue, in a way or another, look at the complexities of teaching and learning. Overall, a number of overarching themes may be identified: the importance of analyzing teachers beliefs and practices; the key role of professional communities in enhancing teacher learning and change; the need for relevant professional development opportunities to support teacher learning and commitment to teaching; the pedagogies of teaching and their role in fostering teacher reflection and growth as well as student learning taking into account the diversity and guidance provided to them; and the link between the complexity of teaching and the dynamic of classrooms and school culture.
Copyright of Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2014.928118

Learning Study, in the form of an action research, has been proved to be an effective platform for school-based teacher professional development in Hong Kong. It is grounded in the Variation Theory developed by Ference Marton. In each Learning Study, teachers of a certain subject in a school work collaboratively with staffs from the Hong Kong Institute of Education to plan and teach a lesson targeting to achieve some important goals and/or to solve some learning difficulties in the curriculum of that subject. This presentation is about a Learning Study of a junior secondary school science topic "Eyes and Vision". In this Learning Study, drawing of ray diagram was identified to be a critical learning difficulty of the students. Activities were then designed based on the Variation Theory. Students were expected to develop the ability to use ray diagrams to describe, explain and predict phenomena about seeing sharp and blurred images through these activities. They could investigate light propagation and the formation of image through one phenomenon without involving advanced knowledge in either reflection or refraction. The whole process of conducting the Learning Study will be reported. It includes the identification of learning difficulties, the planning and the teaching of the lesson and the evaluation of the learning outcomes.

This paper reports a study that investigated the motivations towards teaching of six pre-service English teachers enrolled on a teacher education course in Hong Kong. A qualitative case study approach was adopted, using data gathered from pre- and post-course interviews with individual participants, their dialogue journals with the teacher educator as well as their post-course reflection papers. Drawing on existing research on motivation in teacher education and educational psychology, the findings show that while some pre-service teachers developed their motivations towards teaching in the course, some others showed little change. The study suggests that pre-service teachers' previous experience and personal beliefs as well as the course content and design could play an important role in changing their motivations. The paper concludes with some implications for language teacher education regarding ways to promote and sustain student teachers' motivations towards teaching.
[Copyright of Language Culture and Curriculum is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2014.890211]

This study investigates Hong Kong primary science teachers' understandings of inquiry learning, perceived difficulties in implementing inquiry learning, as well as their current practices of and resistance to using online resources, in order to identify their needs and propose suggestions to address these needs. An online survey has been used to collect data from the primary science teachers taking part in a professional development course. Simple descriptive analyses of the data show that although the teachers' conceptions of inquiry learning seem to match well with the idea of inquiry learning in general, their misconceptions and high level of perceived difficulties in implementing inquiry learning warrant our attention. As for teachers' use of online resources, it is found that traditional Web 1.0 resources are more commonly used, and when these online resources are used, teachers take the more dominant role in using them to support lecturing and explaining. Moreover, some associations between inquiry practices and use of online resources are observed. Accordingly, ways to overcome challenges in implementing inquiry learning and using online resources for the teaching and learning of science are discussed.
[Copyright of Education 3-13 is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2012.710640]

Over the past 30 years, school principals have been exhorted to articulate a clear vision as a key tool for stimulating the improvement of teaching and learning in their schools. Over the past decade, as school systems have sought to distribute leadership more broadly within schools, the same imperative has applied to middle-level leaders. Indeed, a key assumption underlying the move towards sharing leadership responsibilities more broadly has been the belief that this would strengthen collective efforts and reduce the gap between goals and outcomes. Yet, to date, there have relatively few investigations of the extent to which middle-level leaders are contributing to school improvement efforts. This study sought to understand how shared vision within school management teams (SMTs) impacts teacher commitment and teacher support for students through school alignment and coherence. Dyad survey data were collected from 411 SMT members and 559 teachers at 32 primary schools in Hong Kong. Results indicated that shared vision in SMTs is positively related to teachers' perception of school alignment and coherence, teachers' commitment and teacher support to students. Theoretical and practical implications of findings are discussed.
[Copyright of School Leadership & Management is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2014.938039]

As teacher educators, preparing student-teachers who are able to address diverse student needs is our main concern. It has been suggested in the literature that teachers who are adaptive to students' needs are those who possess adequate pedagogical content knowledge or pedagogical understanding. However, it is not uncommon for teacher educators to find student-teachers with diverse pedagogical understandings even at the point of graduation from the teacher education programme. This paper aims to explain and analyse the development of pedagogical understanding among student-teachers in an initial teacher education programme. The findings are drawn from a study conducted at the Hong Kong Institute of Education where in-depth interviews were carried out during the four-year programme. The findings from the three selected cases provide an explanation for why some individual student-teachers show continuous development, whereas others remain confused in their pedagogical understanding throughout the teacher education programme. While acknowledging individual differences in pedagogical understanding, we attempt to explain such differences by investigating the relationship between different dimensions of the student-teachers' learning such as the integration of pedagogical understanding with the teaching contexts, integration of feedback from lecturers and supporting teachers, and their focus of concern. The findings reveal that the three cases demonstrate different levels of pedagogical understanding and possess varying 'senses of agency'. Of the three cases, the first one, Peggy has the strongest sense of agency. Despite influences related to classroom management, diverse learning ability among pupils, and the teaching methods which pupils were accustomed to previously, she actively introduced rhythmic movements into her lessons, developed pupils' ability to learn gradually and achieved an impact on pupils' learning which was also recognized by her supporting teacher. The