School-based learning community is widely supported by educators as an effective professional development strategy to improve teaching and learning. With reference to the collaborative and supportive features, the professional learning communities (PLCs) are further recognized in schools. Teachers in different schools work collaboratively to solve the actual problems that they come across in their classrooms and improve their teaching practice. With the support of school teachers, education officers and tertiary academics, PLCs was widely adopted as a strategy to enhance teacher professional learning. The tripartite partnership offers a platform for teachers to actively engage in professional sharing about teaching and learning. The paper illustrates the outcome of the lesson study in a two-year project of University-School Support Program (USP). It is evident that the Lesson Study was an effective collaborative mode of professional development for teachers of special schools in Hong Kong.
[Copyright © The Hong Kong Special Education Society].

Dyslexia has received increasing professional and public awareness in Hong Kong over the past decade. The goal of understanding dyslexia is to provide effective prevention and remediation programs possible in order to ameliorate the disabling effects of the conditions. Students with dyslexia are often characterized by significant difficulties in reading and spelling despite access to conventional teaching and adequate formal education. Systematic evidence-based approaches to identify, assess and support have been developing and researching. First the core concepts of dyslexia: its definition, prevalence and developmental course are reviewed. Next the cognitive characteristics of dyslexia and its manifestations in Chinese students are discussed. To date the preponderance of reading interventions that might be used within a response-to-intervention (RTI) framework are also addressed.

This article briefly examined the development and reforms of education for students with disabilities worldwide in the last 50 years and that of Hong Kong in the last 3 decades. It addressed the significant progress seen in Hong Kong and called for the need to install systems of transition planning and post-secondary support services that are currently absent in Hong Kong. Benefits of having these systems were discussed, drawing overseas examples in countries such as the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia where students with disabilities participate in and are accommodated at all levels of education. It was emphasized that the massive education reforms aiming at transforming the entire education system into a flexible system to accommodate diverse learners and promote lifelong learning for all would have been a perfect platform to address such gaps and issues. The conclusion of the paper calls for discourse and collaboration among relevant stakeholders toward a more inclusive and holistic reform.
[Copyright © 2009 The Hong Kong Special Education Society.]

Integration or inclusive education is a hot issue and a global trend. Different countries value the policy of integration or inclusive education through whole school approach but may be with different progress on the track. This essay intends to compare the education system of Finland and Hong Kong as any change in the general education system shapes the mechanism of and the provisions to the special education. The scholarly study of other education system will help us to get deeper understanding of our own system and so can work for its improvement (Bray, 2004). The approach of comparison will be adapted from Bereday’s Model for Undertaking Comparative Studies.
[Copyright © 2007 Canadian Center of Science and Education.]

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

This study examined teaching efficacy for inclusive practice in a pre-post matched-sample of 737 teachers in Hong Kong taking a basic university-level course in inclusive education. The results demonstrate that regardless of demographic variables such a course is effective in improving teacher efficacy for inclusive practice, with female teachers making larger gains in the area of managing behaviour when compared to their male counterparts. Further, increased knowledge of legislation and policy, and a reduction in concerns about inclusive teaching were found to be the major predictors of improved teaching efficacy for inclusive practice.
[Copyright of International Journal of Inclusive Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2013.819941]

Why should bringing the power of music into student learning be a challenge - even more so when the class comprises students deemed in need of 'special education'? To address this question, three case studies are presented of Hong Kong special schools music teachers experienced in teaching students with intellectual disabilities at senior secondary level. Findings suggest that behind individual teacher variations to the standardised music curriculum lie not only rigid pedagogies, but also limited implementation strategies and hence mindsets of low expectations of 'special education' students' music learning. This predictive and prescriptive approach to student learning is here challenged by an alternative view that, to successfully aid 'special education' students, it is helpful if teachers reflect first on what learning is like for these students.
[Copyright of Music Education Research is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14613808.2014.906396]