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]

We have investigated how open attitudes, attribution beliefs, pedagogical knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge were related to teaching performance among teacher interns. The participants were 72 teacher interns in Hong Kong, where large-scale education reform has been launched since 2000. Multiple methods (self-report, academic grades, and ratings from mentors and supervisors) were used to measure the interns' attribution beliefs, open attitudes, pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and teaching performance. It was found that their openness to advice and challenges, effort attribution for failure, and pedagogical content knowledge were positively associated with their teaching performance in an era of education reform.
[Copyright of Asia Pacific Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188790802036661]

This paper focuses on reconfiguring assessment processes so that they support a learning function, in addition to the more traditional measurement function. In the first half of the paper we discuss a framework for 'learning‐oriented assessment' derived from a project carried out in Hong Kong. We conceptualize learning‐oriented assessment as containing three key components: assessment tasks as learning tasks; student involvement in assessment; and explicitly forward‐looking feedback. The second half of the paper presents an action research case in which the first author implemented some of the principles of learning‐oriented assessment within a module in a teacher education context. The module, focusing on multimedia and web authoring, was taught through blended learning with an emphasis on peer learning and project‐based learning. A particular feature was the interplay between students' learning experiences and the module assessments.
[Copyright of Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09695940600703944]

The author points out that Hong Kong is a metropolitan city where Chinese culture meets the West. However, the music curriculum does not reflect a perfect blending of music cultures from both China and the West. In the official general music curriculums set forth by the Curriculum Development Committee, Western music dominates what is currently taught in Hong Kong schools. Chinese music is given far less prominence than Western music in all years of schooling. The author discusses this issue, as well as other factors in the training of the teachers that will help build a more fuller understanding and healthier attitude toward the teaching of Chinese music and Chinese culture.

This paper presents some meaningful information about teachers' conceptions of the teaching and learning of science in three aspects: their beliefs about what science is; how scientific knowledge becomes established; and how it ought to be taught and learned. Reportedly, the results were contrasted between teachers with different educational backgrounds and specialism to identify factors influencing their conceptions of teaching and learning science.