In this chapter, we give an overview of the mathematics teacher education in Hong Kong. Against this background, the contents of the preparatory programme for pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers offered by the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong are reviewed. Important stages of changes of the programme in the past decade are traced, and the content of the mathematics-related component is analyzed. Four issues on preparation of mathematics teachers are then discussed. They include: understanding of the mathematics curriculum, mastering of generic teaching skills and the teaching of specific topics, the development of basic needs for an era of information technology, and the development of teachers’ ability of self-reflection.
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Since the last two decades, there have been increasing interests and researches on epistemological beliefs, including the theoretical framework, dimensional structure, and the relations with metacognitive variables in learning. Many of the researches on epistemological beliefs were conducted in Western countries, mainly North America, with few studies in non-Western countries such as the Chinese culture (Chan & Elliott, 2004a). The varied number and nature of epistemological belief dimensions reported in literature suggest the cultural specificity of epistemological beliefs, and the need to conduct more epistemological beliefs research in different cultures to enable us a better understanding of the beliefs structure (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997). The identified relation between epistemological beliefs and reading comprehension (Schommer, 1994) highlight the relative importance of epistemological beliefs in students’ learning. As well, the relations between epistemological beliefs and other metacognitive variables, such as learning strategies, motivation, conceptions about learning and teaching, etc., definitely are significant in helping us understand student learning and these studies would shape the future direction of epistemological beliefs research. Studies of this nature in different cultural contexts would also provide valuable information for researchers and educators. In light with this, the present paper reports the author’s research in epistemological beliefs, and the relations with metacognitive variables in learning and teaching in the Hong Kong Chinese cultural context. The research includes the development of a validated epistemological beliefs scale with satisfactory psychometric properties, relational analyses of epistemological beliefs and learning approaches/strategies, and conceptions of teaching and learning. The information is expected to add new knowledge in this area and be of value to those interested in epistemological beliefs research.
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Liberal Studies will be a core subject in the new senior secondary curriculum to be implemented in 2009 in Hong Kong. The subject is very new to many pre-service and serving teachers who will be taking up teaching in this subject specialty. The present study is intended to be an exploratory one, with the aim of learning about how pre-service teachers majoring in Liberal Studies in a Postgraduate Diploma in Education programme offered by a local university make decisions when planning for lessons in the subject. The findings show that three factors played a key role in these teachers’ instructional decision making – disciplinary backgrounds, curriculum considerations, and considerations of how to represent knowledge for students. The findings will contribute to an understanding of the professional learning needs of Liberal Studies teachers.