This paper reports a qualitative study of twelve Hong Kong beginning teachers' lived experiences in their probationary periods in the context of teacher professionalization. Teacher professionalization has been an on going project but the image of a professional teacher has been significantly re-portrayed since the 1980s, which has influenced the induction provision for the beginning teachers. Life history method, which draws on informants' critical career events, was adopted for the study. Information of the beginning teachers' professional development was analysed with reference to the new image of a professional teacher as projected in the literature and policy documents. Results of the study showed that beginning teachers' learning in the workplace was shaped by both individual and contextual factors. Essential components of helpful induction, which facilitates the development of teaching professionals, are identified.

Affective education is a significant dimension of teaching, which is concerned with the values, feelings, beliefs, attitudes and emotional well-being of students. Much research is about how affective education should be put into real practice in elementary and high schools. However, affective education is no less important at tertiary education level. It is especially crucial to examine what values student-teachers taking teacher education programmes hold and how these values change throughout their course of study, since these student-teachers will nurture our next generation and these student-teachers’ moral and spiritual development will directly affect how they teach their pupils. Based on our study on the development of the professional convictions of Hong Kong student-teachers, this paper attempts to find out what values the student-teachers hold, how these values evolve over time, and what factors contribute to their formation and evolution. Qualitative research methods were employed in the study, which include the use of autobiographies and in-depth interviews. The focus of this paper is on examining the dimensions of the student-teachers’ values and how far affective education is effective in achieving its aims in teacher education programmes. Apart from analyzing the common factors associated with teacher professional development such as field experience and reflection, this paper will analyze the issue from the perspective of formal, informal and hidden curriculum. Implications from this study may shed light on ways to improve the design of teacher education programmes to meet the needs of affective education.

The paper discussed the problems of school-based development of a primary school in Hong Kong.
[Copyright © 2004 Common Ground, Kam Wing Paul Chan.]

Research on Hong Kong pre-service teachers’ concerns and their perception about effective teaching is meager. Thus, this author tried to help fill the knowledge gap by conducting a survey that involved the use of an open-ended, semi-structured questionnaire administered to 106 student teachers. The key findings are, firstly, three types of concerns were identified: the "Self", "Task", and "Impact" concerns. Secondly, the "Self" concerns constitute the largest proportion of concerns identified by the 106 student teachers; in this category, the most important concerns as ranked by these pre-service teachers are class discipline, acceptance by pupils, and teachers’ mastery of subject knowledge and teaching skill. And thirdly, the concerns are also closely related to such factors as subject matter knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and teacher pupils’ relationship that the student teachers considered important for effective teaching. The principal conclusions are that teacher education programs in Hong Kong have room for improvement in catering for the needs of pre-service teachers, and that teacher educators need to help reduce pre-service teachers’ concerns so as to facilitate their professional development.
[Copyright © 2002 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

The Primary English Reading Project, supported by the Hong Kong Government’s Language Fund, is a four year longitudinal project that aims to develop innovative reading programmes in primary schools in Hong Kong. The Project has adopted a collaborative approach to curriculum and teacher development in an attempt to create and put into practice a shared vision of how reading instruction can best support pupils’ reading in English. This paper will describe the strategies and processes that are being employed by the researchers and teachers as they strive to bring innovative change to teaching and learning processes within the classroom. Using data gathered through a questionnaire on teachers’ beliefs and practices in the teaching of reading, the writers illustrate the ways in which a collaborative approach to teacher development has influenced teachers’ and researchers’ understandings and actual practice in the classroom. The implications of employing collaborative approaches to teacher development as a means of translating vision into reality are discussed.

Lifelong and life-wide learning are the foci of learning in an information age. The World Wide Web (Web) is thought to be the driving force behind these changes as it is vast, flexible, and accessible with virtually no boundaries. Although there are many claims of the advantages of using the Web for module deliveries and promoting higher order learning, the results are controversial. The author attempted to examine whether a Web-based learning system could enhance flexible and collaborative learning. The thirty-two participants in the study were pre-service student teachers form the Hong Kong Institute of Education taking Information Technology as one of their minor studies. The module materials, discussion forum and announcements were presented on a dedicated Web site. Participants were encouraged to access this site for learning resources and to communicate using an e-forum. Twelve learners volunteered to attend five focus group meetings to share their experiences and opinions about using the Web. It was observed that they greatly valued the opportunity to use the Web, as it was convenient and flexible. In particular, the e-forum was found to be an invaluable arena for collaborative learning during their teaching practice period when they did not meet each other on campus.
[Copyright © 2002 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

Though the notion of a mentor or cooperating teacher in initial teacher education has been implemented in other countries for many years (Haberman, 1971; Spillane & Levenson, 1976), it was first attempted in initial primary teacher education in Hong Kong only in 1994. The present study aims to investigate this new attempt by the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) to foster supporting relationships in teacher education. The paper focuses on the Cooperating Teacher Scheme (CTS) as a learning experience for student-teachers and the different roles of the school, cooperating teachers, and HKIEd lecturers. The study includes a quantitative component and a qualitative component. Eighty schools were selected randomly from a list of 130 schools participating in the Scheme in 1995-96. Four agents, viz. school heads, co-operating teachers, lecturers and student-teachers involved in the CTS were invited to complete a questionnaire and representatives from each category were interviewed. The findings consider student-teachers' learning as well as varying perceptions of the roles of the four agents in the scheme. Based on the findings, implications of the CTS in initial and further teacher education as well as the collaboration between schools and the Institute are drawn.
[Copyright © 1998 Routledge.]

This paper presents a qualitative study with the use of the interpretive paradigm to capture subjective meanings that pre-service Physical Education (PE) teachers gave to their professional socialization process at the early stage of their two-year full-time teacher-training program. Data concerning their actions, feelings and reflection on their practical, pedagogical and theoretical modules were collected through interviewing and writing of reflective journal. Participants were analyzed according to their types namely, "athletes", "idealists", "pragmatists", "followers" and "the insecure group" while joining the program. It was interesting to find that they all articulated their professional learning to the "process knowledge" through experience rather than "propositional" one in the form of discipline based and theoretical conceptions regardless of their types. The findings provide information about how pre-service PE teachers learn and develop their professional knowledge, which in return, generate implications on how the Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) program can be implemented effectively in Hong Kong.
[Copyright © 2000 Department of Physical Education, Hong Kong Baptist University.]