In this paper, I report on aspects of the Learning-oriented assessment project (LOAP) a funded three year (2002-2005) Teaching Development Grant project based in the Hong Kong Institute of Education. I begin by describing the genesis of the term learning-oriented assessment and sketching its conceptual basis. I then highlight key findings and implications form some of the main project outcomes: a questionnaire survey involving 1,740 students and 460 staff in the universities in Hong Kong; a practical sourcebook of useful practices at the interface of assessment and learning; and a special issue of the journal Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education. The paper also contains a reflective account of the project processes, including both successful strategies and areas where challenges occurred. Some implications for institutional assessment change will be explored.

The Learning Study approach has been developed over ten years by a research team comprising school teachers and academics in Hong Kong. It is a systematic process of enquiry into teaching and learning, employing an action research methodology, and underpinned by the Variation Theory. Under Learning Study, teachers are expected to learn cooperatively and become reflective practitioners by practicing the theories postulated from others. Learning Study can be used to enhance teachers’ pedagogical capabilities and professional development. This paper describes how Learning Study, which initially started as a modest project to find ways to cater for individual differences in main stream schools in Hong Kong, became a powerful tool for schools in achieving these aims. Working in close collaboration with the Hong Kong Institute of Education, Learning Study developed as a major component of a mentoring system, which resulted in the creation of learning communities in schools, where the focus is on enhancing teaching and learning. Such a system benefits all teachers involved, whether novice or very experienced. Starting with only two schools in 1999, schools in the Learning Study network rapidly expanded to over 200 schools in 2010. The success of Learning Study in Hong Kong will be analyzed under the following factors: its conceptual framework, methodology, partnership with higher education institutions, positioning, reform context and culture, and dissemination strategy and the diffusion process in and across schools. Its potential for moving towards improving the status of the profession as a whole will also be discussed.

The presentation describes a Learning Study conducted on Picture Description for teaching English in a Hong Kong Primary school. The research team, composed of Primary Three teachers and academic staff from a tertiary institute, designed and taught a research lesson that aimed to improve students’ speaking confidence through “look and say” activities regarding a picture shown. We will report research findings from this study, including the learning outcomes achieved and teachers’ professional development opportunities afforded, with recommendations on instruction for speaking competency.

This primary school (students aged 6 to 12), uses small class teaching, cooperative learning, promotion of self-learning skills, and "invitation education" (i.e., teaching practices based on respect, trust, optimism and intentionality). The school widely employs ICT facilities: Teachers, students and parents can share materials (e.g., with the "electric schoolbag"), there is a distance-learning classroom for joined projects with other schools, and a "smart classroom" equipped with electric whiteboards. The school has a garden and library that are both taken care of by student teams. Every classroom has a mini performing stage and a reading corner; books are also spread all over the school to stimulate children to read there after school. The school offers reading programmes for children who arrive early in the morning at school, and intensive after-school tutoring and supervised homework sessions. Social activities include mixed-age "caring groups" who have one mentoring teacher and meet monthly, commendations for academic and social behaviour, and celebrations like birthday parties. The staff regularly attends seminars for professional development and engages in collaborative lesson planning, and peer lesson observation.
[Copyright © OECD, 2012.]

A study was conducted for creating digital classrooms to support students to develop information literacy competency and critical thinking skills through domain knowledge learning in digital classrooms. A total of 107 students from four Secondary 1 classes were invited from a secondary school in Hong Kong to participate in the study. In the 13-week trial teaching, every three students shared a Tablet PC for learning two topics in the Integrated Humanities subject. The pre- and post-tests of the two target subject topics found that the students had a statistically significant growth in domain knowledge. The three identical information literacy tests and critical thinking tests throughout the trial teaching found that the students had a statistically significant growth in information literacy competency and critical thinking skills. The semi-structured interviews found that the students and teachers positively perceived the effectiveness of the pedagogical designs of the digital classrooms on supporting the development of information literacy competency and critical thinking skills. Three implications are drawn for enhancing the pedagogical designs in digital classrooms that put emphasis on fostering students' development of information literacy competency and critical thinking skills through day-to-day domain knowledge learning in class.
[Copyright © Pergamon Press].

This paper aims to explore whether Learning Study improves teachers' subject content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and attitude toward teaching mathematics. A Learning Study was conducted in a Hong Kong primary school for a research lesson on comparing the size of fractions to explore the new teacher roles.
[Copyright © Korean Society of Mathematical Education].

This paper reports data from a study about the challenges of educational reform through play carried out by three in-service preschool teachers in Hong Kong. Intending to abide with the new paradigm shift to quality teaching and learning originated from the West, these teachers tried to adopt the Vygotskian social constructivist theory and the Deweyan learning theory through the application of scaffolding technique to foster a democratic child-centred classroom through play. Case study methodology is employed in the study. The findings highlighted the differences and similarities between the types of scaffolding techniques employed and the situation on which to apply respectively by the West and those adopted in the East in the case of Hong Kong. The paper concludes with a discussion that education is a complex and complicated endeavour involving a plethora of judgments, ideologies and belief system which will affect diverse people and the "meaning" of their experiences, lives and Institutions. Implications are drawn through some reflections gained in this study. Future research work on the comparative studies on the belief system of the teachers and its relationship with the application of pedagogic approaches for a 'democratic' early childhood classroom between the East and the West is recommended.
[Copyright © Comparative Education Society of Hong Kong.].

A global trend towards formulation of curriculum has emerged over the past decade. The concepts of project approach have aroused growing attention, and many literatures have indicated its benefits to children. It is believed that to achieve these potential benefits of project learning, teachers needed to formulate a curriculum that follows the interests of children, to design appropriate activities, to build a good relationship with children and help them in the process of learning. The study revealed that teachers were positive towards the impact of project learning on children's experience but fell back to a traditional way of implementing curriculum.
[Copyright © Routledge].

The purpose of this study was to examine whether a child-centred play training model, filial play therapy, enhances child–teacher relationship and thereby reduces children's internalising problems (such as anxiety/depression and withdrawal) and externalising problems (such as aggressive and destructive behaviour). Sixty teachers (n = 60) and 60 children (n = 60) in six kindergartens were invited to participate in the study. In Phase One, 30 of these teachers (n = 30) were randomly assigned a child with either internalising problems or externalising problems. A 10-week Child-Centred play training model was used to reduce the children's problems and promote the quality of the child–teacher relationship. The other 30 teachers and 30 children with either internalising problems or externalising problems were placed in the control group. In Phase Two, the teachers and children in the control group received the same 10-week play training. It was found that child–teacher relationship was enhanced through an increase in communication of acceptance, that is, allowing the child to lead and becoming involved in play with the child. Children's internalising and externalising problems—especially aggressive behaviour—were reduced after ten sessions of child-centred play.
[Copyright © Springer Netherlands].