This pilot study investigates the impact of using mobile devices to facilitate the practising of scales and arpeggios. The AI application was designed by an engineer/musician in Hong Kong. This AI application enables students to practise, record themselves, view their mistakes and prepare for examinations based on the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music’s scales and arpeggios syllabus for five instruments (violin, flute, clarinet, trumpet and saxophone). This study (a) examines the progress of learners who use the application to practise scales and arpeggios; (b) observes how elementary learners perceive mobile practising in a virtual learning environment and (c) proposes a blended learning model that uses mobile practising with the support of AI. Copyright © 2020 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

This study investigates designs for developing knowledge building (KB) and higher order competencies among academically low-achieving students. Thirty-seven low-achieving students from a ninth-grade visual arts course in Hong Kong participated. The design involved principle-based KB pedagogy, with students writing on Knowledge Forum® (KF), enriched by analytics-supported reflective assessment. Analysis of the discourse on KF showed that the low achievers were able to engage in productive discourse, with evidence of metacognitive, collaborative, and epistemic inquiry. Analysis illustrates how the design supported student engagement, including (1) reflective inquiry and social metacognition; (2) reflective meta- and epistemic talk; (3) evidence-based reflection for collective growth; and (4) reflection embedded in community ethos. Implications of reflective assessment for supporting low achievers for inquiry learning and KB are discussed. Copyright © Sage Publications Ltd.

傳統或現代水墨在香港學校的視覺藝術教育中向來有待開發，站在地域上，香港自然是中西文化交融最成功地方之一，視覺藝術教育卻未正視此特質。雖然多年來偶有熱心水墨教育者申請基金舉辦活動，但正規中、小學課程仍然未能平衡中、西方藝術教育。文章通過行動研究探討在香港這特殊地理位置下，學校水墨教育可能應用的教學法。筆者在教學行動研究中加入現代和當代水墨的觀念元素和創作技法，並試以電腦方式加入草稿構想佈局，模仿傳統水墨中「搜盡奇峰打草稿」或臨摹不同古賢作品後重新結構自己作品方式－如謝赫「六法」中的「傳移模寫」後，自己重新構想「胸中幽壑」的方法。大量的電腦資料庫有助學生作構圖拼合（用 photoshop 軟件 )，省略了大量造型描摹時間，更易專注於用筆和墨韻的學習和練習。大會主題為「挑戰與轉化」，香港學校水墨畫教學應透過研究與時並進。除了考慮香港中、西文化交融的特質外，亦可以嘗試在傳統的創作媒介中結合現代主題和科技應用，讓年輕一代有機會通過學校視覺藝術教育接觸到中國傳統藝術，期望達致「轉化」學校視覺藝術教育長期忽略水墨畫教學的慣性和價值觀。 Copyright © 2020 Author(s). All rights reserved.

There is a lack of empirical research into group dialogue and questioning - the most basic component of teaching in art lessons. This study investigated the dialogues conducted by primary school visual arts teachers with their students. Eight teacher participants were observed and their teaching was examined against a theoretical framework constructed from a spectrum of dialogue and questioning strategies proposed by various theorists. From the observed dialogues, it was found that most teachers focused primarily on the observation and visual analysis of artworks. They also introduced some essential contextual knowledge to their students. However, interpretations of artworks were rather limited. Lastly, the development of students' personal connections with and judgment of artworks were ignored by most of the teachers. The study is particularly meaningful given the increased emphasis on learning art criticism in the new visual arts curriculum and amidst the latest cultural developments in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2019 Australian Institute of Art Education.

The following study reflects and explores the dynamics of aesthetic experiences within drama improvisations. This arts-based research was carried out in Hong Kong with six Cantonese children who were aged 3-5 years. Data were collected from the video transcripts of five workshops and the researcher's own research journal. Two significant milieus were observed: switching in-between roles and intuitive creativity is not talkback. I argue that because each of these two milieus provide the foreground for the complex -- and at times contradictory -- nature of children's aesthetic experiences where Deleuzian power is at play, opportunities arise for both, challenging the traditional adult-child power relations, and in so doing, educators can be able to reconfigure and reconceptualise teaching goals and practices, both generally and specifically, within the context of early childhood education.
[Copyright of Journal of Early Childhood Research is the property of SAGE Publications.]

This study analyses responses (n = 309, across 94 schools) to the General Self-Efficacy Scale (Zhang and Schwarzer [1995]. "Measuring Optimistic Self-Beliefs: A Chinese Adaptation of the General Self-Efficacy Scale." Psychologia: An International Journal of Psychology in the Orient 38 (3): 174-181) from Hong Kong primary teachers of inclusive music classes. Analysis of these results sheds light on the impact that contextual reforms have on these non-core subject music teachers' practice. Respondents' perceived self-efficacy is moderate - characterised as a see-saw relationship between their personal and external domains. A possible behavioural intervention suggests professional-sharing being further enriched were current Education Bureau's in-service SEN courses to be inclusive of all primary school subjects, including music. Specific factors that underpin these respondents 'moderate' self-efficacy are identified as forming two clusters, human resource management and stress, with possible behavioural interventions for these being outlined.
[Copyright of Music Education Research is the property of Routledge.]

FIBER (Flipped Issue-Based Enquiry Ride) is a teacher-facilitated interactive pedagogic framework that the authors propose to integrate flipped learning into social humanities education. This paper reports a quasi-experimental study (with mixed methods) which examined the pedagogic effectiveness of FIBER in the authentic setting of formal curriculum learning and teaching. The study involved totally 611 Secondary-4 students from academically top, middle and bottom schools in Hong Kong. In comparison with the conventional issue-based enquiry learning approach, FIBER had different intensity of positive effects on the high, moderate, and low academic-achieving student participants. This paper provides researchers and educational practitioners with empirical evidence for supporting wider adoption of FIBER in social humanities education, as well as harnessing flipped learning in formal schooling. Apart from discussing the benefits, the authors also underline the challenges of FIBER and suggest future work.
[Copyright of Interactive Learning Environments is the property of Routledge.]

提問與對話是教學中最常見的形式，而在藝術評賞教育的領域更有著主導性的地位。藝術教育學者早已提出不少評賞理論和評賞教學方法，但對於教師如何與學生對話和向他們發問，卻一直缺乏一套較為完整和有系統的方法。相比其他學科，例如：語文、數學、科學，有關藝術評賞教學中對話與提問的研究相當貧乏。本文探討六個常見的藝術評賞教學理論和策略，然後提出四個藝術評賞教育的主要目的，並倡議一套與之相配及適用於教授視覺藝術的對話及提問框架。為了在應用層面進一步完善和建構本框架，七位香港小學教師及其學生受邀進行教學試驗。觀察有關教學試驗後，本文歸納出六項教學建議，以協助教育工作者應用本框架於藝術評賞教學。Questioning and dialogue are the most common way of teaching, and they are an essential element in the field of art criticism education. Previous scholarship had proposed various theories and teaching methods on art criticism education, but there is a lack of a holistic and systematic way for guiding teachers to question and have dialogue with students. The number of studies on questioning and dialogue in learning Visual Arts is limited, comparing to studies in subjects such as Languages, Mathematics, and Sciences. This paper reviews six art criticism models or methods, identifies four major goals in art criticism education, and proposes a framework of questioning and dialogue for the learning and teaching of visual art at schools and museums. Seven primary school visual arts teachers were invited to practice the framework in their own schools and art museums and finally six suggestions were concluded for teachers' implementation. Copyright © 2019 藝術教育研究期刊顧問委員會 & Ainosco Press.

This chapter reports the results of a study that evaluates the effectiveness of a Philosophy in Schools (PIS) programme in developing students’ thinking skills and English competence in Hong Kong. Sixty-two Secondary 3 English as a Second Language (ESL) students and their three Integrated Humanities (IH) teachers participated in this study. With training and support from the researcher, the participating teachers taught the participating students PIS in English during IH lessons. The students were found to be capable of reasoning and arguing in a competent way about philosophical problems arising from various stimuli prepared by their teachers according to the IH curriculum. It was also found that PIS played a major role in promoting the students’ critical and creative thinking, and helped the development of their English language proficiency to a significant extent. In addition, both the students and teachers were found to have a generally positive attitude towards doing philosophy in the classroom. The findings of this study suggest that integrating philosophy into the IH curriculum can promote critical thinking, creative thinking, and English language proficiency in ESL students. Copyright © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Chi-Ming Lam; individual chapters, the contributors.

This work-in-progress poster discusses our preliminary work on exploring the possibility of harnessing spherical video-based immersive virtual reality (SV-IVR) in learning and teaching of Physical Geography. In particular, it focuses on delineating (i) the rationale behind our initiative, and (ii) the proposed direction of how to adopt SV-IVR in the context of formal schooling in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2019 Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.