This paper attempts to analyze the organization of the primary mathematics curriculum in Hong Kong. We follow the guidelines of Posner (1995) by answering five questions he posed on curriculum organization. The macro-level, micro-level, media employed, organization principles, and relative status of subject matter of the curriculum are discussed.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

There have been rapid changes in the economic, social and technological situations of Hong Kong in the last two decades. Because of these, the education systems and policies have changed accordingly. Have these changes affected the primary mathematics education? The official curricula for primary mathematics at different time spans may give us some hints to the answers for this question. The present study is based on the comparison of three official curricula for primary mathematics set in 1973, 1983 and 1995 respectively and one officially drafted version of primary mathematics curriculum disclosed in 1997. It is found that the 1973 curriculum just served as guidelines for mathematical contents of the public examination for Primary Six students. There are five overall objectives clearly stated in the official curriculum of Primary Mathematics printed in 1983. Compared to the one in 1973, it is much more student-centered. This syllabus is now still the main one used by mathematics teachers and book publishers, though a new curriculum initiative named "Target Oriented Curriculum" has been introduced since 1993. This new initiative emphasizes clearly defined learning objectives and outcomes. In the drafted curriculum for 2001, the new topic of "Probability" and the uses of calculators and computers are introduced. This paper elaborates the changes and discusses their implications for pre-service and in-service mathematics teacher education.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

Internet resources are useful for teachers, but few people pay attention to assisting primary mathematics teachers to find relevant resources via Internet. Although a general search engine can help us locate related curriculum resources on the Internet, it is very time-consuming to inspect every possible web sites. The major purpose of this paper is to describe a potential vortal site for helping primary mathematics teachers to search useful teaching resources effectively via linking relevant web sites. This paper attempts to describe the rationales of developing this vortal site. Hence some important principles for designing vortal site are recommended for readers' reference.

對不少小學教師來說，「數型」是一個不容易捉摸的課題。它不像「加」、「減」、「乘」、「除」、或是「四邊形」、「三角形」一樣，有著非學不可的元素一一往後學習數學的預備知識。也就是說，它是學了看不到有何得益，不學又好像並無不妥的課題。因此，它往往不是教師最關心學生表現的一課。這種可有可無的地位，令不少人甚至認為大可把它從課程中刪去。對很多教師而言，學生的學習歷程只是流於背誦公式，掌握不好，亦即背誦不熟，這樣的學習過程亳無意義可言！記得曾經有教師說過，每年面對這課題時，總要重新背誦一遍有關公式，才有信心進入課室。教師尚且如此，何況學生?在新課程之下，數型已由小六的必授部分移至增潤部分 (香港課程發展議會, 2000) 。可以預期，叫苦的大可不教，不然，總得面對如何為這課題定位的問題。本文嘗試為這課題重新定位，透過數學化觀點 (馮，2004) 揭示數學學習之中，以「形」馭「數」的面相。

根據香港課程發展議會 (2000) ，角的學習內容出現於小二和小三。然而，角的概念會延續至往後的學習單元，例如︰方向(由北方順時針轉一個直角，便是東方)、垂直與平行(以直角引入垂直線)、四邊形(藉角的認識探討四邊形的特性)等。因此初小學生必須對角的概念有很好的理解，為日後建構更高層次的幾何概念打好基礎。 數學化教學是重視學理鋪陳的教學法。在設計教學前，教師必須對學理結構有很好的掌握，才能有效地佈置和處理教學上的每一個細節。本文以角的教學為主題，從學理入手，深入地分析由直線衍生的角的定義，並介紹一個適用於小學課堂的教學方案，及其執行時的注意事項。最後會探討在這個方案底下學習的學生，將如何面對測考，期間又會遇上怎樣的困難。

在香港的課室中， 有特殊學習需要的學生日見增多，照顧學生多樣性已成為教育界的重大挑戰。據家長及教師反映，不少有特殊學習需要的學生，學習數學時都遇上困難，其中包括混淆數學概念、不能準確執行計算程序等等。然而，目前一般學校均未能為這些學生提供適當的支援。在過去的十個月，筆者等嘗試從學校課堂、單獨面談及課後支援班三方面探討這些學生的需要，期望從數學專科的角度，解讀他們數學學習困難的成因，及尋找幫助他們的方法。本文總結觀察所得，大膽提出從教學、課程及行政三方面入手，幫助這些學生面對數學學習的方法。

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Government (HKSAR) has been encouraging the teaching professionals at all levels to apply Information Technology (IT) in education. The general public usually connects IT in education with computer-assisted instruction (CAI), computer-assisted learning (CAL), and information search in the internet. In fact, IT can bring in other advantages such as developing a continuous and dynamic approach to educational testing. At present, the common practice of paper-and-pencil testing (P&P) is that all examinees are arranged to receive the same set of test questions at the same time-slot. One of the major shortcomings of this arrangement is that competent examinees may waste time to answer simple questions while low ability examinees may face challenging questions that could destroy their confidence in the subject. This practice is actually against a very basic educational principle: catering for individual needs. With the availability of powerful personal computers and the advancement of psychometric measurement, tailoring tests to individual's ability becomes much easily realized. A system that delivers tailor-made tests for individuals using computer with certain item selection program is called Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT). As CAT has many advantages over the traditional P&P, it is becoming prevalent in many advanced countries. However, CAT also has shortcomings. For example, it cannot measure certain kinds of mathematics abilities. This paper will describe the general background and the current development of CAT and particularly will discuss in more details the potentials and limits of using CAT for Mathematics assessment.