The Lecturer Attachment Scheme (LAS) advocated in the Hong Kong Institute of Education aims at creating opportunities for the teaching staff to update their school teaching experience, participate in a real school setting and experience the work life of local teachers. Through the school attachment, the teacher educator will not only update their teaching experience and possibly build collaborative relationship with schools in staff development and research activities.
This paper describes two lecturers from the English Department of the Hong Kong Institute of Education who joined the Institute's attachment Scheme for their own professional benefit and development. During the two-week attachment period, the lecturers took over English teaching duties from two regular teachers and worked closely with the teachers. All their lessons were observed by the regular teachers and were video-taped. The lecturers tried different teaching approaches such as the incorporation of big books for the teaching of reading and materials adaptation. The lecturers brought with them what they perceive as 'good' language teaching in the classroom and attempted to verify whether theory and practice can be coherently integrated.
Field notes and journal data recording the lecturers' reflection and experience on the scheme and interview data probing into the teachers' evaluation of the LAS will be presented. It is affirmed that such attachment scheme can enhance professional development both for the teacher educators and for the teachers. It also enabled an avenue for follow-up school-based collaborative projects.
[Copyright of Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) at http://www.aare.edu.au]

The research reported in this paper used the Online Learning Environment Survey (OLES) as a tool to evaluate e-learning environments. Data gathered from university classes in Hong Kong using blended e-learning were used to illustrate the value of OLES in helping educators reflect on the online learning environment provided for students. Comments from interviews were used to verify the data gathered online. OLES was found to be a valuable instrument for gathering data to help educators reflect on what had worked or what might be improved in their classes. These educators were also able to see the extent to which the actual experiences of students in the module matched their preferred online learning environment.
[Copyright of Australian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ascilite) at http://www.ascilite.org.au]

Monitoring the use of web technology in teaching and learning activities at an institutional level can provide universities with valuable data to guide policy decision-making for eLearning support services. Like many other universities, The Chinese University of Hong Kong has centralized support to teachers and students through the provision of eLearning platforms, and training and educational advice on eLearning strategies. The paper examines how the logs kept in the centralized platforms support the University in monitoring eLearning at an institutional level. The logs provide information on three common areas of interest concerning web use: its popularity, nature of use and the engagement of the participants. The paper also illustrates, with data from the University, the analysis and reporting that can be done with the logs to enrich our understanding of the University's eLearning in these three areas.
[Copyright of Australian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ascilite) at http://www.ascilite.org.au]

This paper reports on, and presents the findings from, an investigation into feedback as a means of formative assessment. Feedback is important to learning because it gives us information about the results or consequences of what teachers do and what learners have achieved or have not achieved. It is as crucial in teaching and learning as in any other activity, forming part of the cycle of teaching and learning. However, general feedback such as 'Good work!' 'Effort shown!', or drawing a smiling face, though holding the acknowledgement effect, is not informative enough to help students advance their learning. This poses a question "What sort of feedback has functional significance in learning?"
The investigation collected data from school teachers through three different phases, namely, questionnaire survey, teacher interviews, and lesson observation. The first phase asked approximately one thousand school teachers to give their views on feedback in a questionnaire survey. Data analysis showed that four particular aspects about feedback were regarded as more significant than others. The second phase and the third phases, which involved a further 94 teachers and 27 teachers respectively, revealed that feedback could take many forms and the quality of feedback could vary tremendously.
[Copyright of Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) at http://www.aare.edu.au]