This study draws on the findings from a STEM education project to examine Hong Kong in-service primary school teachers’ perceived challenges in implementing STEM education, the support they received in STEM teacher professional development (STEM TPD), and their needs for future STEM TPD. The study engaged teacher professional development through a school-university partnership and adopted a practitioner research approach that aimed at enhancing primary school teachers’ professional capacity of designing STEM activities relevant to the Hong Kong curriculum, with an emphasis on the learning of crosscutting concepts and inquiry-based teaching. STEM TPD is aimed at collaborative curriculum development as an opportunity to foster active learning through co-creating curriculum materials among teachers and university facilitators. Twelve primary school teachers from various subject teaching backgrounds were interviewed. Semi-structured interviews were carried out to collect the teachers’ experiences with the STEM TPD and their views on the integration of cross-cutting concepts in designing STEM lessons. Findings of the study revealed teachers' perceived challenges during the preparation and teaching phases related to STEM instruction and lesson planning, limited resources, and other concerns embedded in broader contextual situations. While teachers reported to have received different types of support from the STEM TPD relating to the pedagogical knowledge of STEM, future directions for STEM TPD were expressed in relation to content components of STEM TPD, opportunities for authentic learning and first-hand experiences, and coherence. Finally, this chapter discusses areas that need to be resolved before a further enhancement in terms of quality and quantity of STEM lessons could be expected. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s).

In many disciplines of STEM education, online experiments (OEs), commonly called remote-controlled experiments, become an emerging practice in technology-enhanced learning because of their many merits perceived in educational research. We recently formulated an innovative, low-cost, and open-source approach to developing new OEs rapidly. It won a gold medal and a special prize in an international innovation and invention competition in 2018. Using this new approach, teachers and students can easily access OEs with a lightweight web browser using any hardware and any operating system without installing additional software or apps. They can observe and/or control the experiments and collect authentic data (over a very short or long time) for further analysis by plotting graphs and/or conducting calculations to obtain important results. Some well-accepted instructional approaches or pedagogies have been integrated into online science/STEM experiments, which can also be aligned with school-based curricula to provide self-contained courseware for students’ online self-regulated learning. In this chapter, we will focus on whether OEs could really and effectively provide the essential elements of experimental learning to ‘school students’ as expected in traditional laboratory work. From our pilot implementation in four Hong Kong (HK) and Mainland China (CHINA) secondary schools with a total of 172 participants, we explored the OE experiences of different experiments and cognitive performance among students from different regions and genders using the conventional mixed methods research and design-based research. Students’ feedback and suggestions for improvement of the OEs were also analysed together with some specific implications for science/STEM education. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s).

Research has demonstrated the positive impact of active learning on students’ learning outcomes, particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. However, few studies have explored the impact of active learning via problem-based collaborative games in large mathematics classes in the context of Asian tertiary education. This study assesses the effects of active learning on students’ learning outcomes using class test scores and the calculus concept inventory (CCI) to test the conceptual understanding of the basic principles of differential calculus, in a first year calculus course in Hong Kong. Three hypotheses were tested to determine the effects of game-based collaborative learning on learning mathematics among students. Active learning through a problem-based collaborative learning methodology was employed, using Kahoot!, a game-based learning platform. Results supported all three hypotheses, demonstrating a statistically significant increase in students’ conceptual understanding and examination performance, based upon their individual perceptions of active engagement and time spent in active learning. Our results indicated that active learning “levels the playing field”, in the sense that students with less pre-requisite background knowledge, using a problem-based collaborative learning methodology, were relatively more inclined to catch up or even exceed the performance of students with a stronger prerequisite background knowledge, at the end of the course. Copyright © 2019 by the authors.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, teaching and learning activities had to be conducted fully online. To sustain quality education, teachers could use open educational resources (OERs) available in the public domain to make online mathematics teaching more effective and interactive. However, we currently know little about the use of OERs in primary school settings. Therefore, this study seeks to understand their school policies and guidelines on and teachers’ experience of using OERs during the pandemic. Our overarching goal is to provide recommendations on the future development and use of OERs in the context of primary school mathematics education. We employed a qualitative approach and interviewed 13 mathematics teachers from different primary schools. Our findings suggest that teachers tended to rely on OERs more during the pandemic than before. They used OERs to introduce mathematics and to facilitate class interactions in online lessons. However, not all schools had policies and guidelines on the use of OERs in place. Some teachers also encountered challenges when using OERs, such as finding that the resources were unsuitable for school contexts and lower primary school students. Based on the findings, we discuss some possible strategies for the improvement, such as ensuring the suitability of OERs, through developer–teacher collaborations. Copyright © 2022 by the authors.

Teaching students how to code in K-12 classrooms is considered as one of the major keys to promoting engineering education in the future, which can potentially enhance the competency and computational skills of students to adhere better learning outcomes in higher education. The success of promoting coding education or integrating it into school curriculum depends on the perceptions of teachers and headmasters in schools, and how well they believe on coding education and prepare for the innovative teaching and learning. In this exploratory research study, it reports the results of a large-scale quantitative questionnaire surveying 42 primary and secondary schools (n = 42) in Hong Kong, where computer programming has not been regulated as a compulsory course in K-12 curriculum. The questionnaire aims to investigate the school belief on coding education and their practical challenges while integrating it into their regular school curriculum. Our results show that there is a trend in the local schools promoting coding education with positive perceptions on teaching and learning. However, teaching challenges are also mentioned in the survey waiting for solutions, such as lack of teachers training and unified curriculum. Therefore, the empirical experiences of these schools have set forth the future research direction in design and implementation of coding education in K-12 classrooms not only in Hong Kong but also in the globe. Copyright © 2015 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved.

While Hong Kong students excel at international tests in mathematics, they do not display corresponding attitudes toward mathematics learning. This study examined 10 Hong Kong Secondary 6 students' perceptions of learning mathematics (experiential curriculum) and their perceived factors that limited the development of students' positive attitudes toward mathematics learning in the New Senior Secondary mathematics curriculum by content analysis of their responses in the interviews. Although the participants in this study expected to learn mathematics by "conceptual learning" and the authentic applications of mathematics, they experienced rote-and-drilling-dominated learning approaches in mathematics education, which had succeeded in developing their numerical senses and problem-solving skills but failed to develop their sense of creativity and positive attitudes toward mathematics. The practical mentality and the examination-oriented culture in Hong Kong were the perceived factors that caused such situations.香港學生於不同的國際數學評測中都表現優越，但他們對學習數學並未展現出相應的態度。本研究探討10名香港中六學生對學習數學的看法。研究員對學生的訪問回應進行了內容分析，從中了解阻礙學生發展出對學習高中數學課程的良好態度的因素。學生雖然期望能透過概念學習和應用數學於日常環境來學習數學，但他們總是經歷死記硬背及不斷操練的方式來學習。此方式或許能有效發展學生的數感和解難能力，但未能幫助他們建立創意和良好的數學態度。務實心態和應試文化是學生最重視的因素。 Copyright © 2022 香港中文大學香港教育研究所.

Subject-specific training in mathematics teaching for students with intellectual disabilities (IDs) has been little studied in the academic field and is uncommon in the practice of teacher education. Given that teachers face significant challenges in regard to teaching mathematics to ID students, it is necessary to know whether there is a need for subject-specific training. If yes, what kind of subject-specific training do teachers need? What kind of subject-specific knowledge should be covered? How can this kind of training contribute to improving mathematics teaching for ID students?To answer the above questions, this study focuses on one particular teacher professional development programme (BE MATHS programme) for mathematics teachers who teach ID students in special schools in Hong Kong. Programme effects and the contributing factors of the effects are examined to explore whether and how subjectspecific support can contribute to the profession of teaching mathematics to ID students.The study is conducted via a mixed-methods approach. First, it uses quantitative measures to examine teachers’ changes in mathematics teaching efficacy and students’ changes in their academic engaged time in mathematics classes. Second, a qualitative approach is used to explore the contributing factors of the changes.Quantitative results show that the programme has a significant positive effect on teachers’ mathematics teaching outcome expectancy and a conditional positive effect on teachers’ personal mathematics teaching efficacy. It is also found that the programme can improve teachers’ mathematics teaching by engaging more students in mathematics learning.The qualitative findings in this study show that the design of teaching and learning trajectories with subject experts is a substantial learning activity for teachers. During the design process, teachers and subject experts identified knowledge gaps within the mathematical content to be delivered to ID students and successfully inserted

In Hong Kong, improving STEM education has become timely since the government launched policy initiatives in 2016, which substantially impacted STEM education practices. Teacher education is of special importance in constructing the aspirations of pre-service teachers and offering professional training for a more gender equitable future in the era of STEM. Professional teachers are believed to be crucial for inspiring future students to use science and innovative technology with global and ethical awareness and for building student aspirations for STEM-related occupations and professions.This paper reports on a study that used educational ethnography methods to examine the life stories (as cross-case studies) of eight pre-service, women teachers majoring in STEM-related programs at the largest teacher training university in Hong Kong. We applied a conceptual framework that explains the socio-cultural construction of STEM teacher identity. The iterative processes of thematic coding discovered 4 themes from the qualitative data of educational autobiography and follow-up interviews. They are (1) motivations for aspiring to become STEM teachers, (2) gender stereotyping and STEM performance, (3) gender and aspirations for teaching STEM, and (4) gender and STEM teacher identity.Empirical findings of this study show that although gender inequalities within STEM education and the local education system are not readily apparent, gender stereotyping in STEM fields still exists in the society and schools of Hong Kong. Despite the availability of opportunities and resources for STEM education and teacher training, students in Hong Kong still hold subjectivities about gender disparities in science performance. Such gender biased perceptions of Hong Kong women students affect their everyday interactions and personal observations about gender differences and inequality. This paper illustrates how stereotypes about women in STEM can sometimes be perpetuated by everyday interactions

Over the past decades, growing attention has been paid to how the home and school environment contributes to early mathematical development. Nevertheless, many studies focused on the nature and frequency of the learning activities. The potential influences of parent-child and teacher-child relationships are still underexplored. In view that parents and teachers play vital roles in early language development, and language and mathematical skills are interrelated, we investigated: (1) whether different aspects of parent-child and teacher-child relationships were related to very young children’s mathematical abilities; and (2) whether these relations, if any, were mediated by children’s receptive vocabulary. To achieve our study aims, 124 children were recruited from pre-nursery classes in Hong Kong and were administered vocabulary and mathematical tests. Their parents and class teachers also completed a questionnaire relating to their relationships with the children. Results of path analysis showed that after controlling for children’s age, parent-child closeness, parent-child conflict and teacher-child closeness were associated with children’s mathematical abilities through their receptive vocabulary. There were also direct links from parent-child closeness and teacher-child closeness to children’s mathematical abilities. Teacher-child conflict was neither correlated with children’s receptive vocabulary nor mathematical abilities. Our findings suggest that it is important to provide support to parents and teachers on how to build up close and affectionate relationships with very young children. In particular, they should be coached on how to have quality verbal interactions with children, as it may benefit not only children’s early language development, but also their early mathematical development. Copyright © 2021 HKERA-APERA International Conference.