Choral singing is a key feature of musical activity in Hong Kong schools. It has grown from modest beginnings into an important part of extra-curricular work. Even in independent societies and associations, many choral directors possess backgrounds in music education and classroom teaching. The teacher education institutions are responsible for training the majority of music teachers in Hong Kong. Thus it would seem necessary for music teacher courses to feature choral training to properly equip teachers before entering the classroom and taking the role of choral director in class, school and perhaps community. In the past there has been no choral director training programme. It seems important to develop ideas for what might be included for the professional development of the student choral teacher, and this is one objective of the current study. This article reports the implementation of a mentoring scheme carried out in a primary school setting. One of the current authors and an identified school choral teacher worked as mentors to provide professional support for a student choral teacher who was selected as the main participant in the case study. The aim was to investigate the potential of mentoring as a way of training a student choral director in a real school setting. Findings from this study reveal that through the mentoring scheme the student choral teacher was provided with an opportunity to interpret, generate, interact and experiment with the choral teaching theory in a real school choral rehearsal setting. This could be seen as a process of knowing-in-action and reflection-in-action.
[Copyright © 2006 The Hong Kong Institute of Education, International Society for Music Education.]

The importance of school-institute partnerships for professional development is widely acknowledged by many studies. Through partnership, tertiary institutions can gain access to schools’ teaching practices, while schools can gain new ideas and knowledge. Such collaboration not only ensures teacher development but also makes action research feasible, which in turn promotes teaching and learning effectiveness in schools. The resultant school improvement is notable in the achievement of high quality education in Hong Kong. This chapter describes the successful experience of building a professional partnership in staff development between The Hong Kong Institute of Education and the Shanghai School for the Blind. Although there are dissimilarities in terms of vision, mission and target students between the two partners, the collaborative arrangement was found to be workable as a result of the explicit aims and shared goals. The experience gained in the partnership was meaningful and productive. Sharing responsibilities between partners not only minimized misunderstandings but also maximized the sense of involvement and contribution of the partners. The conclusion highlights the essential elements of a successful partnership, that is, mutuality, trust and reciprocal benefit (Anderson & Cheung, 1999; Fullan, Erskine-Cullen, & Watson, 1995; Goodlad, 1985; Osguthorpe, Harris, Black, Cutler, & Harris, 1995).
[Copyright © 2004 The Chinese University Press, Hong Kong Institute of Educational Research.]

This paper reports a qualitative study of how 4 skilled pre-service physical education teachers, who were attending the final year of a four-year full-time Bachelor of Educaion Degree programme, perceived their learning-to-learn experiences of TGFU. Attached to Lawson's occupational socialisation and interpretive inquiry perspective, data were collected through interviewing and writing of critical incidents. Although all participants perceived TGfU positively as a viable approach of PE instruction contributing to pupils' cognitive development and providing fun, they only regarded their socialization of TGfU experience as pedagogical knowledge in the form of teaching procedures which could map well with the current education reform in Hong Kong. Thus, half of them showed hesitation of adopting the model in their future teaching. They were troubled by the anticipated practicality problems and the impacts of their anticipatory socialization. The inadequacy of "tactical knowledge" of individual games threw them into confusion. They could not be sure whether the games education should be oriented towards "cognitive" or "skill" and whether it should focus on "technical" of "thinking" dimensions. They felt doubtful about whether the learning sequence of games should be from "tactic-to-technique" or from "technique-to-tactic". To such an extent, pre-service PE teachers should be acquainted with in-depth theoretical understanding of TGfU and equipped with tactical skills concerning the games they teach.
[Copyright © 2006 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

Professional development for teachers (PDT) is the primary objective of the Schools Around the World (SAW) Program, which is a multinational endeavor initiated by the Council for Basic Education in the United States. The project offers teachers of science and mathematics from around the world an opportunity to share their students’ work by uploading them to the project’s website. Teachers can then examine and reflect on their own teaching practices by viewing the student work database. Apart from individual reflection, SAW also provides a platform for an exchange of professional experiences among teachers from the nine participating countries around the world with a view to improving student achievement. The SAW project makes use of information technology (IT) to construct a model of online PDT. A number of initiatives are included, namely the establishment of the student work database, online seminars and forums, and the Shared Reflection System (SHARES). This chapter describes the principles underpinning these initiatives from a PDT perspective, outlines the content of such initiatives, and offers practical hints for teacher educators who offer online PDT projects. Having introduced the SAW model from a professional and a technical perspective, the chapter goes on to provide a summary of the experiences of the participating teachers in the United States and Hong Kong. Their reflections suggest that their perceptions of the effectiveness of the Web-based communication tools and online resources will be very much affected by their existing workload and the support given by their schools or the government. Drawing on the SAW experience, the authors provide suggestions that may facilitate the use of technology in PDT.
[Copyright © 2004 Information Age.]

The Learning Centre (LC) Scheme is a collaborative project between the Education and Manpower Bureau, a primary school, a secondary school, and the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) for facilitating the implementation of the recent education reform in various key learning areas. The LC teachers need to take up the role of cascading good practices in curriculum and pedagogical changes through working with other teachers in workshops and outreach school-based support. The LCs work with the HKIEd, which provides mentoring and consultancy services, and evaluates the project. The LC scheme is structured into three phases: the initial phase in leadership or teacher development understanding, the implementation phase, and the evaluation phase. Using structured interviews, the authors identified the professional development that the LC teachers experienced in the initial phase of the scheme, and the support and/or facilitating conditions they hope to obtain in later phases. The findings suggest that support from the funding allocation, the school administration and the HKIEd are essential for the success of the scheme. This support helped the LC teachers realize a new perspective in understanding learning and teaching from the standpoint of a teacher educator, and consider how to facilitate other teachers’ teaching by adopting innovative approaches. The chapter concludes with recommendations for further support and future directions of development of the scheme.
[Copyright © 2008 The Chinese University Press, Hong Kong Institute of Educational Research.]

One of the roles of music teacher education is to produce music teachers with proficiencies in delivering music education at different educational levels. The impact of the development of IT in education in Hong Kong has been tremendous. The Hong Kong Education Department and the teacher education institutions are urging teachers in every discipline (including music) to apply the technology to a certain proportion of teaching and learning. Teacher proficiency requirements in IT have been developed quickly. As such, the philosophy that has prompted the inclusion of technology in music teacher education must be evident. The paper aims to investigate some aspects of the philosophy behind promoting IT to a level of such importance. A paradigm shift has come about in the approaches of teaching and learning from teacher-centered to student-centered for a range of reasons including the advent of IT. The teacher has to take on more of a facilitator role in stimulating students to learn how to learn rather than teaching what to learn. This aligns with the advocacy of flexible and life-long learning which are prevailing thoughts in the education world nowadays. These generic values are to be considered with the more unique values of IT in music teacher education. A new philosophy could imply more drastic changes in education in the near future. This could affect music teacher education as well as music education. The issues of how far a philosophy will induce quality learning and whether this application of IT could equate to quality teaching are to be considered. In a world which calls for reflective thinking as well as quality assurance and excellence, it is hoped that this paper will contribute to the discussion on the philosophy of the application of IT in music teacher education.
[Copyright © 2001 Aichi University of Education.]