Initial teacher education programs offered worldwide all aim at developing student teachers with the best and most comprehensive preparation before joining the teaching profession. However, teacher education research reveal that there are discrepancies between the outcome and what is intended in the program. Without sufficient field experience, beginning teachers always find difficulties in assisting administrative duties and curriculum planning in schools. It is a common practice that teachers are expected to perform different roles apart from regular classroom teaching. It appears that current teacher education programs do not provide solid preparation for beginning teachers in these areas. When beginning teachers function in school with a rather low level of competence in various areas, the chance of becoming burnout might be higher. To bridge the gap in teacher training, a Summer Creative School Project has been developed and launched in the summer vacation in 1998 in Hong Kong. The aim of the whole project was to provide opportunities for student-teachers to experience the management of a school for four weeks. The project has three stages, viz., the pre-field stage, field work stage and the debriefing stage. In this program, participants were given a series of intensive training in the form of seminars and workshops. There were a total of 80 student-teachers participating in the project. In the field work stage, a total of four Hong Kong public sector primary school were involved. Twenty student-teachers took over the management of 10-12 classes of one school. All student-teachers took up different functional posts as head teacher, deputy head teacher, coordinators of curriculum and extra-curricular activities, etc. They also designed their own curriculum with creativity development as the central theme. In the debriefing stage, the experience and limitations of student-teachers throughout the project are debriefed. This paper gives a full account

This paper presents a qualitative case study of student teachers' professional learning in the field experience of initial teacher education in Hong Kong. It highlights the social nature of seven student teachers' professional learning by portraying the field experience context as a socio-professional context. The focus of the study is on student teachers' interaction with the school management, teachers and other staff of the school, their peers as well as pupils. Data collected include interviews with student teachers and school teachers as well as field observation over two years. Four types of socio- professional relationship between the student teacher and the field experience context are identified: detachment; affiliation; engagement and isolation. The implications on initial teacher education are discussed.

Supervision is a powerful intervention into student teachers' learning in the field experience of initial teacher education. This paper presents a study on the supervision of seven student teachers in an initial teacher education programme for secondary school teachers in Hong Kong. Data related to the supervision of the seven student teachers include 16 tape-recorded post-observation conferences, interviews conducted with the 7 student teachers and the 21 tertiary supervisors. The research addresses four issues related to supervision. First, tertiary supervisors' supervisory behaviour in post- observation conferences is examined. Second, the supervisory discourses in the post-observation conferences are situated in the theory-practice continuum. Third, student teachers' and supervisors' perception towards the supervision occasions is explored. Finally, on the basis of the insights gained from the examination of these post-observation conferences and the two parties' perception, attempt is made to draw implications on the role of supervision in the field experience of initial teacher education.

This paper examines the role of government in promoting information and communication technologies in teacher education, including pre-service and in-service teachers on the one hand, and analyzes the professional development of teacher educators at the Hong Kong Institution of Education on the other.

On teacher preparation, Forlin, Chong and Au conducted a survey on a group of postgraduate students taking a module on catering for diversity in September 2005. A four-part likert instrument was used to obtain pre- and post-data. The survey aimed to find out whether there were changes in teachers' attitudes, beliefs, and concerns following participation in a course of study.

Education values and beliefs in whole child development underpin the aims of education in the 21st century. Literature shows that teacher's belief in humanistic approach in bringing out the holistic development of a child plays a significant part in fulfilling the education ideology. The study of a group of 35 in-service primary school teachers in Hong Kong in 1999/2000 revealed that although a considerable number of them believed in the affective approach, they had technical difficulties in the implementation owing to the constraint of time and resources, whilst teacher development in understanding humanistic education is essential to facilitate the change.

Two achievement goals and three perceived parenting styles were identified in a sample of Hong Kong teacher education students. Significant correlations exist within the parenting styles and the achievement goals. Parental authoritativeness was significantly and positively related to learning goal and parental authoritarianism was significantly and negatively related to performance goal. Analysis of paternal and maternal influence showed there was no significant relation between paternal parenting styles and goal orientations but maternal authoritativeness was significantly related to learning goal. Further investigation with a larger sample, more male students and paternal influence would help confirm the paternal versus maternal influence on students ’ goal orientations.