Purpose: Peer assisted learning (PAL) strategies have been widely adopted in physical education (PE). They facilitate peer education and involved peer-based interaction and learning (Ward & Lee, 2005). These strategies are innovative, and effective in helping students in different learning domains. The reciprocal style of teaching (Mosston & Ashworth, 2002) and cooperative learning (CL) (Dyson & Casey, 2012) are common PAL strategies in PE. They aim to tackle problems associated with large classes, limited equipment, and insufficient feedback to students and learners diversity. However, these strategies are rarely practiced and studied in Hong Kong. The purpose of the study was to investigate students’ perceptions of, and experiences in reciprocal teaching and cooperative learning in PE in Hong Kong schools. Factors that influence students’ learning with these strategies were also examined. Methods: Eight experienced local primary and secondary PE teachers from different regions of Hong Kong and their classes were purposely selected to take part in the study. Four teachers were briefed on the principles and implementation of the reciprocal style, while another four teachers were reminded the principles and implementation of CL, and taught a 10-lesson unit with the same strategies in their schools. A combination of techniques was used to collect qualitative data: lesson observations, formal interviews of students and teachers, student reflective journals and teachers’ self-review. Constant comparison and inductive analysis were used to organize code and categorize the data. Results: Findings indicated that the students’ learning benefited from the PAL. Learning experiences influenced the students’ learning attitudes in PE lessons. Teachers’ experience, support, tasks designed and tutors’ abilities were found to be major factors influencing students’ learning in PAL strategies. In particular, teachers’ intervention and preparation availed students in the learning

Purpose: With the latest developments in the disciplines of knowledge and learning theories, physical education (PE) teachers are encouraged to exercise their expertise to introduce and incorporate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in PE curriculum as appropriate to enhance the learning and teaching effectiveness and enrich students’ horizons. This study explored three secondary schools and three primary school PE teachers’ perceptions of STEM integration in current Hong Kong PE Curriculum through interviews. The approach was constructivist and data were analyzed according to the recommendation and strategies to promote STEM education in recent curriculum updated in Hong Kong (Curriculum Development Council, 2015). Methods: Three secondary school and three primary school PE teachers were purposively invited to participate in this study. Each participant completed three interviews to investigate their past experiences, then present perceptions, and lastly reflections on how to integrate STEM in current PE curriculum. Constant comparison and analytic induction were used to organize and categorize the data. Results: Teacher perceptions were outlined individually and then compared. The teachers shared similar perceptions related to time constraints, purpose of PE, the effects of STEM integration, concerns about collaboration with other subject teachers, rapport with students, and curricular resources. Perceptions aligned well with the recommendation and strategies to promote STEM in PE in Hong Kong. Besides, enrich learning activities could be designed for students to extend their learning experiences in PE. Misconceptions of STEM education included incomplete understanding of technology and engineer education, and viewing the use of instructional technology as STEM education. Conclusions: The findings suggest that support from tertiary institution, sharing among PE teachers and resources in teaching, and professional developments are needed

香港實行的中學新學制及西九文化區的建設為高等教育的課程重組、師資培訓、與社區接軌等方面帶來了契機，香港教育學院文化與創意藝術學系的課程設置也做了相應的調整。本文指出連貫的課程設置與培養有創意及有想象力的下一代是教改的關鍵，並從四個方面論述了課程重組與實施的策略：本科知識與教學法緊扣；正規課程與聯課活動(co-curricular activities) 聯系；開辦相關的音樂教育與文化藝術課程；課程善用社區資源。

As digital technology is increasingly a part of all sectors of society, educational approaches must be developed in order to nurture students’ ability to see the world through a computational lens. One way to achieve this goal is to promote Computational Thinking (CT) for young learners. The CoolThink@JC project is a four-year curriculum pilot designed to integrate CT into Hong Kong upper-primary level schools. The CoolThink framework for curriculum development is structured around computational concepts, practices and perspectives adapted from the framework of Brennan and Resnick (2012). This adapted framework motivated the choice of learning activities for CoolThink. This paper focuses on one aspect of that framework, namely computational practices. Here, we describe how activities in the CoolThink curriculum can promote the computational practices highlighted by the framework.
[Copyright © 2017 The Hong Kong Jockey Club.]

在香港，要成為註冊教師，除了獲得教育學位外，還必須過學校體驗與實習的過程。本文介紹了學校體驗與實習需完成的課程，學校體驗與實習前後的準備，實習的內容以及評估的方法。

This study adopted a researcher-generated framework to analyze STEM activities demonstrated in primary students' science projects in an annual extracurricular event held in Hong Kong. Ten students' project reports were randomly selected from each of the three groups of 24 outstanding, 45 merit, and 68 consolation awarded projects. Content analysis was conducted to code the activities in each project. The coded information was then changed into numerical data for quantitative analysis. The results showed that, in general, more engineering and science activities than technology and mathematics activities were adopted by the primary students in their projects. More projects with the Outstanding Award conducted STEM activities than those projects with Merit and Consolation Awards, and significant group differences existed in the science and mathematics activities. Besides, science activities significantly positively related to engineering and mathematics activities. Furthermore, STEM-related content knowledge of discipline core ideas and crosscutting concepts were reported. This study sheds light on the pattern of STEM activities in students' science projects, and has implications for promoting STEM integration in primary education.
[Copyright © 2017 Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan.]

The Chinese Language, unlike the Latin alphabetic family, is an ideographic writing system, which makes learning to write in Chinese a real challenge even for native speakers. In Hong Kong, most children start learning to write Chinese Characters (Hanzi) form in kindergarten and acquire about 4,000 commonly used forms in primary school. The teachers usually adopt the only two official traditional Chinese Characters references promulgate by governments, including Lexical Lists for Chinese Learning in Hong Kong by Hong Kong Education Bureau and Teacher’s Handbook of Standard Form of Chinese Characters by Taiwan Ministry of Education. However, some frequently used Hanzi are found to be in different forms under these two standards. The usage of simplified Chinese characters from mainland China further complicates the issue. Furthermore, even though some high-frequency word forms are aligned under these two standards, prospective teachers may still make mistakes due to the complexity of Hanzi Characters form and their calligraphic variations. Writing in different form or wrong way of Hanzi form may also affect Hanzi stroke count and order. As prospective teacher is the role model of students in handwriting, it is important to find out the common mistakes made by the prospective teacher. In this study, we will investigate the potential problems to the Hanzi form handwriting of Hong Kong prospective teachers and the rationale behind the intrigues.

This study analyses the results of an investigation of wrongly written Chinese characters of Hong Kong university students. In recent years, many local university students display poor Chinese language proficiency while writing. A study was conducted in a Chinese writing course for year one undergraduate students of The Education University of Hong Kong. The data about wrongly written characters were collected from the students’ assignments and test scripts. To explore the reasons behind university students writing the wrong Chinese character frequently, the “errors analysis” by James (1998) was employed to determine the reasons and impact of making such mistakes. The result shows that many students wrote wrong Chinese characters, because they are mainly affected by the characters’ structures, pronunciations and meanings. Moreover, some students insisted that they are just careless or lack concentration in general. Besides the common reasons above, some students suggest a new reason for writing wrong Chinese characters: in past decades, Japanese culture has come to have an influence on many young people around the world. In Hong Kong, many youngsters are influenced by Japanese culture deeply, so in the end they will sometimes mix up and misuse the Chinese characters (especially the simplified Chinese characters which are used in mainland China) and Japanese characters. Thus, they will wrongly use the Japanese characters in their Chinese writing (especially handwriting). At the end of the study, it suggests some solutions to enhance students’ Chinese language proficiency in this aspect and prevent them from writing incorrect characters again.

Young Chinese children acquire a substantial amount of Chinese characters during their early years. Because Character recognition is foundational to higher level Chinese reading (e.g., text comprehension, it is crucial to identify factors associated with early acquisition of Chinese characters. Chinese is a morpho-syllabic language in which each character corresponds to one morpheme and one syllable. Morphemes can be combined further in specific ways to make up words. In the kindergarten period from ages 3 to 6, Chinese children progress gradually from learning some single-character words to the vast majority of double-character words. In Hong Kong, traditional kindergartens typically start to teach children to read Chinese characters in the second semester of their first kindergarten year, when they are approximately 3.5 years old. Most Hong Kong children learn Chinese in the form of traditional script with Cantonese, which is their native language, as the medium of instruction through a teaching approach of “look and say.” Language impairment often places children at risk for reading difficulties, suggesting that meta-linguistic skills may contribute to the development of Chinese character recognition. Chinese characters contain rich visual-spatial features and relations (e.g., more than 2,000 different graphic patterns to be learned by novice readers). Consequently, some researchers have suggested that visual-spatial skills may support children’s learning of Chinese characters, especially in beginning readers. The present study aims to examine the contributions of meta-linguistic and visualspatial skills to Chinese character recognition in young Chinese children. A longitudinal sample of 106 Hong Kong Chinese children were tested a total of five times from their first to third kindergarten years. Chinese character recognition, meta-linguistic skills (phonological awareness and visual-orthographic awareness), rapid automatized naming (RAN), and visual-spatial