There is an increasing need in Hong Kong kindergartens for exploring children with exposure to Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math (STEAM) in school settings. The aim is not the subject-based learning but the way of integrating the STEAM concepts in the holistic learning experience. Guiding children to explore the concepts in the process of solving problems, providing hands-on experience to stimulate children's intrinsic motivation. However, the challenge is apparent that the lack of professional development to prepare the teachers for STEAM education in early childhood education. This project adopted a Pedagogical Play-framework (Edwards, 2017) to prepare kindergarten teachers to integrate STEAM education through play. Accordingly, three types of play were explored, including 1) open-ended play, 2) modelled play and 3) purposefully framed play. The initial finding indicates that kindergarten teachers showed the positive attitude to involve STEAM education in the classroom practice, and used the Pedagogical Play-framework for improving children’s engagement. Teachers were lack of the subject concepts especially the science and the engineering areas. More school-based support were needed to create the multimodal learning spaces.越來越多香港的幼稚園開始探索融入STEAM的元素，包括科學、科技、工程、藝術及數學的學習範疇。但其目標不是主張孩子學習獨立學科，而是希望進行統整的學習，在解決問題的過程中探索所需的概念，以動手解難為基礎讓孩子整合學習經驗，激發孩子的內在學習動機。然而教師培訓是STEAM教育在幼兒教育推行的一個難點。本研究以一個幼師培訓課程為例，使用教學遊戲架構（Pedagogical Play-framework）來透過遊戲來設計STEAM教學活動，三類型遊戲包括1）開放式遊戲，2）示範式遊戲以及3）目的性的遊戲。研究初步發現大部分教師對STEAM教學的態度積極，使用教學遊戲架構能夠幫助教師提升兒童參與程度。但初步的研究結果顯示教師缺乏STEAM的學科知識，特別是在科學和工程方面，以及需要更多的校本支持來設計多元學習空間。 Copyright © 2018 Learning & Teaching Expo.

Although encouraging student creativity is a commonly recognised goal of STEM education, there is a lack of research in this area. In this study, the effects of epistemic beliefs on STEM creativity and the mediation of intellectual risk-taking were investigated. The subjects were 461 primary students in Hong Kong. The findings revealed that (i) intellectual risk-taking was a significant and positive predictor of STEM creativity; (ii) the certainty and justification dimensions of epistemic beliefs had direct, negative and significant impacts on STEM creativity; and (iii) the complexity dimension of epistemic beliefs had both direct and indirect significantly positive impacts on STEM creativity, and the indirect impacts were mediated by intellectual risk-taking. This study revealed the complicated relationships between different orientations in epistemic beliefs and STEM creativity, which include both constraining and facilitating effects, and both direct and indirect impacts. We argue that although reducing naïve and relativistic epistemic beliefs is essential for the development of creativity in STEM education, the effects of cultivating mature epistemic beliefs may not be sufficient. Further direct and explicit approaches are required to more effectively enhance students’ STEM creativity. Copyright © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Background: Dot enumeration is the basic mathematics competency in young children and a significant indicator of later mathematics achievement. Aim: The present study focused on (1) how children's dot enumeration ability changed as they progressed from late kindergarten years (K3) to the second year of primary school in Hong Kong (P2), and (2) the extent to which such changes are associated with students' mathematics outcomes assessed at the fourth grade, including standardized mathematics achievement, whole number magnitude understanding, and rational number concept. Sample(s): Two hundred and eleven Hong Kong kindergarteners were recruited. Methods: The participants' dot enumeration was assessed from K3 to P2. Their mathematics outcomes were assessed at P4, including standardized mathematics achievement, whole number magnitude understanding, and rational number concept. Results: The changes in their dot enumeration speed reflected a linear growth pattern. Further, both the initial level and growth rate of dot enumeration predicted standardized mathematics achievement and whole number magnitude understanding 2 years later while only the latter predicted rational number concept. Conclusions: The results indicate the importance of focusing on children's growth in a specific mathematics skill, in addition to their status at one single time point. Practical implications are discussed in this article. Copyright ©John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

This study examined pre-service primary teachers' (PSPTs) mathematics performance on a set of question items measuring at the sixth grade level in Hong Kong. These items covered the five learning strands of the local primary mathematics curriculum – number, algebra, measures, shape and space, and data handling. The participants of the study were 152 PSPTs who had chosen mathematics as a major in an undergraduate teacher education program. Their strengths and weaknesses in particular mathematics topics were identified. Across all four years of the teacher education program, only 6% of the participants were able to provide fully correct mathematical responses to all five items. Further, it is surprising that merely 14% of graduating cohorts achieved a full mark for the mathematical word problem that required them to show their working steps. These findings suggest that issues relating to the preparation of mathematics specialists should be further considered in primary mathematics education. Copyright ©Routledge.

This commentary aims to discuss an overarching boundary crossing framework under which integrated STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) pedagogy can be conceptualized. Four potential learning dialogical processes for boundary crossing are presented and used as the main theoretical construct for the discussion. A proposal of an interactive pedagogical framework is put forward accompanied by a provisional statement to relate the connective factors that are critical in the formation of a boundary crossing STEM pedagogy. These factors are situated learning, communities of practices, problem solving, learning dialogical processes, and boundary objects. A Hong Kong school STEM case is employed to illustrate the applicability of this framework. The commentary ends with a reflective remark on boundary crossing STEM pedagogy. Copyright ©SpringerOpen.

This study questions whether Hong Kong (HK) students' engineering aspirations are facilitated within their secondary school STEM curriculum or elsewhere. HK students perform strongly on international science and mathematics assessments, although its economy is reliant on a dwindling number of engineers. We consider STEM education metaphors, recent government attempts to improve STEM education and lack of Asian STEM literature. A representative twenty-four students (sex, age, secondary school type) were interviewed to elicit school/home e/STM (engineering within/STM subjects) experiences and aspirations. Thematic content analyses found: e/STM aspirations most susceptible to (pathway-based) home and cultural inequalities; younger students excluded from engineering interests; and, inhibiting in-school activities/pedagogies. Within this high-performing Asian society, inhibitors to engineering engagement were similar to current Western findings. Copyright ©Elsevier Ltd.

It has been well documented that active learning (AL) improves student learning outcomes in education. This quasi-experimental study explores the effect of active learning on students' knowledge of calculus concepts, in the form of the Calculus Concept Inventory (CCI), regular assignment scores, and test scores, during an 8-week calculus tutorial program. The active pedagogies used were cooperative problem-based learning and peer assessment, implemented using an interactive online whiteboard (IOWB) called RealtimeBoard. This study reveals statistically significant evidence that active learning increases students' conceptual understanding and graded assignment performance in a first-year calculus class in Hong Kong. Furthermore, this study contributes towards a better understanding of how active learning can be implemented effectively in Asian tertiary mathematics education. Copyright © Springer.

數學教科書的設計和內容鋪排對教師的教和學生的學均十分重要。除了學習目標、學習內容和相關的學習活動外，教科書所提供的可能的學習軌跡亦指出了如何帶領學生從一個知識點過渡到下一個知識點，這對於教師實施教學至關重要。這種學習軌跡的佈置並非一成不變的。本文以中學數學相似圖形這一課題為例，分析香港在不同時期的數學教科書中的內容編排，從中尋找該課題在教科書中佈置的歷史脈絡和變遷，並以此討論對於該課題合理的教學鋪排方式，也希望對其他數學課題的教學有所啟示。 Copyright © 2020 國立臺灣師範大學數學系、台灣數學教育學會.