Suchergebnisse

In reviewing the book, Making Meaning of Whiteness, by Alice McIntyre, I discussed the author's examination of whiteness through the lenses of white female, student teachers. I underscored how McIntyre employed a Participatory Action Research methodology (drawing on feminist theory), as a way to understand how her participants made meaning of whiteness. The study's findings reveal that for the participants, their "whiteness" is normal, which may serve to hinder their capacity for developing culturally responsive teaching practices.

Education in Hong Kong has developed rapidly since the 70s in parallel with the economic boom. To support such development, the government has invested heavily in initial teacher education and will soon impose professional training and graduate qualifications as prerequisites for entering the profession. Continuous teacher education (CTE), generally regarded as equally important as initial teacher education if not more so, is not given comparable emphasis. This paper aims to study CTE in Hong Kong, including its policy, practice and provision at the system level. Some special features of the system are identified and scrutinized, including ad hoc, policy led, and competence based. The centrally provided CTE is also closely examined in terms of its relevance to the profession, impact on schools, and cost-effectiveness. The paper ends with a close look at its latest developments, obstacles encountered and prospects. ; postprint

This article describes an action research study on reflective development at school and discusses methodological and pedagogical issues arising from teacher beliefs and expectations. Teachers and researchers participated in four cooperative cycles of inquiry, where situated learning and reflection supported their conceptual change and meaning-making. Teachers underwent a gradual shift from imposed, predefined teaching and learning to reflective collaboration and response to different needs of different students, while researchers gained a contextualized understanding of teachers' attitudes and beliefs about teaching and learning and examined their own and the teachers' roles as action researchers. Issues related to school ethos, teachers' defensive attitudes and trust-building among teachers are discussed in light of the reflective paradigm of participants' development.

In the 21st century, teaching has changed from the past since the era of information and communication technology (ICT) has progressed and come to play an important role in people who live in a knowledge-based society. Therefore, society needs members with the ability to use ICT to solve problems, in collaboration, communication and creation effectively. To prepare all students to meet the said needs, the learning process must be modified to emphasize the role from teacher-centered to focus on student engagement for constructing their own knowledge through ICT. The key element of this learning process is a "teacher". Thus, all teachers need to adjust the paradigm of learning and teaching and need to develop the ability to integrate ICT in teaching and learning process effectively. Although several years ago, the government and the relevant authorities have invested in the development of infrastructure and allocation of budget for ICT training, all reports have shown that the teachers still lack of the ICT skills in teaching and learning. So,in this article,the author has synthesized and summarized the idea to develop skills in using ICT in teaching and learning by focusingon the foundation of "pre-service teacher" through "Studio TEACH" at the pre-service teacher institute. By doing this, when a pre-service teacher graduates, he/she will become a "professional teacher", who has the ability to integrate ICT in teaching and learning in the future. The institutions involved in the production and development of teachers can be used as a guide for policy makers to lead to concrete action to continue. Keywords: pre-service teacher development, ICT skills, integrating ICT in teaching and learning

Teacher education towards teacher and learner autonomy is an ideological, value-laden choice whose purpose and outcomes need to be continuously scrutinised. The authors present three case studies where pre-service student teacher development practices were investigated, and discuss their value and shortcomings as regards their transformative direction. Our experience shows that criticality and role democratisation are difficult to achieve in this context, and that we need to develop further a scholarship of teacher education, as a way to uncover the forces that impinge upon it and to envision new possibilities that best serve the interests of teacher educators, teachers and ...