❖ Students gain precious learning experience through visiting resource-based learning centres, such as Ocean Park, Kadoorie Farm, the Science Museum, the Space Museum and the Hospital Authority's Health Info World.
❖ During the visits, students can experience, introspect and relate to the knowledge they learned in the classroom to supplement their classroom learning experience.
❖ Ocean Park and Kadoorie Farm provide guided educational visit programmes for primary and junior secondary students to make direct contact with wildlife, thereby arousing students' awareness in ecology and nature conservation. This fosters a caring attitude in them towards plants and animals.
❖ The Science Museum and Space Museum offer comprehensive exhibits conducive to the learning of science and space science. They provide interesting hands-on activities that bridge scientific knowledge learned in the classroom and real-life situations. Students may gain first-hand experience in observation and data-recording in performing simple investigations. Their curiosity and interest in science are nurtured through such hands-on and minds-on activities.
❖ The Health Info World has built up good connections to various organisations in the health and medical field. It is also equipped with a library of patient associations in Hong Kong and can provide a wealth of resources for students on learning about health-related topics in the curriculum.
Points to note when planning life-wide learning:
❖ The place to be visited should be related to the theme being studied, not simply because it will entertain the students.
❖ Preparation work, e.g. a pre-visit/ pre-trip and the designing of worksheets/ information sheets, is necessary to motivate learning.
❖ When organising visits and community services outside the school, teachers should have thought through administrative arrangements such as transportation, funding, manpower and time availability. The school timetable may have to be altered to provide sufficient time for the visit.
❖ The services provided at the venue (e.g. guides) should be fully made used of.
❖ Teachers should take precautions to ensure students’ safety. When teachers are planning activities, they should refer to The General Studies Safety Handbook at http://www.edb.gov.hk/FileManager/TC/Content_2853/
gs_safety_2010_final.pdf
❖ Expensive life-wide learning activities should be avoided unless they can be shown to be particularly effective.
❖ To overcome manpower constraints, teachers may solicit parents’ support in conducting the learning activities where appropriate.
Exemplars of schools about GS can be found in the EDB Life-wide Learning website at
http://www.edb.gov.hk/index.aspx?nodeID=3110&langno=1
4.6 Catering for Learner Diversity
Students’ needs are different due to divergence in background, abilities and interests. Different learning and teaching strategies are therefore required to cater for these differences. Teachers should take learner diversity into consideration and take appropriate action to help different learners to learn.
This can be achieved through effective curriculum planning and adopting a range of learning and teaching strategies and assessment modes.
4.6.1 Adapting the Flexible Curriculum
The curriculum can be appropriately adapted to suit students of different needs, interests, abilities, experiences and learning styles. Teachers can develop themes to cover the core elements for students of average abilities, and provide extension themes and activities for students of higher ability. It is not necessary to cover everything in the textbook. For example, when studying a topic on “Transportation in Hong Kong”, according to the learning objectives set, students are expected to understand the different types of transport and safety rules. For students with higher abilities, the objective can be extended, so that students are asked to investigate transport problems in Hong Kong and suggest methods to solve them.
Higher-order skill development may be brought about by providing opportunities for students to think, co-operate, analyse and solve problems.
They are also encouraged to look into current issues and problems in Hong Kong and to develop a concern for these. Values education can be promoted through this.
4.6.2 Specific Strategies
Every student is different in cognitive and affective development. Teachers are encouraged to make use of a spectrum of intelligences and multi-sensory experiences to tap the different potential of students. Teachers can:
❖ employ appropriate learning and teaching strategies to help students develop their multiple intelligences and generic skills. For example:
students can play different roles according to their abilities when doing a project or other collaborative learning activity, e.g. those with leadership can serve as group leaders, and students with different talents (such as students with IT or drawing skills) can all contribute to the project;
❖ demand a higher level of performance from more able students or assign more challenging activities to them. With students of lower ability, the teacher should give them tasks that they are capable of doing to build up their confidence and self-image;
❖ employ different ways (e.g. provide clear explanations and instructions, give constant feedback and use IT) to enhance interactive learning;
❖ make use of flexible grouping according to the nature and purpose of the activity being carried out (e.g. split students into different groups for
collaborative project learning);
❖ when providing students with tasks and exercises, vary the amount and style of support;
❖ design tasks and exercises of different levels of difficulty according to students’ individual learning differences;
❖ adjust the pace of learning and teaching according to the speed of learning and ability of the students.
4.6.3 Differential Assessment
❖ There is no need for a school to have standardised assessment if the students’ abilities are wide-ranging. Constant failure, with no recognition of any personal achievement, will de-motivate weaker students. Schools can devise effective assessment policy and practices that allow for some differences in content reflecting the notion of core and extension, a range of modes of assessment, and different levels of performance among students.
❖ Formative assessment should be used frequently to provide effective feedback in and beyond the classroom. Homework assignments should consist of a range of activities to develop students’ different potentials.
Different types of assessment (e.g. portfolio, observation, oral questioning) can be used to help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and for teachers to decide on the appropriate learning and teaching strategies for them.
❖ Regardless of their ability, students should be helped to develop the necessary skills to assess and monitor their own learning through self-assessment. Peer assessment should also be encouraged.
4.7 Areas of Concern and Suggestions for Improvement Measures
The constraints confronting teachers may be many, some related to the school system and some related to the administration of the subject panel. However, it will be acknowledged that improvement can always be brought about.Appendix 3 provides a summary of the major areas of concern and some suggested improvement measures.