Pilot Courses

The Joint Consultant Service Team (JCST) had investigated different approaches for professional development of in-service teachers. The development of the contents of professional development would base on the needs of school teachers on using information technology and knowledge of information literacy in teaching of the eight key learning areas and catering individual needs of teachers. In considering the resource constraint as well as the time span of this service, this pilot study focused the development of training materials on developing the competency of information and technology of teachers in the subject of General Studies in primary and Liberal Studies in secondary schools.

Two 12-hour professional development programmes were designed according to the provisional revamped training framework developed by this. Each pilot course consists of four 3-hour module to be held on two Saturday’s. The aim was to test run part of the revamped framework for teachers. They were pilot courses and did not reflect the implementation strategies and all the contents of training modules in the final revamped training framework.

Guidelines on Course Design

The following initial guidelines were considered for implementing the two pilot courses:

(1) The design of the new framework should not ignore current teachers’

achievements in BIT, IIT, UIT and AIT levels. The new framework is part of the teachers’ continuous professional development with concentration on information technology, information literacy as well as the pedagogical integration;

(2) In our focus group interviews, it was quite a common viewpoint that technical skills and knowledge were not their concerns and professional development programmes should be based on classroom examples with strong pedagogical rationales and are geared to the subject contents; and

(3) Teachers aspire to authentic knowledge and practical experiences. From the perspective of Communities of Practice, teachers who are role models of learning are expected to have the capacity to innovate the learning and teaching

processes for their students and share their best practices (Huysman, Wenger, &

Wulf, 2003; Wenger, 1998). Hence teachers’ workplace learning experiences would be considered in the professional development programme.

Accordingly, all modules are extensions of current teachers’ professional development in IT in education. Examples and practices are based on classroom experiences. There was at least one 3-hour module to be conducted by a team of teachers to share their teaching and learning experiences in using information and technology in their schools.

Pilot course for primary General Studies Teachers

Module Title

(1) Information Literacy and Project-based Learning (資訊素養與專題研習)

Synopsis

Project-based learning (PBL) is a widely adopted pedagogy in school education. By exploring the conduction of the various stages of PBL, it will facilitate teachers’

understanding on the implementation of Information Literacy (IL) in conducting PBL.

Through appropriate arranged discussion sessions, teachers will be guided to understand the learning standards within the cognitive, meta-cognitive, affective and socio-cultural dimensions of IL in this process.

Course Evaluation and Teacher’s Reflection

The course was well-received and teachers contended that they would implement what they had learned in their classrooms. Some teachers held that the contents were also suitable for library classes. Some suggested that it would be much better if they had the pre-class reading materials.

Module Title

(2) Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (合作學習與資訊科技) Synopsis

Collaborative learning is the pedagogy for advocating learning in groups. By exploring various latest technologies in information processing, visual representation and communication for collaborative learning, it will facilitate an understanding of using information technology for facilitating the collaborative learning process.

Course Evaluation and Teacher’s Reflection

Teachers felt that contents were excellent but it needed more time to cover.

Module Title

(3) The Role of Pedagogy in Using Technology for Teaching and Learning (教學法在應用科技於教學的角色)

Synopsis

Teachers are encouraged to use resources in digital world for effective teaching and learning of a subject such as General Studies. This module provides opportunities for participants to understand the role of pedagogy in using technology for teaching and learning in the digital world.

Course Evaluation and Teacher’s Reflection

This course stimulated teachers’ thinking about the future direction of using IT in teaching. Some expressed that they learned new concepts about the use of inquiry-based approach when applying IT in teaching. Some suggested there should be concrete examples, in the context of a KLA, to illustrate how to apply the pedagogy presented in the course.

Module Title

(4) The Role of Pedagogy in Using Technology for Teaching and Learning: School Experiences (教學法在應用科技於教學的角色：學校經驗分享)

Synopsis

There are schools designing pedagogy in using technology for teaching and learning in their daily teaching and learning activities for the school curricular. By visiting this school, it will facilitate teachers’ understanding of the key issues of designing appropriate pedagogy in using technology in daily teaching and learning activities of school education.

Course Evaluation and Teacher’s Reflection

The contents were heuristically presented. The instructional strategies introduced were practical. However, some teachers contended that it was unclear the technology can promote learning, not to mention that there was additional resource implication.

They suggested that we should base on the existing technology that most schools had been equipped and explore the possibility of change of quality in learning.

Pilot course for Secondary Liberal Studies Teachers

Module Title

(1) Graphic Organizers

Synopsis

Graphic organizer is a software tool that supports the theories of visual learning such as dual coding theory, schema theory and cognitive load theory. Graphic organizer utilizes graphical ways of teaching and learning that help students make abstract ideas concrete and connect prior knowledge and new concepts. It provides structure for thinking, writing, discussing, analyzing and planning. Graphic organizer with contents that are specific to Liberal Studies is certainly a help to illustrate the above rationales.

Course Evaluation and Teacher’s Reflection

The use of Inspiration 8 (http://www.inspiration.com) as a tool to organize ideas and concepts are well received by participants. The software tool can be keyed in Chinese characters. Hyperlinks can be embedded with other multimedia materials on each node. Participants are interested in the templates which frame thinking skills and serve as scaffolding strategy in enhancing their teaching skills in the issue-enquiry approach. Participants raised the questions whether EMB can provide support to them to get multimedia teaching resources and in school who takes up the responsibility to teach the software for their LS students. Whenever there is course on graphic organizers, participants suggested that there should be more LS specific examples to illustrate the teaching methods and that there should be more time in workshop or group work to construct a LS graphic organizer in class.

Module Title

(2) WebQuest and IES in Liberal Studies Synopsis

WebQuest is a Web-based learning model providing inquiry-oriented activity in which some of the information that students interact with the Internet. Through activities on filtering, classifying, processing, analysing, synthesising or evaluating the Web information pre-selected by teachers, students can complete the assigned tasks in the WebQuest. This model is in line with the objectives specified by IES in Liberal Studies.

Course Evaluation and Teacher’s Reflection

Though participants were interested in WebQuest an explorative self-learning strategy,

some did not agree the use WebQuest as a way to conduct IES in Liberal Studies since the format of WebQuest might limit the scope of IES. Some held that it will be a burden to teachers to deal with assignments in electronic format. Some participants were interested in the teaching strategy derived from the ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) theory. Providing scaffolding shown in the process of the WebQuest was a good way to guide their student to complete an ILS in Liberal Studies.

Module Title

(3) Information Literacy (IL) in Liberal Studies

Synopsis

Liberal Studies teachers are encouraged or cannot avoid using the learning materials from the Web. By exploring various case studies on teaching and learning activities in Liberal Studies teaching, it will facilitate an understanding of the pedagogy of developing Information Literacy in school curricula.

Course Evaluation and Teacher’s Reflection

Participants had different understandings about the scope and significance in student learning. They were particularly interested in the copyright and the plagiarism issues.

There were hot discussions about students’ searching resources on Internet, evaluating information on Websites and an IL Website in an Australian university. Teachers raised the concerns (1) how to transform the abstract IL concepts into their daily practice in teaching; (2) how to permeate the ideas of IL into different KLA; and (3) how to teach LS students the citation format especially in Chinese when writing LS essay assignments. Teachers expressed the view that they need more teaching materials about IL.

Module Title

(4) WebQuest and Information Literacy: A School Implementation Synopsis

Experienced teachers are expected to have the capacity to innovate the learning and teaching processes from the Community of Practice (CoP) perspective. There are schools implementing WebQuest and information literacy in their teaching and learning activities in the school curricular. By visiting this/these school(s), it will facilitate participants’ understanding of the implementation strategies and difficulties encountered as well as the roles of WebQuest and Information Literacy in the development of the subject curricula.

Course Evaluation and Teacher’s Reflection

The invited school gave a very interesting sharing about their implementations of WebQuest and IL in their school. The speakers suggested the adoption of a group approach in order to achieve a successful use of IT in teaching. A single person was unable to promote any innovative ideas on the use of IT in classrooms. Some participants asked for one more school to participate the sharing session.

Conclusion

Previous EMB teacher training courses were usually carried out by means short-term courses. Each event of courses provided one or two places for teachers in one school.

Teachers were then expected to bring their knowledge to be implemented in their classrooms. However, when they returned to school, they found that they were working alone and isolated from their classmates of the course, without further communications or community for resource sharing, implementation experience sharing and peer support. Thus, it is highly recommended that in the future professional teaching courses there should be more places offer to one school so that they can set up peer support groups to implement what they have acquired in the training courses. In the ideal case, teachers from various schools can form a community of practice to share and advance their knowledge about a particular application or pedagogy in using IT in teaching and learning.

In all modules conducted, teachers expressed unanimously that there should be more content/KLA specific materials and teaching exemplars. Also, workshops and group discussions are critical components in any teacher training course since experience sharing can enforce their beliefs and improve their practice of use of IT in classrooms.