This chapter focuses on the arrangements for the holistic renewal and transformation of curriculum, pedagogies and assessment practices in alignment with the use of IT in schools to unleash the learning power of our students to learn and to excel. We recommend in the Consultation Document seven support measures to enhance the ongoing processes to facilitate the curriculum renewal and relevant pedagogical and assessment development (paragraphs 44-54).
Proposal
Articulating clear learning objectives
5.1 The following learning objectives will be articulated in all education initiatives relating to student learning:
Self-directed learning;
Collaborative learning of reading and writing through online tools;
Problem-solving, creativity, computational thinking through design and coding to tackle complex problems; and
Ethical use of IT.
Enhancing problem-solving and programming-related skills
5.2 To continue to equip students with programming-related capabilities (e.g. computational thinking, modelling, coding31 testing, and logical analyzing), through the enriched Technology Education Key Learning Area (TEKLA) curriculum at the junior secondary level and the Information and Communication Technology subject at the senior secondary level.
31 Coding refers to the process of converting a program design into a detailed representation of the program using a suitable computer language/programming tool. Sometimes, the term
"programming" is being considered as a synonym to coding.
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Applying IT skills across school curricula
5.3 To continue to infuse the four priority learning objectives with more IT skills, including digital reading skills and online collaborative skills across the curriculum and information literacy among students in meeting the challenges of the rapidly changing digital world.
5.4 To provide different life-wide learning experiences and to conduct ongoing curriculum review/revision of the ICT components of the enriched TEKLA curriculum, New Senior Secondary (NSS) ICT subject curriculum, and the relevant IT part of the existing Primary General Studies Curriculum, where appropriate.
5.5 To continue to review relevant curricula like Primary General Studies, Technology Education Key Learning Area at the junior secondary level and senior secondary Information and Communication Technology subject as well as suitable Applied Learning subjects to develop students’ IT-related career interests.
Promoting an e-learning repertoire
5.6 To enhance teachers’ understanding and use of e-learning pedagogy across KLAs, including strategies for building self-regulated reading habits, developing students’ information literacy and promoting assessment for/as learning.
Using e-assessment for student learning
5.7 To encourage school to use e-assessment more widely by developing suitable e-assessment item banks and platforms for supporting schools and teachers in designing their tests and using assessment for learning.
Engaging students in IT-related life-wide learning
5.8 To encourage students to participate in related life-wide learning activities and competitions, both local and international, so as to stimulate students’ interest in computing science.
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Exploring IT-related study and career paths
5.9 To nurture and enhance future IT professionals and even entrepreneurs to meet the development needs of Hong Kong as a digital society, the Government will encourage partnership with the community, e.g. the IT sector, tertiary institutions, and NGOs, to provide enrichment programmes for young IT-gifted students being identified especially in secondary schools that they are enlightened to join the innovative and technological industries, etc.
5.10 To equip students to further their studies of IT in tertiary education, use of IT as a tool to support their disciplinary learning, pursue advanced studies of IT in gaining industrial recognition, deploy IT to handle a wide range of tasks in the workplace, and even to realise their entrepreneurship.
(A) Articulating clear learning objectives
Support
5.11 The respondents are generally in support of integrating the four designated learning objectives in all related education initiatives to empower students to achieve learning to learn.
Major Concerns and Suggestions
5.12 As mobile learning will facilitate learning and teaching beyond classroom, teachers have to recognise their changing roles with the use of technology. Besides, the Government should strengthen the development and awareness of IT literacy as well as network safety.
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Way Forward
5.13 EDB will continue to present and align the four priority learning objectives across the related education initiatives to empower our students to learn to learn as well as to unleash their learning potentials.
(B) Enhancing problem-solving and programming-related skills
Support
5.14 Teachers and the IT industry generally agree to include programming in the secondary curriculum and consider it mandatory in the junior secondary curriculum.
Major Concerns and Suggestions
5.15 In addition to the constant review, including the class size in teaching programming and the computer programming curriculum, some teachers suggest whether more relevant IT courses and programmes could be provided in schools with resources, e.g. teaching guidelines to support the teachers.
5.16 To increase the learning elements of programming in the curriculum, EDB should work closely with the tertiary institutions and IT industry in reviewing the curriculum. This will enhance students’
logical reasoning power and provide more opportunities for them to develop their interest to study ICT at secondary and tertiary levels as well as to pursue their career in the IT industry.
Way Forward
5.17 EDB will continue to enhance students’ problem-solving skills through equipping them with programming-related capabilities (e.g.
computational thinking, modelling, coding, testing, and analysing).
The provision of programming-related capabilities in Key Stage 3 will help students develop a logical problem-solving mindset through the use of IT. To enhance teachers’ repertoire on developing
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students’ computational thinking through the General Studies subject in primary schools, we have organised relevant professional development programmes starting from the 2014/15 school year.
5.18 To align with the most recent promulgation of the enriched Technology Education Key Learning Area (TEKLA) curriculum at the junior secondary level and the senior secondary Information and Communication Technology subject, we will continue to organise and share good school practices32 in teaching programming.
5.19 EDB will explore ways and best practices to train senior secondary students in structured and logical thinking through mandatory programming studies, including the enhancement of learning and teaching of programming under the medium-term review of the Information and Communication Technology (S4-6) curriculum of the New Academic Structure (NAS). The last batch of recommendations on curriculum and assessment for the NAS Medium-term Review has been announced in July 2015.
5.20 Promotion of problem-solving and programming-related skills under the existing Science and Technology initiatives in basic education will be continued.
5.21 EDB will explore different entry points of learning within relevant KLAs (e.g. Science Education and Technology Education) in the curriculum and Applied Learning courses to develop students’
problem-solving and programming-related skills and knowledge (e.g.
fair testing, design cycle and logical thinking) progressively towards senior secondary levels. Our aim is to nurture students’ disposition and ability to solve daily-life problems, from personal to community levels, including the enhancement of their computational thinking through General Studies, use of robot and programming in Computer subjects.
32 Experience sharing seminars include how to enhance students’ learning in programming and participation in the Hong Kong Olympiad in Informatics (2014/15), how to use the modular approach and subtasks in teaching programming to enhance teachers’ repertoire in teaching programming, as well as training students for the Hong Kong Olympiad in Informatics.
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(C) Applying IT skills across school curricula
Support
5.22 Different stakeholders generally agree to the proposed actions.
Major Concerns and Suggestions
5.23 As e-learning will become essential both within and beyond the classroom, teachers require more holistic information on the implementation details e.g. the timeline and exemplary e-learning pedagogical approaches across subjects/KLAs as well as e-assessment for teachers’ reference.
5.24 To strengthen students’ learning in information literacy across the school curriculum, EDB should work closely with the tertiary institutions in the curriculum design.
Way Forward
5.25 With a view to enhancing information literacy among students in meeting the challenges of the rapidly changing digital world, we will continue to infuse the four priority learning objectives with more IT skills, including digital reading skills and online collaborative skills across the curriculum. In this connection, we will revise the information literacy framework 33 in 2015 with a view to incorporating essential elements in the use and production of information, taking into consideration of effective implementation through KLAs.
5.26 We will also provide different life-wide learning experiences and commit ourselves to the ongoing curriculum review/revision of the
33 The framework for information literacy has been developed by the Curriculum Development Council since 2000 with the publication of the Information Technology Learning Targets - A Guideline for Schools to Organise Teaching and Learning Activities to Develop our Students’ Capability in Using IT. Furthermore, a study report - Information Literacy Framework for Hong Kong: Building the Capacity of Learning to Learn in the Information Age published in 2005 has mapped out the standards of information literacy in different dimensions with performance indicators and exemplars of classroom practices for the reference of school.
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ICT components of the enriched TEKLA curriculum, Science, Technology and Mathematics Education (STEM), New Senior Secondary (NSS) ICT subject curriculum, and the relevant IT part of the existing Primary General Studies Curriculum where appropriate.
To facilitate learning across school curricular, STEM education can be infused into different KLAs/subjects.
5.27 While conducting regular curriculum revision across KLAs and Applied Learning courses, we will continue to update and strengthen IT skills as appropriate to keep pace with the rapid developments in relevant industries.
5.28 Besides, with a view to nurturing and developing IT talents, we will enhance school support to nurture students’ interest in IT and their continued engagement in IT-related careers through initiatives and collaborative partnership schemes which promote the development and achievement of the IT industry.
(D) Promoting an e-learning repertoire
Support
5.29 Stakeholders generally support the proposed suggestions.
Major Concerns and Suggestions
5.30 The school sector responds that more school visits and sharing on e-learning would enhance their professional capacity and repertoire.
To help lessen the workload of teachers, additional manpower may be required to create space for teachers to enrich their e-learning repertoire.
Way Forward
5.31 We will keep abreast of the latest pedagogical developments, with a view to exploring workable practices in classrooms. Pedagogical knowledge will be co-constructed in established networks or teacher communities (assisted by existing IT platforms, e.g. HKECL)
through actions and discussions among professionals in order to enhance classroom teaching.
5.32 EDB would focus both on introducing e-learning pedagogy and encouraging teachers to develop their own repertoire and sense of discernment, for example, the relevant technological knowledge as well as updates and research studies on technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK)34, with respect to the use of effective content pedagogy in their subject specialism(s), both with and without IT enhancement. On the other hand, we will enhance teachers’ understanding of e-learning pedagogy across KLAs so as to enable them to serve as facilitators and leaders in empowering students’ use of IT for effective learning.
5.33 We will promote active student learning with the use of e-learning pedagogy across subjects/KLAs, such as strategies for building self-regulated reading habits, developing students’ information literacy and promoting assessment for/as learning. In order to encourage teachers to use e-pedagogy in their subject teaching, we will update related learning elements / contents as well as enrich teachers’ e-learning repertoire as part of the ongoing curriculum review cycle in each KLA.
(E) Using e-assessment for student learning
Support
5.34 It is generally agreed that e-assessment should be adopted more widely. Besides, facilitating the transfer of assessment data back into the management information system (MIS) is considered a good
34 The Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) concept empowers teachers (with knowledge and skills) to consider, organise and make choices in their use of technology in teaching students with different abilities. Source at: www.tpack.org .
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idea as it would reduce teachers’ workload and facilitate feedback in students’ learning and teaching.
Major Concerns and Suggestions
5.35 It is suggested that the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA) should consider the feasibility of the integration of a reliable e-assessment system for providing online test(s) which can become an alternative to written tests eventually.
5.36 Schools require more exemplars of using IT as an assessment tool for different subjects.
Way Forward
5.37 EDB will continue to encourage schools to use e-assessment more widely. Schools will be encouraged to use some well-developed e-assessment platforms and diagnostic tools that would provide instant feedback, e.g. the online Student Assessment (SA) on the basic competencies of the core subjects, Chinese Language, English Language and Mathematics. Besides, some tools which use statistical and psychometric techniques to improve test design and understanding of the student diversity (e.g. the Assessment Quality-assurance Platform (AQP) of HKEAA and the SP Xpress) are also available for schools.
5.38 Simple e-assessment tools will be a feature of e-textbooks for keeping track of student progress. E-assessment item banks provide assessment items for teachers’ use and facilitate assessment for learning by providing useful data on student performance. Efforts will be made to develop suitable e-assessment item banks and platforms to enable students to fully benefit from e-assessment.
5.39 EDB has been encouraging schools to use e-assessment. We have planned to expand the online question bank of SA by covering a wider scope of the curricula for the three core subjects for KS 1-3.
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(F) Engaging students in IT-related life-wide learning
Support
5.40 Stakeholders render general support to the proposed actions.
Major Concerns and Suggestions
5.41 The Government should strengthen professional exchanges and partnership with tertiary institutes and the Vocational Training Council so as to strengthen IT-related life-wide learning for students.
5.42 Students should also be encouraged to participate in a wide range of local and international competitions to broaden their perspective.
Way Forward
5.43 EDB will continue to encourage students to participate in activities and competitions relevant to life-wide learning, both local and international35, so as to stimulate students’ interest in computing science.
5.44 Partnerships with the community (e.g. the IT sector, tertiary institutions and NGOs) will be further enhanced to provide enrichment programmes for young IT-gifted students, in particular, those in secondary schools 36. It is hoped that future IT professionals and even entrepreneurs would be nurtured in order to meet the development needs of Hong Kong as a digital society.
35 Hong Kong has been participating in the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) since 1992. There were four students representing Hong Kong to participate in IOI 2015 which was held in Almaty, Kazakhstan and the team was awarded with three silver medals. We will continue to nominate students to join this international event.
36 The Education Bureau has been working in partnership with the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation to supplement the learning elements of the school teaching progammes with the use of robots since the 2014/15 school year.
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(G) Exploring IT-related study and career paths
Support
5.45 Stakeholders generally agree to the proposed suggestions.
Major Concerns and Suggestions
5.46 Innovation and technology education should be promoted and more incentive measures should be put in place to attract talented graduates to join the IT industry which could become one of the pillar industries in Hong Kong
Way Forward
5.47 EDB would assist in cultivating an IT and IT-rich school environment so as to provide opportunities for the development of key generic skills, such as communication, creativity and innovation, problem-solving and IT skills, in students, in addition to the development of a positive collective mindset that embraces ongoing changes and challenges ahead. As such, students can be well-equipped for their further studies of IT in tertiary education, use of IT as a tool to support disciplinary learning and advanced studies of IT to obtain industrial recognition, use of IT to handle a wide range of tasks in the workplace and even to realise their entrepreneurship.
5.48 In addition, enriched IT school programme aiming to nurture young IT professionals and entrepreneurs will be launched on a pilot basis in secondary schools for students who are interested and gifted in IT.
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Chapter 6
Action 4 Building professional leadership, capacity and