The Development of Teacher Quality in an Age of AccountabilityThe Case of Hong Kong

Francis Cheung

The Hong Kong Institute of Education

14 December 2002

Education Reform for quality schooling in

Hong Kong

Major Thrust to Successful Education/ Curriculum Reform

Quality of teachers

Importance of making teaching and learning purposeful

Teachers’ competence in setting expectation of student learning

Conveying expectation of learning to students and parents

Teachers’ competence in linking expectations to teaching and learning activities

Teachers’ competence in reflecting upon their effectiveness in achieving their set expectations for students

Reflection Learning Action

Some policy level initiatives in facilitating the development of a quality teaching force

Setting students’ basic competence for core subjects – Chinese, English and Mathematics

Outstanding School Award

Student Attainment Domain

Proposed “Chief Executive’s Award for Teaching Excellence”

Restructuring professional upgrading courses for teachers

Development of an infrastructure for mentoring

Development of the professional career ladder of teachers

Developing teacher’s professional practices through SAW

What is Schools Around the World (SAW)?

A professional teacher development program initiated by the Council for Basic Education (CBE) of the United States in 1999

To understand what constitutes "world class" standards and works by giving teachers the opportunity to examine and reflect upon their teaching practice via the analysis of student work

Partner nations/regions: Australia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Portugal, United Kingdom, and United States

Developing teacher’s professional practices through SAW

Objectives of SAW

Opening up teachers’ horizon in professional practices

Creating of invaluable opportunities for teachers world-wide to have professional discussions on the same subject – facilitate action learning of teachers

Creating a strong international professional teachers’ network to facilitate professional development

The HK SAW Professional Development Initiatives for Teachers

1. Professional Development Activities

2. Curriculum Development Initiatives in 8 primary and 3 secondary SAW schools

3. 4 Science Teaching CD-ROMs

4. Local & International Web Sites

5. SAW Bulletin/Publication

1. Professional Development Activities

111 SAW teachers

Setting expectation of students’ work

Analysis of student work – reflection through international discourse in the SAW Academy for Teaching Excellence

Learning from SAW and formulation of future actions

36 SAW schools Extend to all the teachers in SAW schools How SAW experience could facilitate

project learning and creativity development

Over 100 Non-SAW schools Promoting the SAW activities to non-SAW

schools by conducting 11 workshops

2001-02: 6 primary and 1 secondary schools

2002-03: 7 primary and 3 secondary schools

Teaching packages

Resource supports to schools

Workshop on the development of pedagogy through SAW experience

Professional discourse among teachers

2. Curriculum Development Initiatives

3. 4 Science Teaching CD-ROMs

4. Local & International Web Sites

International web sitewww.edc.org/CCT/saw2000/

Local web sitewww.ied.edu.hk/cric/saw/

Database of student work collected from partner nations/regions (~170 cases)

Database of local student work (~70 cases)

International collaboration and discussion forum

Periodically updated short articles on science teaching

Multimedia science teaching resources

5. SAW Bulletin/Publication

SAW Bulletin is a focused and organized presentation of the student work of SAW with different themes to provide continuous support to local SAW teachers on science teaching.Developing alternative forms of students' work in science - raising students' active learning ability

To compile all of the SAW bulletins published during the main study so as to share with local teachers the experience of science teaching in different countries