Edmond Hau-Fai Law

Distributed Curriculum Leadership in Action: A Hong Kong Case Study

This study was designed primarily to investigate the impact of school-based curriculum development teams on teacher development within the tradition of school-based curriculum development. The results are expected to provide valuable insights for teachers, school management and policy making. Teacher interviews in a primary school in Hong Kong were conducted to evaluate the extent to which teacher engagement in curriculum decision-making processes, which are within two school-based curriculum development teams, led to teacher professional development; these were triangulated with video-taped meetings and tryout lessons. Qualitative evidence showed that participating teachers have each undergone professional development through the processes involved in the planning, experimenting and reflecting (PER) model, which is also upon curriculum practice and innovation under certain conditions. However, the complex structures and processes that have been established to involve teachers in curriculum decision making need further empirical and theoretical work. While previous papers on the studies focused on teacher development and pupil learning, this paper, based on interview data, aims to focus on the functions of distributed leadership, and how the leadership styles of consultants and panel heads mediate the interactional patterns and therefore the discourses in the Mathematics and Chinese development teams in the second action cycle of the innovation project.

Developing Curriculum Leadership in Schools: Hong Kong perspectives

This study is designed to investigate the impact of school‐based curriculum development teams on teacher development within the tradition of school‐based curriculum development in a primary school in Hong Kong. Teacher interviews were used to evaluate the extent that teacher engagement in curriculum decision‐making processes within two school‐based curriculum development teams has led to teacher professional development which were triangulated with the videotaped meetings and tryout lessons. Qualitative evidence has revealed positively that participating teachers have developed themselves professionally through the process of planning, experimenting and reflecting (PER model) upon curriculum practice and innovation under certain conditions. However, the complexity of the structures and processes that were established for involving teachers in curriculum decision‐making processes needs further empirical and theoretical work. This paper only looks at data relating to teacher development in curriculum leadership collected in the second action cycle of the project from January to June 2005.

Teacher educators’ pedagogical principles and practices: Hong Kong perspectives

While the teaching quality agenda of the 1990s, including auditing procedures, funding initiatives, and the development of academic and staff development units, has had its earliest and strongest expression in the United Kingdom and Australia, it has also had a significant impact on higher education in Hong Kong. The focus on quality has been accompanied by extensive research and theorising about the nature of good teaching and the qualities of good teachers. Most of this work has emerged from western studies across a range of disciplines. A study of teaching practices employed by Hong Kong academics with specific expertise in education supports the applicability of western conceptualisations generated through multi-disciplinary studies; these academics’ practices are aligned with ‘good teaching’, but highlight factors not often noted in previous studies, namely the conscious application of educational theory and the role of professional commitment and passion in good teaching.

Exploring the role of leadership in facilitating teacher learning in Hong Kong

In recent years international trends towards teacher empowerment and leadership have gained increased attraction in East Asias education policy and practice. Yet, as scholars have noted, the values underlying these practices often conflict with traditional cultural norms of East Asian societies which stress hierarchical and status differences. This study explored the efficacy of an approach to developing distributed curriculum leadership among school teachers. The research employs discourse analysis of video-taped meetings of teachers in a mathematics curriculum development team in order to explore the leadership and teacher learning. The results provide initial support for strengthening school-level capacity for teacher leadership as a means of fostering teacher learning in East Asian schools. Implications include the need for incorporating programmes that build leadership and team development into more general staff development for teachers.

Professional identities and emotions of teachers in the context of curriculum reform: a Chinese perspective

This study explores the changing professional identities of teachers and their emotional experiences during curriculum reform in Shenzhen in the southern part of China. A qualitative approach to research was adopted. Findings reveal that the informants display several teaching behaviours and diverse emotions ranging from pain and helplessness, fulfilment and anxiety, and other mixed emotions. The three types of influential factors that influence teachers professional identities are also discussed in this study.

Managing school-based curriculum innovations: a Hong Kong case study

This study was originally designed to explore the impact of a distributed approach to developing curriculum leadership among schoolteachers. Previous papers have focused on reporting evidence of teacher learning in the process of engaging teachers in various types of curriculum decision-making in an innovation project based on interview data. This article reports a discourse analysis of the interactions based on the visual data in videotaped meetings between teachers in a Chinese curriculum development team and shows that teacher participation is constrained by the leadership styles of the positional leaders in the team in the second action cycle in the project. The mediational effects of the leadership styles invite policy-makers and school management to rethink the effectiveness of school-based approaches to curriculum development in enhancing teacher learning and development.

Influence of leadership styles on teacher communication networks: a Hong Kong case study

This article reports the findings of a study conducted in an elementary school in 2007–2008. The design-based study, which is a replication of another study conducted in 2003–2005, analysed the influence of different leadership styles on teacher communication networks. Two curriculum development teams, namely English and General Studies teams, were set up to help in curriculum innovation, design and implementation in classrooms. Participating teachers conducted reflection meetings to evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented curriculum and discuss measures for improvement. Teacher interviews were conducted before and after each cycle of curriculum innovation. Meetings were videotaped. This study analyses the videotaped meetings through quantitative and qualitative approaches, and aims to show the effects of leadership styles and power on communication networking systems of the two teams. Results show that two modes of communication networking systems are prevalent in the videotaped meetings: restricted and extended modes. These two modes have different effects on space for teacher learning. The extended mode allows more space for teacher participation and reflection, whereas the restricted mode restricts teacher access to active participation. An effective leadership programme enhances the capacities of participants, creates conditions that allow the emergence of extended mode in meetings and provides guidance towards the realization of innovations.

Developing Curriculum Leadership Among Teachers for School-Based Curriculum Innovations in Hong Kong: A Distributed and Problem-Solving Approach

Hong Kong has been considered as one of the world’s best performing school systems. Among the six factors attributing to the success of the educational system, three are related to decentralization of pedagogical decision-making and empowerment of school leadership and teachers. Teachers’ voices and their wisdom in decision-making processes in schools has become a prominent topic among policy makers and educators. In the last 40 years, international literature suggests that teacher leadership practices in school-based curriculum development (SBCD) as a form of school capacity building enhances teachers’ empowerment and their professional capabilities, which in turn may result in more effective student learning. This chapter reports a portion of the findings based on the interview data of a case study of school-based curriculum leadership in an elementary school in Hong Kong in 2007. The study adopted a design-based approach. Participating teachers engaged in cycles of planning the objectives of learning, experimenting on redesigning the lesson plans, and reflecting on practice lessons. Multiple data collection methods were adopted. Our findings show that a systematic approach in organizing curriculum development activities based on problem-solving approaches and a distributed leadership style among teachers can be effective in enhancing teacher learning in both curriculum leadership skills and powerful learning.

Intentions and Influences of Teachers’ School Based Curriculum Development in Primary and Secondary Schools in Northwest China

Under the influence of the international trends in curriculum reforms and the policy intentions to implement quality education, the Chinese government has initiated a series of curriculum reforms in its basic education. This is the most radical changes in education in China in this century.

Web-Based Program for In-Service Teachers of Shenzhen City in Mainland China

Interest in the development and use of web-based learning in higher education and teacher education has been steadily increasing around the world for the last 30 years (Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2004). However, unless the quality of web-based learning programs show reasonable gains in achieving stated goals, suspicions about the functions and viabilities of these programs cannot be eliminated (Rovai, 2003).