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This chapter provides the conclusion to the book. It presents the key concepts and investigation results explored in Chaps. 2– 6, followed by the key recommendations, a statement of the contribution of the book and future research directions and limitation. The chapter begins with a discussion of the philosophical beliefs encountered in the classical literature, acknowledging social support as a positive virtue that can help one enjoy a well-lived life. It further discusses the decline of social network systems, and the social values that continue to undermine the healthy development of youngsters in our twenty-first century, knowledge-based society. The rising trend of poor mental health worldwide is outlined, which supplies the background to suggest a renewed interest of social support in education. A synthesised report of the key content of the book is presented. It begins with the description of various social support assumptions and their functions, and the research issues related to social support. It further describes teachers’ social support and other social support resources in the classroom as reviewed in the book. Based on the review of social support across the fields of health psychology and education, a meta-theory is derived suggesting that social bonds, relationships and a supportive environment are crucial factors to support learning in schools. The results of studies on expert teachers’ social support behaviour are reported. Social support is realised as an important and crucial trait that enhances teacher’s teaching expertise, and the triad of teaching expertise is recommended as a potential topic for further investigation regarding teaching expertise. The results of studies of social support givers in the role of teacher are discussed. It suggests that social support giving is positively associated with teachers’ self-efficacy, and that teachers’ self-efficacy can drive their career advancement and overcome the pressure teachers may experience in teaching. The results suggest that ‘love for students’ is a trait of good teachers, and social support as the behaviour driven by the love for students helps teachers develop teaching expertise, and also leads to teachers’ better career development. Recommendations derived from the book are then discussed. They suggest the core values for establishing a supportive social environment to support student learning, and proposes directions for teacher training and professional development, and ways to enhance teacher-efficacy in the organisational context. On the basis of its content, this chapter discusses the contributions the book makes to the academic community, makes suggestions for further investigation and discusses the book’s limitations.

For years, formative assessment has been a popular topic for educational reforms across the globe. This form of assessment demands high level of student participation and teachers’ continuous feedback during and after instruction time and is recommended as a useful means of learning for students in both the schools and higher education institutions in the twenty-first century. The current chapter discusses the underpinnings of formative assessment, being a newly promoted assessment concept in the education literature. It explores the main theories in formative assessment and its relationships with student motivation and self-regulated learning. The chapter further discusses exemplar formative feedback practices derived from this body of the literature, and they are research-based practices applicable to different classroom settings. Suggestions are made to recognize formative assessment as an important strategy of reforming education; this echoes the ideas of scholarship of learning and teaching (SoLT) in promoting professional learning for improving student learning.

By conducting in-depth interviews with new teachers who are about to become full-time teachers and then reinterviewing them two years later, the author of this article presents how beginning teachers think and feel about teaching and describes the challenges they face as beginning teachers in the context of Hong Kong. The stories of the teachers, as revealed by the interviews, suggest that changing educational ideals, school leaders’ management style, and workload issues are some of the important challenges faced by beginning teachers. A short review of work on effective school research and school leadership suggests how school leaders can create an environment that is conducive to teachers’ professional development.

Using a longitudinal design, the job satisfaction and career development of beginning teachers are explored in the present study. Beginning teachers were initially interviewed after graduation from the teacher training programme and then after gaining a two-year teaching experience. The results are presented in a fourfold typology in which the initial teaching orientation of teachers interacts with the school environment to produce different teaching outlooks. School factors, such as volume of non-teaching workload, equitability in the distribution of work, and professional autonomy, are found to influence the job satisfaction and teaching motivation of teachers significantly.

This essay presents a reflective account of a preservice teacher’s experience in her fieldwork practice. The author, a professor in the preservice teacher’s education institute, acted as a critical friend and joined in the reflection as an equal. Based on the voices of the preservice teacher and a group of primary teachers, this essay presents a genuine description of the participants’ story. It tells about the preservice teacher’s progressive educational beliefs in the implementation of project learning: catering to diversities, adopting authentic learning methods, and promoting cooperative learning. The in-service teachers rejected this progressive pedagogy, dismissing it as too playful and undefined, and they suggested that it creates classroom discipline problems. The author connects this teacher’s experience to the specific areas that provide necessary conditions for reform: teacher professionalism, professional knowledge, and the organizational structure of schools.

Two decades after I left teaching primary school for a university career, I observed students and teachers in a mainstream primary school in Hong Kong. There were three main student communities within the school. Those who were labeled extremely low achievers were taught in a small class of not more than 12; these students were taught a curriculum that featured art and play. They appeared to enjoy school life very much. Another group of extremely low academic ability students were taught a curriculum that followed the mainstream. This group had adjustment problems that resulted in emotional reactions and frustrations. The final group were the low academic ability students who were integrated into a larger class with the average students. This small group behaved aggressively and constantly created disruptions and discipline problems. My observation of this school has updated my understanding of students, teachers, and the school environment after 20 years. My reflections do not focus on a compari...

Teacher Professional Development” (aka teacher PD) has garnered research attention in recent years. Scholars seek to understand the teacher PD process, while practitioners are interested in deriving policies to facilitate teacher PD. The consensus emerging from the pool of literature is that teacher PD should be “individualized”: more focused on fostering teachers’ personal growth instead of enforcing “standard practices”. The Anglosphere has been leading in the domain of teacher PD, causing many regions to imitate its practices. Using documentary analysis, this paper reviews teacher PD policies in Hong Kong over the past forty years and compares them with practices typically adopted in the Anglosphere. The paper suggests that the PD policies of Hong Kong progressed from ‘solely teacher training’, to ‘emphasis on generic skills’, to ‘lifelong learning’. The concept of ‘Confucian Heritage Culture’ is used to explain the differences between the Angloshpere and Hong Kong in terms of PD practices. Implications for adapting teacher PD practices cross-culturally are discussed.

The relationship between conceptions of teaching and approaches to teaching was explored in a study of 18 secondary school art teachers in Hong Kong. Conceptions of teaching approaches were fitted to a four‐category model. Each of the categories was distinguished by reference to six relevant dimensions. As is the case in higher education, approaches to teaching lower forms, with little pressure from external examinations or school ethos, followed logically from conceptions of teaching. There was also evidence that contextual influences, if they were sufficiently strong, could play a part in teachers’ approaches to teaching in the lower forms. For senior forms, the most marked contextual influence on approaches to teaching came from the external examination syllabus. Of the 13 teachers who taught senior form students, eight reported using approaches to teaching that were significantly different from those they used for lower forms. The remaining four used essentially the same approach for junior and senior...

Research into teachers' conceptions of teaching can be justified in that deep seated beliefs impact upon the way teachers teach and influence the learning approaches of their students. This study examined conceptions of teaching art, through interviews with 18 secondary school art teachers in Hong Kong. The analysis resulted in a two-level characterisation of conceptions under broad essentialist and contextualist orientations. There were four subordinate conception categories, namely moral development in art and aesthetic development in art under the essentialist orientation, and intellectual development through art, and expression and therapy through art as sub-categories of the contextualist orientation. The categories were defined and delimited by six dimensions. The categories were seen as clearly distinguishable but related, though not hierarchically. There was no evidence of the category scheme being culturally specific, as the majority of the teachers held beliefs which were not consistent with the traditional manner of Chinese painting.

Recently, there has been considerable concern among art educators and cultural policy makers to promote art education in Hong Kong. The launch of the new curriculum of a discipline-based character in 1996 generated debate in the art education circle of Hong Kong. There were diverse opinions on the rationale for teaching art. Concern was expressed about the present constraints of art teaching related to teachers' ability and school administration poses another important issue that seems to inhibit further developments. This paper reports part of the findings of a study on art teachers' concepts of teaching. It explores the concepts of about 20 secondary art teachers in Hong Kong. Several categories of teaching are derived from interviews: aesthetic development, moral development, intellectual development, expression and therapy, and intellectual and aesthetic development. A scheme is developed which can be used to analyze teachers' concepts as education in or through art on a continuum from subject to learner centred.

A method for enhancing the quality of teaching and learning is through encouraging academics to engage in action research projects into some aspect of their teaching which is of interest or problematic for them. Action research is promoted as a means for committed teachers to bridge the gap between their theories and practice. However, groups of teachers, fresh to such ideas and methods, may need help to get their projects started and advice on how to proceed afterwards. ‘Critical friends’ are people recommended by Stenhouse (1975) to take up this pro-active role through the building and maintenance of a partner relationship with the academics throughout their projects. This article discusses the role of the critical friend performed by the co-ordinating team of the Action Learning Project in supporting educational action research projects in Hong Kong. Important facets of such a role include the: financier, project design consultant, rapport builder, coffee maker, mirror, teaching consultant, ev...