Page 16 - Mini-Module 12

consider their students’ aptitude, perseverance, and the ability to
understand instruction when planning the actual learning time and the
quality of the learning tasks (Carroll, 1963; 1989). Further, it has been
well documented that, through mutual peer support, small group
collaborative activities like cooperative learning (Slavin, 1990) also help
to increase student engagement in learning and cater for students’
individual cognitive, conative and affective differences in an
issue‐enquiry of Liberal Studies. However, as revealed by Watkins
(2000), the Chinese teachers emphasize moral training in the classroom,
and students have the duty to listen attentively, and show respect for
the teacher and other students. On this account, many Liberal Studies
teachers, living under the Chinese cultural context, tend to be less
receptive to the notion of intrinsic motivation and catering for individual
differences in the conative and affective domains. Without due regard
for students’ developmental stage and particularly individual
differences, they thus find difficulties in constructing the syntactic
knowledge necessary for creating appropriate learning contexts or
environments that enable students to draw on prior learning to make
sense of the new content.

Teachers’ translation of knowledge into practice: Changes in beliefs
and changes in practices

In a very real sense, teachers’ beliefs cannot be well understood without
noting the heated debate revolving around “whether changes in beliefs
precede or follow changes in practices” (Richardson & Placier, 2001,
p.919). Richardson (2001) argues on the relative effectiveness of the
empirical‐rational approach and the normative‐reeducative approach in
terms of teacher change. The former is proved to be effective when
teachers think a new practice is good and make the appropriate changes
in their practices, which supports the idea that changes of practices
follow changes of beliefs. However, the latter has been documented to
be more successful in changing teachers’ beliefs, conceptions, and

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