Training Programmes

The Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) of The Education University of Hong Kong has continued to undertake the Education Bureau commissioned “Support Programme on Fostering Communities of Practice to Enhance Small Class Teaching in 2024-27”. The programme will support the themes of self-directed learning, e-learning, and STEAM education in the subjects of Chinese Language, English Language, Mathematics and General Studies, and also for nurturing middle-level management in schools. The participating schools may select the school-based management support either related to self-directed learning or life planning in their respective schools. Another feature of the support programme is that CELT will arrange the participating schools to work in clusters for establishing cross-school Communities of Practice to share, discuss, and develop effective small-class teaching strategies in collaboration.

In the academic year of 2019/24, the Education Bureau has entrusted the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CELT) of the Education University of Hong Kong to organize a series of “Professional Development Workshops on Small Class Teaching”. The emphasis on both theory and practice is the unique feature of the workshops for effective integration of the six basic principles of small class teaching in the four core subjects and optimizing the instructional design of three teaching themes “Self-regulated learning, “e-learning”, and “STEM education”. The teacher participants have been allocated into four different groups according to their subjects taught. The workshop consists of a total of fifteen hours with five sessions of three hours for each session. The aims of the professional workshop are to help the practicing teachers understand the six basic principles of small class teaching and keep abreast of teaching innovations so as to apply them in designing appropriate and effective teaching strategies for facilitating learning of the three selected themes in a small class context. The workshop provides an opportunity for the teacher participants to reflect on their teaching through practice as well as enhances their awareness of the current development in education.

The Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) of the University was commissioned by the Education Bureau to undertake the “Support Programme on Fostering Communities of Practice to Enhance Small Class Teaching” again in the school year of 2021-24. The unique feature of the support programme is that schools could choose the theme (self-directed learning, e-learning, STEM or assessment literacy), the subject (Chinese Language or General Studies) and the target level of students for the support service according to the developmental needs of their respective schools. They would also be offered opportunities to develop partnerships with other participating schools or establish an intra-school learning community for co-developing effective strategies, co-designing lessons, and sharing of teaching ideas appropriate for small class teaching. In addition, this programme will create an online platform for the participating schools to share their lesson plans and teaching resources with each other.

In the academic year of 2021/22, The Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) will provide professional support service to 8 special schools through an Education Bureau commissioned project “Professional Learning Community on Effective Use of e-Learning in Lesson Design in Special Schools”. The eight participating schools will be clustered into two Professional Learning Communities to explore how to integrate information technology in lesson design for enhancing learning and teaching effectiveness. The project aims to enable the participating teachers to gradually master how to effectively apply e-Learning in their lesson design to benefit students with special needs through different professional activities such as e-Learning workshops, co-planning of lesson design, lesson observations and post-lesson conferences, etc.

The Programme will help the participants to:

1.       understand the principles of IT application in classroom teaching;
2.       enhance their capacity in adopting e-Learning platform(s) effectively to strengthen the
         interaction and communication with students;
3.       design teaching materials with e-Learning elements to meet the diverse needs of their
         students to cater for learner diversity;
4.      make good use of the school IT resources to support classroom teaching so as to foster the
        development of e-learning in schools;
5.       reflect on how to make use of e-learning and effective teaching strategies to optimize
         learning and teaching during the collaboration process.

School List

The Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) had organized a series of teacher training programmes entitled “Small Class Teacher Training Programme for the school teachers of Macau 2019/20” for Education and Youth Bureau (DSEJ) of Macau in October – November 2019. The training programme of curriculum adaptation in Chinese Language, English Language, Mathematics and General Studies for the primary school teachers enhanced the strategic pedagogical knowledge of the teachers so as to optimize the benefits of teaching in a small class setting.  The training programme for the secondary school teachers introduced how a learner-oriented approach could be implemented in the subject of Chinese Language to align with the official curriculum and academic requirements as well as to address the learning needs of individual schools.

The aim of the Programme is to guide teachers and/or professional personnel of 8 special schools in the 2 Professional Learning Communities, namely Mathematics Group and General Studies / Liberal Studies Group, to enhance learning and teaching through conducting Learning Study in the participating schools. The Programme rests on the rationale of drawing together the theory and practice of Learning Study for bolstering the role of teachers in classroom setting which in turn fosters their professional development as well as benefits students’ learning. 

The Programme helps participants:

(a)    acquire the basic concepts and understanding of Learning Study and Professional Learning Community (“PLC”); 

(b)    make use of Learning Study as a platform for the participating teachers to collaborate through cycle of research, design, teaching, observation and evaluation / reflection with a purpose to help students to learn specific objects of learning;

(c)    participate as member of PLC for development and continuous improvement of an identified area of their students’ learning; and

(d)    gain professional competence through transformation of their instructional practice into more reflective collaboration process focusing on enhancing the effectiveness of student learning in their own schools.

Learning circles' lists
 

To support the Education and Youth Bureau (DSEJ) of Macau in implementing the small class teaching policy, the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) organized a series of relevant programmes for the teachers of various levels (kindergartens, primary, and secondary schools) in Macau for the academic year of 2018/19. The aim of the programmes is to help the course participants apply innovative teaching ideas so as to optimize the learning effectiveness in small class settings. The programmes covered a wide spectrum of topics namely Effective Lesson Observation and Evaluation, E-learning, Game Teaching Methods, and Teaching Innovations tailor-made for teachers of different subjects. It is anticipated that the training programmes will contribute to the enhancement of the pedagogical content knowledge of the teachers in Macau.  

230 participants from the sixty project schools of the “Support Programme on fostering Communities of Practice to enhance small class teaching” in 2018-2019 attended the Thematic Workshops organized by the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) on 15 September, 2018.

The whole-day workshop started with the Welcome Speech by Dr. KO Po Yuk, the Director of CELT, followed by the introduction of the concept and rationale of small class teaching by Ms. Jannie TSANG and Ms. LEUNG Kit Yan. Four thematic parallel sessions were then conducted namely “Self-regulated learning” conducted by Professor CHIU Chi Shing, Honorary Advisor of CELT, “E-learning” conducted by Ms. Jannie TSANG and Ms. LEUNG Kit Yan, “Use of integrated curriculum approaches to analyze school-based STEM curriculum development” conducted by Mr. WONG Chi Kin and “STEM, Coding and Maker teaching” conducted by Dr. Angus CHAN.

Parallel case-sharing sessions on the four core subjects (Chinese Language, English Language, Mathematics, and General Studies) were held in the afternoon to show good practices on how the four different themes could be incorporated into the pedagogical design to enhance the teaching and learning effectiveness in small class setting. 

A meeting between the teachers of the cluster schools and their respective tutors was held after the case-sharing sessions for exchanging views and having an initial understanding of the needs of the participating schools. The participants found the workshops inspiring and fruitful. 

The Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) had organized a series of teacher training programmes entitled “Small Class Teacher Training Programme for the school teachers of Macau 2017/18” for Education and Youth Bureau (DSEJ) of Macau in September – November 2017. The training programme of curriculum adaptation in Chinese Language, English Language, Mathematics and General Studies for the primary school teachers enhanced the strategic pedagogical knowledge of the teachers so as to optimize the benefits of teaching in a small class setting.  The training programmes for the secondary school teachers introduced how a learner-oriented approach could be implemented in the subjects of Chinese Language and English Language to align with the official curriculum and academic requirements as well as to address the learning needs of individual schools.

The aim of the Programme is to guide teachers and professional personnel of 8 special schools in applying Theory of Variation through conducting Lesson Study (LS) through working in two Learning Circles, namely primary school and secondary school.  The Programme rests on the rationale of drawing together the theory and practice of Theory of Variation for bolstering the role of teachers in the classroom setting with the aims of  fostering their professional development as well as  enhancing students’ learning effectiveness.

Learning circles' school list

To support the Education and Youth Bureau (DSEJ) of Macau in implementing the small class teaching policy, the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) organized a series of relevant programmes for the teachers of various levels (kindergartens, primary, and secondary schools) in Macau for the academic year of 2016/17. The aim of the programmes is to help the course participants apply innovative teaching ideas so as to optimize the learning effectiveness in small class settings. The programmes covered a wide spectrum of topics namely Learning Corner, Game Teaching Methods, Cooperative Learning, Self-directed Learning, and Teaching Innovations tailor-made for teachers of different subjects. It is anticipated that the training programmes will contribute to the enhancement of the pedagogical content knowledge of the teachers in Macau.  

The Centre had organized a series of teacher training programmes entitled “Small Class Teacher Training Programme for the school teachers of Macau 2016/17” for Education and Youth Bureau (DSEJ) of Macau in October – November 2016. The training programme of curriculum adaptation in Chinese Language, English Language, Mathematics and General Studies for the primary school teachers enhanced the strategic pedagogical knowledge of the teachers so as to optimize the benefits of teaching in a small class setting.  The training programmes for the secondary school teachers introduced how a learner-oriented approach could be implemented in the subjects of Chinese Language and English Language to align with the official curriculum and academic requirements as well as to address the learning needs of individual schools.

The Centre has successfully granted with the EDB commissioned programme entitled “Provision of Services for Support Programme on fostering Communities of Practice to enhance Small Class Teaching” in 2015-2017. It will provide professional support to 120 participating schools through workshops, learning circles within and across schools, and sharing sessions of exemplary practices to enhance teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge , theoretical understanding and application of effective teaching strategies in small class settings The programme renders support to teachers of the four major subjects of Chinese Language, English Language, Mathematics or General Studies to develop and apply effective pedagogies for self-directed learning, e-learning and catering for learner diversity.

Project School List

The aim of the Programme is to guide teachers and professional personnel of 8 special schools in applying Theory of Variation through conducting Lesson Study (LS) through working in two Learning Circles, namely Chinese Language and General Studies.  The Programme rests on the rationale of drawing together the theory and practice of Theory of Variation for bolstering the role of teachers in the classroom setting with the aims of  fostering their professional development as well as  enhancing students’ learning effectiveness.

General Studies Circle
General Studies/Liberal Studies Learning Circle

For knowledge transfer of the EDB commissioned “Support Programme on Fostering Community of Practice to enhance Small Class Teaching”, the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) conducted an open lesson on 8th March, 2016 in Cumberland Presbyterian Church Yao Dao Primary School. It was a Primary Two General Studies lesson adopting an e-Learning mode for more effective learning. The observation and evaluation of the open lesson adopted an interactive discussion mode to facilitate sharing among the teacher participants so as to foster the professional teaching competence of the co-workers in the education sector.

Approximately fifty teachers from nearly twenty partnership schools participated in the event. At the beginning, the teaching team of the school briefly introduced the design of the research lesson, the development of e-learning in the school, and student’s learning difficulties of the topic to be taught. During the lesson, the teacher concerned tried to make use of Tablets to engage students in problem-based learning activity. The results of the student interviews helped the participants identify the learning difficulties of the students and focus on the effect of the pedagogical arrangement on student learning outcome during the lesson observation. In the post-lesson conference, the participants actively shared their opinions and provided constructive suggestions for further improvement of the lesson. The interactive discussion facilitated professional sharing among the participants and created a community of practice across schools.

For knowledge transfer of the EDB commissioned “Support Programme on Fostering Community of Practice to enhance Small Class Teaching”, the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) conducted an open lesson on 15th December, 2015 in HHCKLA Buddhist Chan Shi Wan Primary School. It was a Primary Six Mathematics lesson adopting an e-Learning mode for more effective learning and to develop students’ self-directed learning.

Approximately fifty teachers from more than twenty partnership schools participated in the event. The results of the pre- and post-tests, as well as the student interviews, helped the participants identify the learning difficulties of the students and focus on the effect of the teaching arrangement on student learning outcome during the lesson observation. In the post-lesson conference, the participants actively shared their opinions and provided constructive suggestions for further improvement of the lesson. The interactive discussion facilitated professional sharing among the participants and created a community of practice across schools.

The Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) has successfully granted with the EDB commissioned programme entitled “Provision of Services for Support Programme on fostering Communities of Practice to enhance Small Class Teaching” in 2015-2017. It will provide professional support to 120 participating schools through workshops, learning circles within and across schools, and sharing sessions of exemplary practices to enhance teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge , theoretical understanding and application of effective teaching strategies in small class settings The programme renders support to teachers of the four major subjects of Chinese Language, English Language, Mathematics or General Studies to develop and apply effective pedagogies for self-directed learning, e-learning and catering for learner diversity.

Project Schools' List

The Centre organized “Small Class Teacher Training Programme for the secondary school teachers of Macau 2015/16” for Education and Youth Bureau (DSEJ) of Macau. The programme introduced how small class teaching could be implemented in the subjects of Chinese Language and Mathematics to align with the official curriculum and academic requirements as well as to address the needs of the curriculum adaptation of individual schools.

The Centre of Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) organized “Small Class Teacher Training Programme for the primary school teachers of Macau 2015/16” for Education and Youth Bureau (DSEJ) of Macau. The training programme of curriculum adaptation in Chinese Language, English Language, Mathematics and General Studies enhanced the application of strategic pedagogical knowledge of the teachers so as to optimize the benefits of small class teaching.

The Centre has provided school support services to Escola Dom Luis VersigLia (雷鳴道主教學校) in Macau since 2009. The types of services include professional development workshops, curriculum planning, and lesson observations of seven subjects for enhancing learning and teaching effectiveness in small class environment.

The project aims at  supporting school teachers to  utilize Assessment for Learning (AfL) in Mathematics teaching to  identify students’ learning difficulties  so as to design appropriate teaching materials that meet the needs of the students.  It is expected that through collaborative lesson preparations, lesson observations among peers, public lesson observations, and lesson analysis, teachers could effectively make use of the AfL data for improving teaching and learning.

DETAILS
The list of the 10 partnership schools