消息及活动

The Department of Early Childhood Education hosted its 6th Conference of Research in Early Childhood Education on 10 October 2020. The theme of this year’s Conference was “Nurturing Young Inquisitive Minds: Learning from Nature and Living”. Due to COVID-19, our Conference was held online in the format of a webinar, drawing over 600 participants from the region and beyond. 

Our Conference was a whole day event. In the morning, the Conference was kicked off by two opening speeches from Prof. Kwok-tung Tsui (Acting Dean of the Faculty of Education and Human Development) and Prof. Kerry Lee (Head of our Department). Our keynote session was delivered by Prof. Julia Torquati from The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States. Prof. Torquati pinpointed general principles for implementation of a nature-focused curriculum and also shared her insights on how the curriculum of early childhood education could help children understand the connections with nature. There were also two invited seminars by Dr. Annie Hu and Dr. Alfredo Bautista from the Department. Dr. Hu shared her experience on immersing children in nature-based learning by adopting a multimodal learning framework. Dr. Bautista showed us that we can integrate elements of nature in music education by including natural sound exploration and creation activities in teaching. These three presentations have demonstrated the importance of connecting children with nature – the relationship helps spur children’s curiosity and motivation of learning, which will benefit them in lifelong learning.

In the afternoon, we had seven seminars and a workshop around the nature theme. The presenters were educators from local kindergartens and higher institutions. Their presentations included nature-based learning both indoors and outdoors, nature and life education, and the making and playing of leaf flutes. These practical sessions provided an interactive platform for ECE academics, practitioners, and professionals to share their experience of supporting children’s learning from nature and living.   

The Conference has received very positive feedback and we heard voices about an online repository of all the presentation videos, for sharing to more people at their convenient time and place. Here you go – just hover your cursor over any of the presentation topics below, and you will be led to the video record. Enjoy the marvellous presentations!