Abstract:
An important part of the Institute’s vision is nurturing competent and caring professionals. To develop pre-service teachers into full professionals well-prepared for lifelong learning, language skills and moral attributes development are among the most important areas. The Quality Assurance Council (QAC) has invited all institutions to step up efforts in enhancing students’ proficiency in Chinese. Language enhancement is one of the key areas of development in the Institute’s 2012-15 Academic Development Proposal. Pre-service teachers should well develop their Chinese communication skills to meet the needs of their future career. On the other hand, although a set of recognized ethical standards has been identified in the Code for the Education Profession of Hong Kong (Council on Professional Conduct in Education, 1995), pre-service teachers may need guidance to put it into practice in actual school context. Moral and Civic Education is one of the essential learning experiences of Hong Kong school education which extends across all the eight key learning areas of basic education (The Curriculum Development Council, 2002), but there are no explicit aims and objectives on values and attitudes deemed essential for students being listed in most subjects’ curriculum guides. It is crucial for all pre-service teachers to develop essential moral attributes themselves before taking up the responsibility of the moral development of the students entrusted to their care. This project collected frontline teachers’ views on professional moral attributes through a questionnaire survey. About 20 BEd students majoring in any subjects were recruited and trained. They interviewed frontline teachers of different years of experience so as to gather stories of their personal experiences and opinions on attributes highlighted by the questionnaire results. These student teachers wrote a reflective journal on these interviews, indicating how they had learnt from these frontline teachers on professional moral attributes development. The outcomes of the questionnaire survey and interviews helped student teachers to set goals for their growth. The reflective journals were edited and presented online as self-access learning package to promote a sense of professionalism. This project would serve as a pilot for a larger scale research project on Hong Kong teachers’ professional moral attributes development.
Code:
T0108
Principal Project Supervisors:
Subjects:
Start Date:
02 Apr 2012
End Date:
30 Sep 2013
Status:
Completed
Result:
The outcomes are as follows:
Participating students enhanced their communication skills through conducting interviews and writing of reflective journals;
Participating students enhanced their understanding on professional moral attributes;
Participating frontline teachers acknowledged of and reflected on their professionalism; and
Research papers on professional moral attributes development of pre-service students and participating teachers with various years of teaching experience was prepared.
Impact:
The project impact are as follows:
Project investigators have better understanding on professional moral attributes;
Participating students enhanced their communication skills and understanding on professional moral attributes, which will facilitate their study and future teaching work;
A collection of Reflective Journals on professionalism written by BEd students were developed which could enhance teaching and learning.
Financial Year:
2011-12
Type:
TDG