Abstract
The “Cooperating Kindergarten Principals Scheme” (CKPS) was introduced by the Division of Preprimary Education of Hong Kong Institute of Education in 1996. The CKPS was an innovative supervised teaching approach for student-teachers studying in the Qualified Assistant Kindergarten Teachers Training Course. One of the main purposes of the scheme was to establish a partnership between the schools and Hong Kong Institute of Education. There were totally 236 principals in the scheme. A research funded by the HKIEd was conducted to evaluate the development of collaborative and cooperative culture between the kindergarten principals and HKIEd through out the scheme. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods of inquiry was adopted. It included: three individual interviews, a group interview and a survey. The questions focused on the following aspects: (1) Relationship and communication between kindergarten principals and student-teachers. (2) Relationship and communication between kindergarten principals and HKIEd. (3) Personal and School development. (4) Suggestions to the mode of collaboration in future. A total of 168 kindergarten principals and 10 lecturers of HKIEd participated in the study. 87% of respondents (kindergarten principals) indicated that the scheme could promote their relationship and communication with HKIEd. 89% of respondents (kindergarten principals) indicated that they could have a better understanding of the QAKT course content, aims and criteria of supervised teaching. 100% of respondents (lecturers) indicated that they could have a better understanding of principals' attitudes towards early childhood education. 80% of respondents (lecturers) indicated that they have adopted an equal partnership mode with principals in providing feedback to the student teachers. In addition, 96% and 100% of respondents (kindergarten principals and lecturers, respectively) expressed that they welcome similar collaborative mode of staff development program in school. Results of the study did indicate that the scheme could promote the relationship and communication between kindergarten principals and lecturers. It seems that a collaborative and cooperative culture has been developed between schools and HKIEd. The scheme provides opportunity for lecturers to acquire “detached” knowledge of practice which is useful for the institute in developing other levels of training courses. For the future scheme to be successful, there needs to be an appropriate level of collaboration among the HKIED, principals and teachers as a team to refine the new mode of partnership scheme and work as partners in the planning and implementation of future training workshop. It also indicated that this scheme in general helps student teachers to develop the direct knowledge and experience of the classes with which they are practically able to undertake the teaching in the immediate context. Thus, to develop this scheme in appropriate relation to the other levels of supervised teaching of preschool teacher training program may be a useful means that deserve further exploration. Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Proceedings of International Conference on Teacher Education 1999: Teaching effectiveness and teacher development in the new century |
Place of Publication | Hong Kong |
Publisher | Hong Kong Institute of Education |
Pages | 1-9 |
ISBN (Print) | 9629490382 |
Publication status | Published - 2000 |