Curriculum Leadership Development (CLD) Programme: Experience sharing on subject plan writing and Workshop on conducting effective lesson observation

Date :

14 October 2016 (Friday)

Time :

Experience Sharing: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Workshop: 1:30 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.

Place :

WP01, West Block, Kowloon Tong Education Services Centre

Objectives of the Sharing Session :

• To provide a platform for participants of the CLD programme to share their experience in writing up a subject plan, the difficulties or challenges they encountered and possible solutions

• To provide an opportunity for the CLD members to get to know more about the objectives of the English subject in other CLD schools and the strategies they have adopted to achieve the objectives

Objectives of the Workshop :

• To help curriculum leaders understand how English teachers' professional capacity can be enhanced through focused lesson observation

• To demonstrate how effective lesson observation can be used as a vehicle to promote professional growth and foster a learning culture in the English panel

• To explore how formative lesson observation practices will help improve student learning

9:00 am - 10:10 am

6 CLD schools shared how to build a firm foundation for students in language learning by:

• developing or revamping the school-based curriculum to improve students' learning effectiveness;

• making good use of data to inform learning and teaching; and

• enhancing professional capacity of teachers.

They also shared the strategies they would adopt, the evaluation methods and the difficulties encountered while writing up the plan.

Curriculum leaders from different schools shared their experience in leading the panel to overcome the problems in writing a subject plan and the effective strategies adopted to help students build a firm foundation in language learning.

10:10 am - 10:25 am

10:25 am - 11:30 am

The other 6 CLD schools shared how they planned to enhance teaching and learning effectiveness through promoting new initiatives such as self-directed learning, e-learning, multi-perspective thinking skills and infusing life planning education into the English Language curriculum.

The curriculum leaders shared how they prepared themselves as a change agent to implement new initiatives in the panel and how to overcome the constraints and difficulties faced.

11:30 am - 12:00 pm

In order to implement the subject plan effectively, the curriculum leaders were advised to build a consensus and maintain good communication in the panel as well as monitor the effectiveness of the plan.

1:30 pm - 2:10 pm

Goals and approach to conducting lesson observation

• The ultimate goals of conducting lesson observation are to build up a learning community with peer rapport among panel members and to enhance effective learning and teaching.

• Ms Harriet Chow from Buddhist Wong Cheuk Um Primary School shared how lesson observation should be planned in a holistic manner to align with the school development focuses.

2:10 pm - 3:05 pm

Preparing observers for a focused lesson observation

• Mr Jacob Kung from Stewards Ma Kam Ming Charitable Foundation Ma Ko Pan Memorial College shared how to prepare a lesson observation for his panel members.

• Officer explained the use of different lesson observation tools to collect target/objective-relevant evidence to improve learning and teaching.

• The participants had the opportunity to observe a video recorded lesson, discuss their observations and make suggestions about how the lesson could be further improved.

3:05 pm - 3:20 pm

3:20 pm - 4:20 pm

Transforming observations into quality feedback and maintaining a professional dialogue

• The participants took part in a role-play of a post-lesson observation conference with the use of a lesson observation protocol to guide their discussion. They also shared useful strategies curriculum leaders might adopt to cope with difficult post-LO conference scenarios.

• Mr Samuel Kam from Mu Kuang English School shared his experience of how to transform observation comments to constructive feedback for a post-LO conference.

• The curriculum leaders reflected on their lesson observation practices in the group discussion.

4:20 pm - 4:45 pm

Lesson observation is a tripartite platform among curriculum leaders, observers and the observed teachers on which a learning community may be built through critical enquiry into language learning and teaching. It is indeed the joint effort of the whole panel to plan for ongoing curriculum development that would ultimately lead to better student learning.