Designing for Integration in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) Curricula: The Hong Kong Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE)

Abstract

Discussions of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs have indicated prevailing concerns regarding the linking of theory and practice with ongoing student criticisms that the theoretical, academic content of their degrees was the least helpful in preparing them for classroom teaching (Ure 2009). While competency-based movements underscored by craft-based, apprenticeship philosophies can offer much in ‘training’ teachers, UK scholars perceive a general failure to connect teachers with theory and evidence (Menter 2013). We argue for the need for new curriculum models in ITE that can achieve practice-based outcomes as well as foster flexible thinkers able to design and adapt learning experiences in fluid and rapidly changing knowledge societies. In this chapter, we elaborate on the guiding philosophy and curriculum model of a new postgraduate ITE curriculum launched in the 2016–17 academic year by the Faculty of Education, the University of Hong Kong. Specifically, we articulate how an inquiry-based design was employed to address the central curriculum reform goal of integration of theory and practice.