Leading Curriculum Innovation in Primary Schools

Abstract

Curriculum innovation has been regarded as an essential strategy for educational reform throughout the era of educational change. Because of the changing nature of the knowledge age, students need to develop ways of dealing with complex issues and problems that require different kinds of skills and knowledge that they have ever learned. Given the advancement of information and communications technologies (ICT), a number of models of learning communities have been advocated in recent years. Realizing the impact of this new learning culture, six primary schools in Hong Kong participated in a curriculum innovation project, in which students were engaged in building learning communities and constructing knowledge through Knowledge Forum, a computer mediated communication platform. This paper reports the results of data analysis based on interviews of principals, teachers, and students to explore how the innovation initiated a change in learning culture as well as the leadership issues arising from the project implementation.

近年的教育改革當中，課程革新已成為推動改革的重要策略。由於工作和社會本質的 改變，人們需要發展不同種類的知識去解決複雜的問題，所需的知識可能是他們未曾接觸過 的。隨著資訊及通訊科技的發展，近年提倡了不少學習社群的學術模型建議。六所香港的小 學在體會到這種新的學習文化的影響，參加一項課程革新計劃，其中學生利用知識論壇(一種 電腦中介傳播的工具)從事知識建構和建立學習社群。這研究報告根據校長、教師和學生的訪 談分析，探索課程革新如何推動學習文化的改變以及推行當中的領導問題。