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Liberal studies is a new subject in the new senior secondary curriculum in Hong Kong. This study attempted to identify factors that shape liberal studies student teachers' decisions in lesson planning. Based on interview data and lesson plans developed by the student teachers, this article maintains that four factors interacted with the subject features of liberal studies to shape the student teachers' planning decisions, namely, teacher knowledge, curriculum requirements, materials and resources, and interaction with equal and more capable partners. This paper further looks into how teacher knowledge expresses itself at different stages of lesson planning. The findings suggest that to facilitate enquiry learning in students, liberal studies teachers need to adopt an enquiry stance in lesson planning. This paper argues that the limitations of liberal studies student teachers' content knowledge need to be addressed in teacher preparation programmes and suggests teacher networking as one way to strengthen novice liberal studies teachers' content preparation. The implications for teacher education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using geographic information system (GIS) in teaching and learning geography is an important direction in the secondary geography curriculum in Hong Kong. In the present study, interviews were conducted individually with 28 geography teachers from different secondary schools in Hong Kong, with a view to finding their views on the inclusion of GIS in the secondary geography curriculum and the current state of GIS implementation in their schools. The study reveals that the level of use of GIS in geography teaching in Hong Kong was low, despite the fact that teachers generally found GIS to be an important geographical skill. In addition, teachers' understanding of how GIS could be used in teaching to enhance student learning in geography was limited. There is evidence that basic conditions, in terms of hardware and software, for using GIS in geography teaching were present in schools, and that teacher commitment was a critical factor determining whether or not GIS would be used. Teacher commitment was found related to teachers' sense of preparedness to implement GIS, the perceived practicality of its use in teaching and whether GIS use was mandated in the curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on junior secondary school students' views of geography in Hong Kong. In this exploratory study, 12 students from six schools were interviewed individually to reveal how they viewed the nature of geography. The findings can be seen as a reflection of the learning outcomes, which may shed light on how the school curriculum and instruction could be improved. These studies indicate that students' views of a subject differed in many ways from those of subject academics and researchers. Although such differences should not simply be taken as inadequacies or misconceptions on the part of students, they do reflect the kind of learning experiences students have.