Develop and articulate ideas for describing leading change in an organisation

A case of leading change in Heep Woh co-educational secondary school in Hong Kong

By Corrine, Fay,Emma,Mia and Rainbow

School background and vision

Heep Woh is a Christian subsidized co-educational secondary school. The school was founded in 1911 in Guangzhou. The present school premises commenced operation in 1970. In the 2005-2006 academic year, the school had 29 classes and about 1200 students from age 11 to 20. English is the medium of instruction for most subjects. The school aims to provide an open, fair, happy and harmonious learning environment to the students as well as a sharing culture for professional development and self-enhancement among teachers. 

The aim of school education

(1)Educating students to become well-informed and good-mannered

(2)Equipping students with knowledge and self-learning skills

(3)Providing a pleasant environment for students to learn to respect, help and live with other people

(4)Developing students into healthy, thinking, civic-minded and responsible citizens

Change of communication model

In order to provide a platform for students to extend their learning after school; broaden students’ learning experiences and encourage students to have an inquiring mind; cultivate appropriate attitudes in the use of ICT; enhance the discussion of academic issues between teachers and students, the school proposed a suggestion ‘building school forums’.

The name of the project is ‘ Four Dimensions forum’ and was designed as a four-year project starting from September 2005. It included a Student-Teacher forum (S-T), a Teacher-Teacher forum (T-T), a Teacher-School forum (T-S), a Parent-School forum (P-S) and an Alumni-School forum (A-S).

The steps of implementation

In the 2005-2006 academic year, a student-teacher forum was set up in three subject areas which included Mathematics, Chemistry and Technology.

In the 2006-2007 academic year, the focus would be on teacher level sharing. A teacher-teacher forum and a teacher-school forum would be set up in the first term and second term respectively to encourage a sharing culture and enhance professional development between teachers as well as communication with the school administration.

In the 2007-2009 academic year the focus will be on setting up the Parent-School forum (P-S) and an Alumni-School forum (A-S), which helps in strengthening the communication between parent and alumni.

Achievement

Impact on students:

(1)More easy to seek help

Students reflected that the discussion forum provided a channel for them to ask questions and to seek help after school which helped to solve some of their learning problems.

(2)Increased interest in learning

Students also reported that when browsing the questions in the forum, it broaden their perspectives and increased their interest in learning that subject.

(3)A more active role for the learner

Teachers found that students who took a more active role in the discussion forum benefited more and their learning gain was quite obvious.

(4)Ways of promoting the discussion forum

Students also gave some constructive suggestions for promoting the discussion forum, such as setting up an e-mail notification for the identified topics of interest, using a scoring system or rewarding system to encourage students’ participation and organizing an e-forum activity week to promote using the discussion forum in learning and teaching.

Impact on teachers

(1)Changing role of the teacher

The three innovation teachers reflected that they were just the facilitators, not the giver of answers. As mentioned by the Mathematics teacher,

“In the lesson, I encourage my students to post questions on the forum and to exchange ideas. When the students posted questions, I will not answer them immediately. I will allow students to discuss on their own first. Finally, if the problem still has not been solved, I’ll give them some hints”

(2)Stimulate teaching

Teachers told us that sometimes the questions posted by the students would stimulate their teaching. As one teacher said,

“When I go through the questions, sometimes I see ones that I have never thought of before. Students are very creative and we also learn more in this process. There is professional growth for us at the same time.”

Impact on school

(1)Use IT in a practical way

In the Principal’s opinion, the delivery of information by means of the school webpage was a major achievement in terms of ICT use at the school level in the 2005-2006 academic year.

(2)Sustainability and scalability

The teacher-students discussion forum will continue in the coming academic year in the three subjects. In addition, the second forum, the teacher-teacher forum’, will also be started.