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Has Critical Thinking Been Fruitfully Married to Group Work in Hong Kong?

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Fostering Critical Thinking Through Collaborative Group Work

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Abstract

This chapter comprises six sections. It begins with a description of the education reform implemented in Hong Kong in the early 2000s, in which group work was suggested to play a significant role in classroom instruction. The second section traces the developmental trajectory of the Hong Kong school curriculum, as illustrated by the emergence of General Studies and Liberal Studies in primary and secondary schools. The third section describes the two subjects’ curriculum frameworks and intended goals, which highlight the importance of both group work and critical thinking. The fourth section provides an overview of the controversial issues surrounding critical thinking and how the research reported herein addressed them. The fifth section argues that group work has the potential to accelerate the paradigm shift from a teacher-centred to student-oriented approach. Finally, the concluding sections (i.e. Sects. 1.5 and 1.6) emphasise that this book constitutes a timely response to the call for scholarship examining the potential relationship between group work and critical thinking.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

    Dennis Chun-Lok Fung & Tim Weijun Liang

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  1. Dennis Chun-Lok Fung
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  2. Tim Weijun Liang
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Correspondence to Dennis Chun-Lok Fung .

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Fung, D.CL., Liang, T.W. (2019). Has Critical Thinking Been Fruitfully Married to Group Work in Hong Kong?. In: Fostering Critical Thinking Through Collaborative Group Work. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2411-6_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2411-6_1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-13-2410-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-13-2411-6

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

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