Teacher Factors Contributing to an Innovative Hong Kong School-Based Experience of STEM Curriculum Design via Teacher Agency Perspectives

STEM education has received global attention for the past decades. Hong Kong SAR in alignment of the global development has promoted STEM education via different strategies, including the encouragement of school-based curriculum. Adapting the theoretical lens of teacher agency and a case study approach, the authors illustrate the teacher factors in a school-based STEM curriculum. The results provide an answer to the research questions: (1) What are the main activities in the development of the school-based curriculum? (2) How did the teacher achieve teacher agency via the interplay of the iterative, practical-evaluative, and projective dimensions? Finally, the authors argue that the teacher agency achievements, such as, team building, partnership, collective core values in curriculum and student learning, teacher professional knowledge of both practical knowledge and STEM knowledge, are essential factors for a successful implementation of a school-based curriculum design.