Social Support, Well-being, and Teacher Development

This book uses social support as a central theme to provide a sound underpinning for guiding teachers to play more supportive roles in schools. It comprises a series of empirical studies that address the psychological processes involved in feeling supported and providing support, and which demonstrate how students’ and teachers’ well-being can be enhanced through learning and teaching in the classroom.

The distinction between teachers who are caring mentors and those who simply impart knowledge has attracted considerable interest among researchers; however, in the twenty-first century education seems to be playing a more restricted role, due to the predominant focus on performance outcomes. 

This book addresses and identifies teachers’ expanding role in education. It describes various types of support that teachers can offer students, and which serve to enhance a range of learning outcomes. Further, it provides evidence suggesting that teachers’ commitment to learner development is a prerequisite for a satisfying teaching career, and that teachers’ knowledge, skills and ability to provide social support in the classroom form a pathway of professional learning that can take their teaching expertise to a higher level. Lastly, the book offers policymakers suggestions on how to rekindle social support in an increasingly globalised setting in which people are becoming more and more disconnected.  

Given its multidisciplinary approach, the book is a unique contribution within its subject area, and will be of interest to practitioners in education and beyond.

Dr. LAM Bick-har received her B.Ed and M.Ed degrees from the University of East Anglia, UK, and her PhD from Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and a Research Fellow with the Asia Pacific Centre for Leadership and Change at the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). She teaches in undergraduate, master of teaching, and doctor of education programs in the areas of teacher development, education psychology, and teaching strategies. She was a founder member and program leader of the Master of Teaching program at the EdUHK.

Dr. Lam’s research interests include classroom teaching analysis, expert teachers, and teacher development. Her current research includes a project investigating university academics’ scholarly engagement, and a teaching innovation project on social learning. She has been awarded a number of research grants since 2006, which have resulted in publications in international peer-reviewed journals, books and book chapters. Dr. Lam created ‘Active Classroom’ as an IT platform for disseminating scholarship and research and teaching, which is accessible to users beyond the local community.

Dr. Lam has won a number of prestigious awards, including the Best Paper Award in the Redesign Pedagogy International Conference 2017, the President’s Award for Outstanding Performance in Teaching in 2012, and Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award in 2010. She was awarded a certificate by the University Grants Committee (UGC) as one of the six finalists of the Inaugural UGC Teaching Awards of Hong Kong in 2011. She also serves as an advisor to a number of schools and universities, including the Institute of Leadership and Education Advanced Development and the Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China, and was a visiting scholar at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University in 2017.