Professor Ko Po-yuk is Professor (Practice) at the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and Director of the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). She worked as a secondary school teacher and a teaching consultant at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) before joining the then Hong Kong Institute of Education in 2002.

Professor Ko graduated from HKU, where she received her MPhil and PhD degrees, as well as a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (with distinction). Her research interests include Lesson and Learning Studies, teacher professional development, and language education. Professor Ko leads the development of Learning Study, which was developed around 2000 in Hong Kong. She founded the Centre for Learning Study in 2010 and served as the Director. She has made Learning Study a niche research area at EdUHK, and has contributed to shaping theory and practice in classroom teaching in Hong Kong, resulting in a series of books for knowledge transfer and a number of journal articles for enriching teaching scholarship.

Professor Ko has a sound track record in leading sizable externally funded research projects, which have had a considerable impact on the education community through applied research on effective pedagogies and teacher professional development. She served as the principal investigator of the “Secondary Teaching Evaluation and Mentoring (STEM) Project” (2003-6) and obtained an “Outstanding Project Award” in 2008 granted by Quality Education Fund. Recently, she has continued her leadership work in her Learning Study specialty, and engaged her team members in supporting and initiating new cutting-edge classroom practices in schools, including self-directed learning, e-learning and STEM education.

There is strong synergy between Professor Ko’s service and research, as the knowledge and data generated from her projects has contributed to knowledge transfer to the community at large and resulted in scholarly output. She has published a number of books, book chapters in high-profile standard handbooks, and articles in international journals. Professor Ko has established a network of scholars conducting research in classroom teaching in both the mainstream and special needs sectors with a number of overseas universities and international agencies in Brunei, the mainland China, Japan, Macau, Singapore, Sweden and Taiwan. She is one of the Founding Members of World Association for Lesson Studies, a Consultant of the Academy of Singapore Teachers and the Singapore Ministry of Education, and an advisor for a Lesson Study project in Japan.