Qingcao Youth Service Center: Trial Teaching in Qingcao Summer Camp

Qingcao Youth Service Center was initiated by the high school graduates, who are dedicated to create learning opportunities via practice and social environment led by youth peers, cultivating youth with love, ideas and action. It is located in Guangzhou city.

To improve the teacher's effectiveness in the classroom, we organized voluntary teachers to prepare sample classes at Guangya Middle School on July 7th. Trial teaching is an important way to train volunteers. 

We believe this is a good opportunity to test volunteer teachers. Each teaching group did a lot of preparation. Some of the teachers did not perform very well due to a lack of experience, but we could see they all wanted to improve.  Compared with the first lesson they prepared, they improved a lot in terms of time and content. Their effectiveness became more obvious and their goals became clearer. The place we practiced was in a classroom.  Each team sat down in a circle. The teachers had different roles: lecturer or audience, and shared their opinions with the presenters.  There were members of Qingcao, curriculum advisers, researchers, etc at the site. They objectively assessed the lessons prepared by the volunteers. 

The first group presented “trust”. The introductory remarks made by the teacher immediately attracted the audience. The following game was one of the high points of the day. One group formed a line as “mines” and each member positioned their body differently in order to be an obstacle to the challenger. The challenger had to avoid the “mines” according to his partner’s instructions.  Once the challenger touched the mine, the game was over. The game put everyone in a good mood and they enjoyed it very much. 

According to the introduction by the lecturer, the game was designed to experience the feeling of trust and being trusted.  When the presentation ended, the audience actively gave their opinions and questions to the lecturer who took notes and responded to the questions. Then the curriculum adviser summed up the class and presented his suggestions.  

The next presenter was the Lab Group, who presented physical phenomena such as static electricity, rainbows, etc., aiming to inspire the interest of the students. Such tests tend to be influenced by the weather, so the Lab Group prepared emergency plans for several of their tests. They demonstrated a wonderful classroom environment for the students. 

Original Article Written by Xiang Wang, translated by Maggie Li, edited by Yanyan Zhang