SSR

Whole Person Development--GE E portfolio

Hi, I'm an Year-4 English Major student, and now I'm going to show you some awsome parts of my univertisy life and some critical reflection in the end. Here is an over view mind-map for your reference.

Since word count is limited, I will focus on CSSA, Volunteer experience and my overseas study tour in Italy.

1st Part: School Activities through My University Life

One of the most important experience I had was being a member of CSSA--Chinese students and scholars' association. I worked there as a promotion officer, so as you can imagine, the main work for me was designing posters. We discussed about the words and images used in the posters through countless meetings and emails. Through this experience, I learned to not only do my own things but also collabarote well with my peers.

Here is a brief mind-map about my 2-year CSSA working experience.

 

The critical period for our 7th assosiation was the promotion period that was highly related with our fate in the future.

We has a short time to promote our 7th association after the 6th while over hundreds of students were required to support us on the election day. So, at first, we two promotion officer were nearly stressed out to figure out how to make a big influence on students including year-1, year 2, year 3, year 4 and other final-year students. Small concert was my first idea but then it was quickly denied because of the financial problems. Since school did not offer financial support for CSSA, we were restricted a lot while we had to use the least money to do the most things. I can say we had organized 10 activities sucessfully while we were officially the 7th association members in the end. If you want to know more about the process, see the following portfolio.

 

This is a song we sang together during the promotion period. We tried our best to not be afraid of losing face in front of people at the central plaza of our univertisy.

If I have a second chance, I may suggest that lyrics can be improved in a more positive way. Maybe the cause was that we were only year-2 students and we remembered the year-1 time while we did not adapt to the environment well enough. Given another chance, the new promotion song can be like we offer chances to new-comers instead of offer help to passive receivers.

Promotion gifts were booked online by us together. At first we encountered difficulties like the delivery in HongKong is not that convenient. So we figured out the problem together by delivering them to members living in ShenZhen and consequently returned back. 

Given another oppotunity, gifts may be combined with more Chinese cultural background, and we should introduce our ideals and plans to them instead of just giving them gifts and asked them to vote for us.

Given another chance, many things can be improved, which is one of the most vital meaning of making portfolio about life experience and doing reflection in time.

PIC of Nanya Island tour

I was once a PIC(person in charge) of an independent tour to Hong Kong Nanya Island. The four major things I was in charge of are shown in the following paragraph:

•Activity design

•Labor distribution

•Promotion(Poster)

•Charge the fees

•Collaboration with restaurants

 

Labor distribution was seemly the easiest one, however, some members at that time refused to spend much time at  the counter and they made excuses like having classes and assignments. Actually it was the most important process. As for me, I could not deal with all the students and fees so it was a must to ask for help. Luckily, in the association, we got more helpul people than passive ones. Even four students outside the association were volunteers to visit the island with me. Details of the acticity can be found in my poster.

 Reflection

 

During 1-year training period with my senior schoolmates and 1 year official working experience, as a secretary of publicity in the Chinese Student and Scholar Association,  I learned knowledge not from textbook but from practice, failures, success and self-reflections.

 

For the most impressive case, I was in charge of NanYaIsland one-day tour. The process was not so simple since it began with endless revisionof proposal and posters. One idea came out with one PSD file that was usually rejected by one or two members in our association. I revised it until everyone was satisfied. Sometimes the problem was the figures in that poster while in some case it was the words and mood issues. The final work was always totally different from the initial draft. But only through this careful check and revision could I learn that much from the seemly simple work.

 

Before I organized the actual activity, we had field trips for three times. The first time was just because we wanted to be more familiar with the location and the route. The second time was the hard one because I can hardly find a suitable restaurant that could both satisfy our requirements of qualities and also be suitable forour budget. For the last time, we just tried to make sure the restaurant we selected was well prepared and I made my assistants as prepared as me. 

 

On the day I went for NanYa island, everything just went smoothly.  Particularly, all the fees were collected without any delay. However, the food there was a little bit insufficient for nearly 60 of us. This is probably because of lack of daily life experience. We young university students should take on more responsibilities of housework to accumulate more life experience. In this way there is no doubt that we can be able to cause less trouble and help more people.

 

Besides this event, I was in charge of some other posters that were needed for other events held by our association(CSSA). I also took part in others' activities including greeting ceremony, singing competition among mainland students, masquerade, War Game, basketball match and so on. Through these events, I learned to communicate and cooperate with my fellows. Sometimes we had different opinions and even have prejudice toward some of our members. Nevertheless, most of us were strong enough to keep on moving and never gave up. Actually there were people who quit their jobs even before they actually took on their responsibilities. That happened in their first year as our assistances just like what we went through.

 

I am never regretful after I went through all the painful struggling time and those night I stayed up with mydear partners because correspondingly, I was awarded with precious friendship, richer practical experience as well as faith of never giving up. 

 

 

 

2nd Part: Outdoor Activities through My University Life

In my volunteer experience in HK Wetland Park while I was a year-1 student,  I was assigned to different parts in wetland park to introduce different species ofplants to tourists and hold activities in workshops for children. The volunteer work lasted for a long period through the whole semester, and I went there every week.

The mind-map may give you basic ideas of the work we did in HK Wetland Park. However, the hardship and the reflection is the more precious part.

At first, I thought I was going to finish the work easily by wandering around and talk about plants without trying hard. However, to my surprise, speaking professionally in Cantonese was not that easy, especially pronouncing the names of plants of special species. Besides, facing different tourists of different age groups and explaining the stories and knowledge behind creatures in the wetland park was a challenge as well. At first I can hardly follow the working schedule since there  were so many difficulties that I did not anticipate including the transportation one. The wetland park is near Tin Shui Wai station which is far away from school.

After weeks of training and practising, I became more familiar with the knowledge of the park, the creatures as well as guiding and presenting skills.  I wrote working diary every day to summarize my work and discussed it with my colleagues. Besides, I read more books about birds, plants and other creatures in order to behave better in the next tour guide. 

           

Refelction

I read more books about birds, plants and other creatures in order to be better in the next tour guide.– GILO: Oral and Written Communication Skills

After weeks of training and practice, I became more familiar with the knowledge of the park, the creatures as well as guiding and presenting skills.  --GILO: Problem solving skills, Professional

Through these hard working experience and the mistakes I made, finally I became more confident and professional while doing my job. During the time when I was holding a workshop for making handmade pin with a drawing bird on it, the children all enjoyed my presentation of how to make it. I felt sense of achievement to see their smiling faces and was satisfied with my improvement.

 

Overseas study tour and language immersion

These two images may give you basic understanding of my oversea learning and teaching activities.

 

It's not only Ice Cream Kingdom. --Italy Study tour

 

Study tour in Italy enabled us to eat a lot of ice cream. Our main study trips were in Sanremo town where there were great schools and several great handmade Italian ice cream shops.

However, Italy is certainly not just about ice cream.

Because there were a lot of on-foot tours, teacher Jenny let us bring backpack instead of dragging the box. So we carried huge bags like a real backpacker.

Sanremo  breakfast left me the most impressive thing-- not its delicious freshly baked bread but what Jenny told us: "People hate small town, where breakfast is often freshly made, and to eat breakfast you have to book in advance. If you do not book,  all of a sudden many people would become busy preparing food. Usually they do not need to supply so much. "

We all gratefully smiled and nodded our heads. Comparing to the big city of bread production, we saw a far more amazing restaurant supplying  fewer people and making all the things by their cute hands

Since it was a study tour, the first few days of our mission was to visit Sanremo schools.

Here was a local highschool concert. On the first day in Italy, we caught up with some individuals and high school students here who formed a band, giving their performance. Due to privacy conserns, I will not put their pictures here. 

In fact the the piano and violin solo levels were very not all good, but what's more important is that the music here was not only for more talented people. Later I learned that the whole class of people here were all members of the band, having chances to play instruments. Teachers and principals gave almost everyone a chance. Some people who could not even play a simple tune were able to stand on a stage, getting exercises and playing voilins. Not like many Chinese children who love music but become shy or even lose confidence, they had equal and also more common chances.  It is also worthy of reflection on education issues.

Symphony Ensemble letmy thoughts through to junior high school m Like what Jenny said, these kids were free to play music in school, while Chinese children usually have their own play music outside the school.

There were surprisingly high-tech teaching methods, combining with handwriting program and traditional textbookteaching. The efficiency was higher than our previous study method--watching teachers' notes on screen. Students were able to move the shape on touch screens in class. When we saw him dragging a virtual triangle on the screen, we were all surprised. In addition, they did presentations commonly, and the teacher basically played a guiding role.

There were various activities room including drama clothes and musical instruments.

In local kindergartens, we listened to the principals' speeches  and found that abstract education was really stared from kindergarten. The library included its own micro-publishing children's books, which was said to be dictated and transcribed by adults. The teacher tried to protect the child's personality. No matter if the personality was seemly good or bad, they tried to teach them with mutual love. Kindergarten teachers believed that the children have a lot of potential to be developed before their primary school, for example, they may not do the math problem on paper, but already had several concepts. Through a variety of practices that were less theoretical, chidren pre-developed their ability befor their primary education. With a smooth transition they could adapt to the new educational model better. Watching the video presentation, we had a group of lovely children playing in the garden--Some children were very vigorous, and some children were born like alittle angel. After we said goobye to the kids, several little sisters almost cried. We watched a group of waving goodbye with Italian "Chao" . Their sadness are all written on faces.

 

Reflection

 

GILO: Global perspectives

GILO: Oral and Written Communication Skills

Whole person-development: Social

Through the oversea programs, I knew their culture better and they broadened my global perspectives.

In the immersion program, we used English everywhere and every day so we learned more about the grammar form and common use of language.

To review what we have talked about untill now...

Whole-person development of aspects including spiritual, intellectual, professionalas well as social aspects were positively strengthened through multipleactivities  including school activities and out door activities.

I hope the skills learned in those experiences will help me become a better whole person in the future.