Against the background of the in-depth advancement of educational poverty alleviation and the full implementation of the ideological and political education strategy, volunteer teaching in central and western China has realized the transformation of core goals, breaking through the single orientation of traditional volunteer teaching focusing on knowledge supply and skill imparting, and forming a new pattern of volunteer teaching and education with ideological and political education as the core. Scholars such as Wang Jiayi emphasized in Education and Targeted Poverty Alleviation and Eradication that “the core essence of educational poverty alleviation is to simultaneously ‘cure ignorance’ and ‘support intelligence’, and block the intergenerational transmission of poverty by improving the comprehensive quality of the poor population” ([7]), providing important theoretical support for the transformation of volunteer teaching to value guidance.

Previously, rural volunteer teaching in central and western China mostly focused on making up for the shortcomings in mathematics, Chinese and other subjects, emphasizing resource supply at the level of “intellectual support”, and failed to fully take into account the value shaping needs of rural students. This deviated from the core essence of “blocking the intergenerational transmission of poverty” ([2]) in educational poverty alleviation and did not meet the fundamental requirement of “upholding morality and fostering people” in educational counterpart support during the 14^th Five-Year Plan period. Nowadays, various volunteer teaching projects have generally prioritized the fundamental task of “upholding morality and fostering people” ([8]) and the core requirement of “value guidance”, integrating ideological and political education into the whole process and all links of volunteer teaching activities, and promoting volunteer teaching to deepen from the knowledge transmission of “giving people fish” to the two-way “aspiration support” and “soul casting” of “teaching people to fish”. As shown in the practice of the “Metasequoia Volunteer Teaching Group” ([4]) of Nanjing Forestry University, volunteer teachers can help students establish correct cognition through interactive experience by sharing vivid cases such as front-line observations of rural revitalization and the actual effects of targeted poverty alleviation, freeing ideological and political education from abstract preaching. Volunteer teaching teams pay more attention to helping students establish beliefs and enhance their sense of identity and belonging to the country and nation through ideal and belief education, patriotism cultivation, and moral cultivation guidance.

This pattern transformation has reconstructed the volunteer teaching and education system, enabling volunteer teaching to not only play the function of balanced allocation of educational resources but also undertake the important mission of ideological and political education. From the perspective of practical effects, this model enables educational poverty alleviation to go beyond the material and knowledge levels and penetrate into the ideological and spiritual level, consolidating the foundation of education through the coordinated efforts of classroom education, cultural infiltration and practical cultivation. At the same time, this transformation has made volunteer teaching a bridge connecting university ideological and political education with rural practice, laying a solid foundation for cultivating new-era youth in rural areas of central and western China, and allowing volunteer teachers to temper their character and strengthen their beliefs in practice, realizing the two-way education value and demonstrating the unique educational value and profound social significance of volunteer teaching in the new era.

In the practical process of deep integration of educational poverty alleviation and ideological and political education, “Stories of China”, with its concrete, life-oriented and localized advantages, has become a key link connecting ideological and political theories with volunteer teaching classrooms, effectively solving the problem of disconnection between abstract ideological and political education and rural teaching practice. “Stories of China” transforms grand narratives such as the great achievements of poverty alleviation, vivid practices of rural revitalization, the struggle course of revolutionary ancestors, and deeds of ethnic unity and progress into teaching materials close to the life experience and cognitive level of rural students in central and western China, promoting ideological and political elements from “theoretical indoctrination” to “story infiltration”.

In the practice of volunteer teaching in central and western China, “Stories of China” has been widely embedded in various courses such as Chinese, history, morality and rule of law, and aesthetic education, realizing the organic integration of ideological and political education and subject teaching. Based on the reality of rural areas in central and western China, volunteer teaching teams select localized materials such as local poverty alleviation stories, red revolutionary stories and ethnic integration stories, and carry out teaching in easy-to-understand language and vivid cases, avoiding the empty and formalistic ideological and political education. This integration method not only enriches the connotation of volunteer teaching courses, but also enables students to cultivate patriotism and strengthen ideals and beliefs while listening to stories, in line with the core goal of educational poverty alleviation to “block the intergenerational transmission of poverty and cultivate self-reliant talents” ([7]). Compared with traditional theoretical preaching, ideological and political volunteer teaching with “Stories of China” as the carrier is more infectious and attractive, enabling rural students to understand the era significance of national development and national rejuvenation through emotional resonance, and truly realizing “silent” value guidance.

At the same time, the wide application of “Stories of China” has promoted the transformation of the volunteer teaching model from single knowledge imparting to all-round education, providing a replicable and promotable practical path for the implementation of the “Ideological and Political Education + Volunteer Teaching” model. By telling and making good use of “Stories of China”, volunteer teaching not only implements the fundamental task of “upholding morality and fostering people”, but also responds to the practical needs of educational poverty alleviation for spiritual empowerment and endogenous motivation cultivation, forming a virtuous circle of “spreading ideas through stories, promoting growth through ideas, and eradicating poverty through growth”. Practice has proved that “Stories of China” is not only an effective carrier for integrating ideological and political elements into volunteer teaching, but also an important starting point for educational poverty alleviation to achieve the goal of “soul casting and talent cultivation”, laying a solid ideological foundation for rural students in central and western China to grow into new people responsible for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

In the process of promoting the practice of “Ideological and Political Education + Volunteer Teaching” in central and western China, various regions have carried out teaching experiments on the implementation of ideological and political elements in classrooms, and gradually formed a preliminary adaptation verification system for ideological and political content and volunteer teaching methods, promoting volunteer teaching from empirical operation to scientific design. Current practice shows that simply embedding ideological and political materials into classrooms cannot achieve the educational effect, and only by combining with appropriate teaching methods can the unity of value guidance and knowledge imparting be realized.

From the perspective of practical exploration, story-based and case-based ideological and political content show the highest adaptability with interactive teaching methods such as situational teaching, group discussion and practical experience. Presenting poverty alleviation stories, rural revitalization cases, red historical deeds and other contents through situational reproduction, on-site sharing and thematic discussion can effectively reduce the difficulty of theoretical understanding and improve students’ participation and sense of identity. This combination not only avoids the boredom caused by one-way preaching, but also makes ideological and political education deeply rooted in the hearts of the people through immersive experience, which is highly consistent with the cognitive characteristics and acceptance habits of rural students in central and western China. At the same time, differentiated exploration for different school stages and academic conditions has further verified the adaptation rules. For lower and middle grades of primary school, story-based, nursery rhyme-based and activity-based ideological and political content are highly compatible with game teaching, situational simulation, model demonstration and other methods, helping to complete value enlightenment in a relaxed atmosphere; for upper grades of primary school and junior high school students, case-based, problem-based and thematic ideological and political content are more suitable for combination with debate seminars, project-based learning, social observation and other methods, helping to guide students to think independently and form correct value judgments. This practical conclusion of hierarchical adaptation has effectively improved the pertinence and effectiveness of ideological and political volunteer teaching.

Through classroom observation, academic interviews, teaching effect evaluation and other methods, volunteer teaching practice in central and western China has formed a relatively consistent empirical conclusion: the scientific adaptation of ideological and political content and volunteer teaching methods is the core link to achieve the “silent” educational effect. The higher the adaptation degree, the more obvious the students’ acceptance, value identity and behavior transformation effect. This verification result not only provides a practical basis for optimizing volunteer teaching curriculum design and developing localized teaching resource packages, but also points out the direction for universities to carry out pre-job training for volunteer teaching groups and improve volunteers’ ideological and political teaching ability, promoting the “Ideological and Political Education + Volunteer Teaching” model from scattered attempts to systematic and standardized operation.

With organizational advantages, ideological and political literacy and practical vitality, university student volunteer forces have become the key subject supporting the implementation, expansion and deepening of the model. As an important position for upholding morality and fostering people, universities have a systematic ideological and political education system, a standardized volunteer management mechanism and a normalized talent transportation channel, which can continuously deliver volunteer teaching teams with ideals and beliefs, dedication spirit and teaching ability to rural schools in central and western China, becoming a core link connecting urban and rural educational resources and promoting the extension of ideological and political education to the grassroots.

Ideological and political education provides value guidance for college students’ short-term volunteer teaching, which is mainly reflected in three aspects: teaching philosophy, content and methods ([1]). University volunteers have the dual identities of knowledge transmitters and value guides in volunteer teaching practice, and can carry out ideological and political integration in a discourse and teaching style closer to teenagers. As relevant research clearly points out: “the college student volunteer teaching group is a group with more passion, vitality and dedication spirit. They face students with a full mental state, vividly display ideological and political knowledge in the classroom, and internalize and externalize ideological and political education.” ([6]) This youthful, life-oriented and interactive teaching method is more easily accepted by rural students, effectively breaking the sense of distance of traditional ideological and political education, and enabling ideal and belief education, patriotism education and traditional culture education to truly take root in the classroom.

From the perspective of operation mechanism, relying on platforms such as “university-local cooperation”, “fixed-point assistance”, “postgraduate volunteer teaching group” and “summer social practice”, universities have formed a complete closed loop of recruitment and selection, pre-job training, on-the-job guidance, assessment and incentive, and long-term relay, providing stable and sustainable organizational guarantee for the “Ideological and Political Education + Volunteer Teaching” model. Universities improve volunteers’ ability of ideological and political transformation, curriculum design and classroom control through special training, ensure standardized volunteer teaching content, stable teaching rhythm and clear educational goals through project management, and ensure continuous volunteer teaching and uninterrupted ideological and political education through long-term relay services. Practice has shown that university volunteer forces are not only the implementers of volunteer teaching activities, but also the promoters of ideological and political education extending to the grassroots, and an important carrier for educational poverty alleviation to transform from “blood transfusion” assistance to “hematopoietic” education.

The in-depth integration of ideological and political elements into volunteer teaching courses is the core premise for the “Ideological and Political Education + Volunteer Teaching” model to exert its educational function. At present, in the practice of volunteer teaching in central and western China, the embedding of ideological and political content is still mainly superficial superposition, scattered insertion and formal coverage, and a systematic, localized and targeted in-depth integration pattern has not yet been formed. Insufficient content adaptability has become the primary bottleneck restricting the educational effect.

First, the lack of systematic construction of the “Stories of China” case library. In the process of promoting the practice of “Ideological and Political Education + Volunteer Teaching”, the supply of ideological and political materials with “Stories of China” as the core carrier generally lacks systematic planning and curriculum construction, and most volunteer teaching projects have not yet formed a complete standardized case library. Existing cases mostly come from online materials, general textbooks and short video content, and have not been systematically integrated around core themes such as poverty alleviation practice and rural revitalization achievements. At the same time, the construction of case libraries generally lacks school stage division, subject adaptation and academic connection, and a progressive and hierarchical content system has not been formed, resulting in the fragmentation of ideological and political materials in classroom application. Due to the lack of a unified resource integration mechanism, “Stories of China” cannot be truly transformed into sustainable teaching resources, difficult to support normalized value guidance, and to a certain extent weakens the consistency and persuasiveness of ideological and political education.

Second, the teaching content fails to combine regional red resources. Central and western China is rich in red cultural resources, revolutionary historical heritage, ethnic cultural traditions and vivid practices of poverty alleviation, with natural advantages of ideological and political education. However, in the actual volunteer teaching process, the excavation, transformation and application of regional characteristic resources are obviously insufficient. Most volunteer teaching teams rely on national general ideological and political materials for teaching, ignoring the educational value of localized resources, and fail to transform local red resources, historical culture and development achievements into teaching content close to students’ lives, regional reality and emotional identity. This “externalized” and “generalized” content supply mode disconnects ideological and political classrooms from students’ life experience, reduces the affinity of ideological and political education, and also causes the idle and waste of high-quality local educational resources.

Third, the insufficient correlation between content and the core goals of ideological and political education. Some volunteer teaching projects have deviations in understanding the connotation and goal positioning of “Ideological and Political Education + Volunteer Teaching”, regarding ideological and political elements as an additional link or formal ornament, and failing to carry out holistic and systematic design around the fundamental task of upholding morality and fostering people. Teaching content focuses on subject knowledge remediation, interest courses and classroom order maintenance, with incoherent educational logic, and obvious deviations from the core goals of educational poverty alleviation to stimulate endogenous motivation, shape ideals and beliefs, cultivate sound personality and block the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Although some classrooms set up ideological and political links, they lack value main lines, emotional progression and behavior guidance, making it difficult to realize the unity of ideological guidance, spiritual cultivation and value shaping, resulting in superficial ideological and political integration and failure to truly exert the educational function of aspiration support and soul casting.

College student volunteers are the core implementation subjects of the “Ideological and Political Education + Volunteer Teaching” model in central and western China, and their ideological and political teaching ability directly determines the educational effect. However, restricted by factors such as training system, practical experience and professional background, the current volunteer teaching subjects have obvious shortcomings in curriculum design ability, teaching implementation ability and material transformation ability, which cannot adapt to the practical needs of rural ideological and political education.

First, it is difficult for volunteer teaching groups to design courses combined with local characteristics. Most volunteer teachers come from universities outside the province, study on campus for a long time, and lack in-depth understanding and systematic grasp of the regional culture, ethnic characteristics, educational ecology and academic conditions of central and western China. In the process of curriculum design, volunteers often directly use university courseware or general lesson plans, failing to carry out localized transformation and characteristic development based on local cultural traditions, students’ life experience and school-running reality. Due to the lack of accurate grasp of local cultural resources, students’ cognitive characteristics and educational development needs, the curriculum content is incompatible with local teaching reality, students’ acceptance habits and value cultivation needs, resulting in superficial and difficult implementation of ideological and political integration, reducing the pertinence, applicability and educational effect of the curriculum.

Second, the volunteer teaching group lacks systematic special training in ideological and political teaching. The pre-job training and on-the-job guidance of volunteer teaching groups by universities mostly focus on classroom management, and systematic special training for ideological and political teaching objectives, value guidance strategies, curriculum ideological and political design, interactive teaching methods and other aspects is generally lacking. Volunteers generally lack professional cognition of implicit education methods, and are prone to problems such as rigid theory, empty expression, single method and strong preaching color in teaching practice. Due to the lack of professional teaching training, volunteer teachers cannot master the “silent” skills of ideological and political integration, cannot guarantee the scientificity, standardization and effectiveness of ideological and political teaching, and to a certain extent restrict the high-quality promotion of the “Ideological and Political Education + Volunteer Teaching” model.

Third, the volunteer teaching group lacks the ability to transform ideological and political theories into teaching materials. Although college volunteers have a systematic theoretical foundation of ideological and political education, they generally lack the ability to transform grand theories, policy discourses and value concepts into active teaching materials. In classroom implementation, they mostly focus on concept explanation, lacking concrete expression methods such as case analysis, emotional experience, practical exploration and interactive discussion, making it difficult to transform abstract theories into teaching content understandable to students. The problems of disconnection between theory and practice, grand narrative and micro life, value concept and teaching situation are prominent, resulting in insufficient attractiveness and effectiveness of ideological and political education, and difficulty in truly realizing the educational goal of deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

As the core intermediary between ideological and political content and learners’ cognition, the adaptability of teaching methods directly determines the educational efficiency of ideological and political volunteer teaching. At present, the classroom implementation link of ideological and political volunteer teaching in central and western China is still constrained by the traditional teaching model, with a solidified and insufficiently innovative method system, and significant adaptation deviations from the cognitive development laws and growth needs of rural students, restricting the full release of the educational value of ideological and political education.

First, one-way indoctrination teaching is the main method. At present, ideological and political volunteer teaching classrooms in central and western China generally still follow the traditional teaching mode of “teacher-led, student-passive acceptance”, and one-way indoctrination teaching is still the mainstream implementation method. In the process of volunteer teaching, volunteers mostly take textbooks as the core, focusing on the one-way transmission of ideological and political theoretical knowledge, and the application of new teaching methods such as experiential, inquiry and situational teaching is relatively scarce. From the perspective of practice, this teaching mode lacks teaching links such as discussion and sharing, role-playing, on-site experience and thematic research, students are in a passive listening state, their subjectivity is difficult to be effectively exerted, resulting in continuously low classroom activity and student participation. Long-term single indoctrination teaching is easy to make students feel learning burnout, psychological alienation and even resistance, making it difficult to achieve emotional resonance of ideological and political content, let alone promote the transformation of ideological and political concepts into behavioral habits.

Second, the lack of hierarchical ideological and political teaching design divided by school stages. Carrying out hierarchical teaching according to learners’ cognitive development laws is an important prerequisite for improving the pertinence and effectiveness of ideological and political education. However, in the current practice of ideological and political volunteer teaching in central and western China, most volunteer teaching teams fail to fully take into account the growth needs of students in different school stages, and generally adopt a “one-size-fits-all” teaching mode. Lower-grade primary school students are mainly based on concrete thinking, have weak ability to understand abstract ideological and political theories, and urgently need vivid and intuitive teaching content guidance; upper-grade primary school and junior high school students have certain independent thinking ability, and need to be guided to form correct value judgments through inquiry learning and other methods. Due to the failure to build a hierarchical teaching system according to cognitive level, lower-grade students are difficult to understand due to too deep and abstract teaching content, and upper-grade students lose interest in learning due to too shallow and lack of depth in teaching content, the pertinence of ideological and political education is greatly reduced, and the effectiveness of value guidance is seriously restricted.

Third, “Cloud Ideological and Political Education” teaching is restricted by network conditions. With the rapid development of digital education, “Cloud Ideological and Political Education”, as an important supplement to traditional ideological and political teaching, has become an important carrier to broaden the path of ideological and political education. However, combined with the reality of rural areas in central and western China, the promotion and application of “Cloud Ideological and Political Education” teaching are still limited by local network infrastructure and hardware conditions, making it difficult to carry out normalized and standardized. Some rural schools have practical problems such as unstable network signals, insufficient number of intelligent teaching terminals, aging and disrepair of multimedia equipment, and lack of professional technical maintenance personnel, resulting in the difficulty of implementing digital teaching forms such as online ideological and political courses, cloud red research, remote thematic education and synchronous sharing of high-quality ideological and political resources. High-quality “Cloud Ideological and Political Education” resources cannot effectively reach rural students, restricting the innovation of ideological and political education forms, further widening the gap between urban and rural ideological and political education resources, and hindering the transformation and upgrading of the “Ideological and Political Education + Volunteer Teaching” model to digital, precise and intelligent direction.

The in-depth integration of ideological and political elements into volunteer teaching content is the core premise for the “Ideological and Political Education + Volunteer Teaching” model to exert its educational efficiency. At present, ideological and political volunteer teaching in central and western China generally has the problems of fragmented and homogeneous content. To solve this dilemma, it is necessary to realize the organic unity of ideological and political education, knowledge imparting and ability cultivation based on the orientation of localization, systematization and targeting. The essence of ideological and political education is to reason, and reasoning is the most basic teaching method of ideological and political courses, and content adaptation is the basis for “explaining and activating the truth”.

First, systematically promote the construction of the “Stories of China” case library. Taking “Stories of China” as the core carrier, constructing a systematic case library adapted to the needs of rural volunteer teaching in central and western China is an important material support for the implementation of ideological and political education. The construction of the case library needs to follow the core links of “selecting high-quality case sources, clarifying case principles, matching case points, and making good use of case methods”, sorting out high-quality materials around themes closely related to educational poverty alleviation and rural development. Combined with the cognitive laws of rural students in central and western China, design hierarchical cases by school stage and subject: lower grades of primary school focus on story-based and concrete cases, upper grades of primary school and junior high school focus on case analysis and value extraction. Establish a dynamic update mechanism, regularly organize volunteer teaching teams, university teachers and rural teachers to polish and optimize cases to ensure timeliness. For reference, the practical experience of Yizhou Song Township Research Town in Guangxi can be used. The town relies on local villagers’ autonomy resources and local culture to build a characteristic ideological and political research case library, transforming grassroots democratic practice and rural development stories into teaching cases, making abstract ideological and political theories tangible through real-scene experience and simulated practice, effectively improving the effectiveness of ideological and political education.

Second, promote the integration of teaching content and regional red resources. Excavating the educational value of local red resources in central and western China is the key to breaking the general content supply mode and realizing the localization of ideological and political teaching. Central and western China is rich in red resources, and integrating them into volunteer teaching courses can enhance the affinity and persuasiveness of ideological and political education. Volunteer teaching teams need to carry out regional resource research in advance, sort out local red sites, revolutionary deeds and other local resources, and transform them into teaching content close to students’ lives. For example, during volunteer teaching in Qiandongnan, Guizhou, volunteer teaching teams can deeply explore local red deeds such as “the Red Army passing through Qiandongnan”, organize students to walk into Red Army slogan sites for on-site teaching, invite local old Party members to tell revolutionary stories, allowing students to perceive revolutionary spirit and cultivate patriotism from the red resources around them. This localized integration can not only improve the effectiveness of ideological and political education, but also promote the coordinated development of regional cultural inheritance and ideological and political education, which is an effective path to solve the homogenization of ideological and political volunteer teaching content.

Third, strengthen the correlation between teaching content and the core goals of ideological and political education. Clarify the connotation and positioning of “Ideological and Political Education + Volunteer Teaching”, abandon the wrong cognition of regarding ideological and political elements as an “additional link”, and strengthen the connection between content and educational goals around the fundamental task of upholding morality and fostering people. The core value of ideological and political volunteer teaching is to realize the “same frequency resonance” of “knowledge imparting” and “value guidance”, avoid formalization of ideological and political integration, run ideological and political goals such as ideal and belief cultivation and patriotism shaping through the whole process of volunteer teaching curriculum design, and excavate ideological and political elements combined with subject characteristics: integrate red poems and essays into Chinese teaching, strengthen revolutionary traditional education in history teaching, and cultivate students’ sense of responsibility in practical courses. Establish a teaching content review mechanism to ensure that the content is developed around the core requirements of “blocking the intergenerational transmission of poverty and cultivating all-round developed talents”, and promote the in-depth integration of ideological and political elements and subject content through the collaborative review of university ideological and political teachers and rural teachers, so as to effectively exert the value guidance role of ideological and political education.

The ideological and political teaching ability of volunteer teaching subjects directly determines the educational effect. At present, volunteer teaching teams in central and western China generally have the problem of insufficient ideological and political teaching ability. It is necessary to build a systematic cultivation, guidance and improvement mechanism to promote the transformation of volunteer teachers from “knowledge transmitters” to “ideological and political guides”. The Ministry of Education clearly proposed to strengthen the construction of primary and secondary school ideological and political teachers and improve their full-time and professional level. This requirement is also applicable to ideological and political volunteer teaching teams in central and western China, and is the key support for promoting the high-quality development of ideological and political volunteer teaching.

First, improve the regional curriculum design ability of college student volunteer teaching groups. Regional curriculum design ability is the key to solving curriculum homogenization and detachment from rural reality. Establish a pre-volunteer teaching research mechanism, organize volunteer teaching teams to deeply understand the regional culture, academic conditions and school conditions of the service place, providing a realistic basis for curriculum design, which is the basic premise for realizing the localization of ideological and political volunteer teaching. Build a university-local docking platform, invite rural teachers and local cultural scholars to participate in curriculum design guidance, promote the localized transformation of general lesson plans, and ensure that the curriculum content fits the life reality of rural students. For example, during volunteer teaching in Dingxi, Gansu, volunteer teaching teams can conduct pre-research, deeply understand the development of local potato industry and folk culture, develop regional characteristic ideological and political courses, combine local poverty alleviation practice and folk culture with ideological and political education, and improve the applicability of the curriculum.

Second, build a systematic special training system for ideological and political teaching for volunteer teaching groups. Systematic training is the core measure to improve the professional literacy of volunteer teaching groups in ideological and political teaching. Universities should include ideological and political teaching training in the pre-job and on-the-job guidance of volunteer teaching groups, abandon the single theoretical explanation mode, adopt diversified training methods such as case teaching, simulated teaching and on-site observation to improve the effectiveness of training. For example, volunteer teachers can be organized to observe excellent rural ideological and political courses, ideological and political education experts can be invited to explain the skills of integrating ideological and political elements, and the classroom teaching ability of volunteer teachers can be improved through practical training. Establish a long-term training mechanism, regularly organize on-the-job learning and teaching reflection, invite experts and excellent rural teachers to carry out online and offline guidance, timely solve teaching problems, continuously improve the teaching standardization and professionalism of volunteer teaching groups, and promote the continuous improvement of the professional ability of volunteer teaching teams.

Third, establish a guidance mechanism for volunteer teaching groups to transform ideological and political theories into teaching materials. Form a guidance team composed of university ideological and political teachers, subject teachers and excellent rural teachers to provide one-on-one guidance, helping volunteers transform abstract ideological and political theories into concrete teaching materials, which is the key link to promote ideological and political theories to “enter classrooms and minds”. Build a material transformation exchange platform, organize volunteers to share transformation experience and cases, improve transformation ability through case polishing and teaching trial lectures, ensure that ideological and political theories can fit the cognitive characteristics of rural students and be transformed into perceptible and participatory teaching content. For example, volunteers can be guided to transform the spirit of rural revitalization into a situational simulation activity of “I am a rural planner”, and the concept of ethnic unity into a story sharing session, allowing students to understand the connotation of ideological and political theories in practical participation, effectively solving the problem of disconnection between theory and practice.

The optimization of teaching methods is the key to improving the effectiveness of ideological and political volunteer teaching. Break the traditional one-way indoctrination mode, innovate teaching methods based on the cognitive laws of rural students, and promote the transformation of ideological and political education to multi-interaction, which is highly consistent with the requirements in the Opinions on Further Strengthening the Construction of Ideological and Political Courses in Primary and Secondary Schools in the New Era that “make full use of various teaching methods such as case-based, thematic and experiential teaching, pay attention to using vivid examples around students that can be seen and felt, and fully mobilize students’ enthusiasm and initiative to participate in ideological and political courses” ([5]). Case teaching in ideological and political courses should adhere to the guiding principle, improve the educational effect through diversified teaching methods, and make ideological and political courses truly courses for students to understand with their hearts.

First, transform one-way indoctrination teaching mode into interactive teaching. Abandon the one-way indoctrination mode of “teacher-led, student-passive acceptance” and build an interactive classroom ecology of “teacher-guided, student-oriented”. Combined with the characteristics of rural students, adopt participatory teaching methods such as situational teaching, role-playing and on-site research to enhance students’ sense of participation and experience, which is an important path to improve the attractiveness of ideological and political classrooms. The practice of Yizhou Song Township Research Town in Guangxi provides a good reference for interactive teaching. The town organizes students to incarnate as “little politicians” in the simulated council hall, negotiate and vote on rural development issues, allowing students to improve democratic literacy and cultivate public spirit in practice, realizing the deep integration of ideological and political education and practical experience. During volunteer teaching in Longnan, Gansu, volunteer teaching teams can organize students to carry out role-playing activities of “revolutionary martyrs telling stories”, restore the revolutionary scenes of the Red Army in Longnan, allowing students to feel the revolutionary spirit in experience.

Second, design hierarchical ideological and political teaching content by school stages. Follow the laws of students’ cognitive development, break the “one-size-fits-all” teaching mode, build a hierarchical ideological and political teaching system by school stages, and improve educational pertinence. Lower-grade primary school students are mainly based on concrete thinking, adopt story-based and game-based teaching methods, focusing on behavior habits and love and responsibility cultivation; upper grades of primary school gradually introduce case analysis, focusing on patriotism and collective consciousness cultivation; junior high school adopts thematic and debate-based teaching to guide students to deeply understand ideological and political theories. For example, during volunteer teaching in Liangshan, Sichuan, volunteer teaching teams can design hierarchical ideological and political content by school stages: carry out “good deeds small stories” sharing activities for lower grades of primary school, analyze Liangshan poverty alleviation cases for upper grades of primary school, and hold debates on “ethnic unity” for junior high school, fitting the cognitive characteristics of students in different school stages and realizing teaching according to their aptitude.

Third, optimize the “Cloud Ideological and Political Education” teaching network. Based on the development trend of digital education, solve the shortcomings of rural network infrastructure in central and western China, optimize the “Cloud Ideological and Political Education” teaching network, broaden the path of ideological and political education, which is an important measure to implement the requirements of the Ministry of Education to “make good use of digital resource platforms, extensively gather various high-quality digital teaching resources of ideological and political courses, and promote the co-construction and sharing of high-quality resources”. At present, the promotion of “Cloud Ideological and Political Education” in rural areas of central and western China is limited by network and equipment. It is necessary to promote the collaborative efforts of the government, universities and social forces, increase investment in infrastructure, improve network conditions in rural schools, equip intelligent teaching terminals and technical maintenance personnel, and provide hardware support for the implementation of “Cloud Ideological and Political Education” teaching. Build a “Cloud Ideological and Political Education” resource sharing platform, integrate high-quality ideological and political courses and red research resources of universities, help weak rural schools to offer and run ideological and political courses well, so that remote rural students can also access high-quality ideological and political resources and narrow the gap between urban and rural ideological and political resources, “Improve the incentive mechanism for volunteer teaching and provide new impetus for volunteer teaching activities” ([3]).

Based on the local reality of Longzhou, the Zhejiang Normal University Volunteer Teaching Group has promoted the in-depth integration of ideological and political elements and volunteer teaching content, solved the previous dilemma of homogenized and unrealistic ideological and political teaching content, realized the precise connection between ideological and political education and regional characteristics and educational goals, and significantly improved adaptability. The survey shows that students’ satisfaction with ideological and political courses has increased from 62.3% before volunteer teaching to 88.7%.

First, the construction and application of the regional characteristic case library of “Stories of China”. The Zhejiang Normal University Volunteer Teaching Group, together with the Longzhou County Education Bureau and local rural schools, spent 3 months building a “Stories of China + Longzhou Characteristics” ideological and political case library, collecting a total of 42 cases, including 15 Longzhou poverty alleviation cases, 12 rural revitalization practice cases, 10 red revolutionary cases and 5 ethnic unity cases, designed hierarchically by lower grades of primary school, upper grades of primary school and junior high school to adapt to the cognitive laws of students in different school stages. Since the case library was put into use, it has been fully applied in 5 surveyed schools in Longzhou County, with a total of 136 hours of case teaching carried out. The excellent rate of students’ ideological and political cognitive tests has increased from 38.5% before volunteer teaching to 69.2%, effectively promoting the in-depth integration of “Stories of China” and Longzhou’s local practice, making ideological and political materials more targeted and infectious.

Second, the integration of Longzhou red resources into ideological and political curriculum development. Relying on the rich red resources in Longzhou, the Zhejiang Normal University Volunteer Teaching Group has deeply explored the local red resources such as the Longzhou Uprising and the revolutionary history of the 8^th Red Army, integrated them into the development of ideological and political courses, and developed a total of 8 characteristic ideological and political courses such as Revolutionary Spirit in the Longzhou Uprising and Stories of the 8^th Red Army Entering Campus, and compiled 36 sets of supporting teaching courseware. The volunteer teaching group organized students to walk into red education bases such as the Longzhou Uprising Memorial Hall and the former site of the 8^th Red Army Headquarters for on-site teaching, covering more than 2200 students, and invited local old Party members and veterans to enter the campus to tell red stories 16 times. The survey shows that 91.3% of students said that “through red courses, they know more about Longzhou’s revolutionary history and love their hometown more”, and the effect of coordinated development of red cultural inheritance and ideological and political education is remarkable.

Third, connect ideological and political teaching content with educational goals combined with Longzhou’s reality. Combined with the reality of Longzhou County as a border and ethnic minority area, the Zhejiang Normal University Volunteer Teaching Group closely links ideological and political teaching content with educational goals such as “forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation”, “patriotism and border defense” and “rural revitalization”, avoiding the formalization of ideological and political education. In Chinese, history, morality and rule of law and other courses, integrate cases of ethnic unity and mutual assistance among Longzhou’s ethnic minorities, deeds of border people defending the country and border, and achievements of Longzhou’s rural industrial development, guiding students to establish patriotism, ethnic unity awareness and fighting spirit. The survey data shows that 87.6% of students said that “ideological and political courses make them understand that they should study hard and contribute to the development of their hometown in the future”, the consistency between ideological and political teaching content and educational goals has been significantly improved, effectively realizing the same direction of “intellectual support” and “aspiration support”.

Through pre-research, special training and practical polishing, the Zhejiang Normal University Volunteer Teaching Group has continuously strengthened the ideological and political teaching ability of volunteer teachers, especially improved the volunteers’ ability to carry out ideological and political teaching in line with Longzhou’s local reality, forming a volunteer teaching team that “knows Longzhou, loves Longzhou and can teach”. The excellent rate of volunteer teachers’ ideological and political teaching assessment reached 92.9%.

Second, carry out special training on ideological and political teaching for Longzhou students’ academic conditions. Combined with the academic characteristics of most Longzhou students being Zhuang, some students having weak Chinese expression ability and different cognitive levels, the Zhejiang Normal University Volunteer Teaching Group carried out 6 special trainings on ideological and political teaching, focusing on training ideological and political teaching methods such as “hierarchical teaching”, “bilingual teaching” and “situational teaching” adapted to Longzhou students, and organized volunteers to carry out 24 lesson polishing and trial lectures. After training, the pertinence of volunteers’ ideological and political classrooms has been significantly improved, and they can adjust the teaching rhythm and content according to Longzhou students’ academic conditions. 93.5% of students said that “they can understand and like to listen to volunteer teachers’ ideological and political courses”, and the participation rate of ideological and political classrooms has increased from 56.8% before volunteer teaching to 89.4%.

Third, transform ideological and political theories into localized teaching materials such as “Zhuang Language Ideological and Political Nursery Rhymes”. To solve the problem of abstract ideological and political theories and difficult understanding for students, the Zhejiang Normal University Volunteer Teaching Group, combined with the characteristics of Longzhou’s Zhuang language, transformed ideological and political theories into localized teaching materials, the most representative of which is “Zhuang Language Ideological and Political Nursery Rhymes”. Volunteers, together with local teachers in Longzhou, integrated ideological and political concepts such as patriotism, unity, struggle and border defense into Zhuang nursery rhymes, compiled 12 Zhuang ideological and political nursery rhymes, produced supporting singing videos, and widely sung in rural primary schools in Longzhou County. In addition, volunteers also transformed ideological and political theories into forms loved by students such as Zhuang folk songs and sitcoms, making abstract ideological and political theories vivid and easy to understand. The survey shows that 85.7% of students can skillfully sing at least 2 Zhuang ideological and political nursery rhymes, and the communication power and appeal of ideological and political theories have been significantly improved.

The Zhejiang Normal University Volunteer Teaching Group has broken the traditional “one-way indoctrination” mode of ideological and political teaching, innovated ideological and political volunteer teaching implementation methods combined with the reality of rural schools in Longzhou, promoted the transformation of ideological and political teaching from “passive acceptance” to “active participation”, and the teaching effect has been significantly improved. The vividness and interest of rural ideological and political classrooms in Longzhou County have been significantly enhanced.

First, the implementation of interactive ideological and political teaching in various schools in Longzhou. Driven by the Zhejiang Normal University Volunteer Teaching Group, 5 surveyed schools in Longzhou County have fully implemented interactive ideological and political teaching, abandoned the traditional mode of “teachers talk and students listen”, and widely adopted interactive teaching methods such as situational teaching, group discussion, role-playing and thematic sharing. Volunteer teachers organized students to carry out 16 interactive activities such as “simulating the Longzhou Uprising”, “rural revitalization small planning” and “patriotic border defense small guards”, allowing students to perceive ideological and political concepts and improve ideological understanding in participation. The survey shows that the active speaking rate of students in ideological and political classrooms has increased from 23.5% before volunteer teaching to 78.6%, and interactive teaching has effectively mobilized students’ participation enthusiasm and enhanced the emotional resonance of ideological and political education.

Second, completed the ideological and political teaching design of primary and secondary schools in Longzhou. The Zhejiang Normal University Volunteer Teaching Group, together with local teachers in Longzhou, combined with the school stage characteristics and academic reality of primary and secondary schools in Longzhou, completed the systematic design of ideological and political teaching in primary and secondary schools in Longzhou, covering grades 1 - 6 of primary school and grades 1 - 3 of junior high school, clarifying the ideological and political teaching objectives, teaching content, teaching methods and evaluation standards of each school stage, forming an ideological and political teaching system of “school stage connection, gradual progress and fitting the local”. This teaching design has completed a total of 126 ideological and political lesson plans and 18 teaching plans for each school stage, filling the gap in the lack of systematic design of rural primary and secondary school ideological and political teaching in Longzhou County, and effectively promoting the standardized development of ideological and political teaching in Longzhou.

Third, jointly optimize the rural network in Longzhou to improve the “Cloud Ideological and Political Education” teaching conditions. In response to the weak network infrastructure of rural schools in Longzhou and the difficulty in carrying out “Cloud Ideological and Political Education” teaching, the Zhejiang Normal University Volunteer Teaching Group, together with schools and local governments, actively strived for resources to optimize the network conditions of rural schools in Longzhou. A total of 5 surveyed schools have been upgraded with network equipment, 22 multimedia teaching terminals installed, realizing full network coverage of ideological and political classrooms in rural schools. At the same time, the volunteer teaching group integrated high-quality ideological and political online resources of Zhejiang Normal University, built a “Cloud Ideological and Political Education” resource sharing platform, uploaded 48 high-quality ideological and political courses and 36 red research videos, and carried out 16 online ideological and political classrooms, allowing remote rural students to also access high-quality ideological and political resources, effectively narrowing the gap between urban and rural ideological and political education resources. The coverage rate of “Cloud Ideological and Political Education” teaching has increased from 18.2% before volunteer teaching to 76.5%.