The career of a recently retired CNC instructor received recognition for its outstanding work supporting students through the development of open education resources.
Former CNC Academic Upgrading (ACDU) instructor Meizhong Wang, who has penned eight books including two open resource textbooks, was presented with the BCcampus Award for Excellence in Open Education.
“Teaching is the one thing that I’ve always enjoyed doing,” Mei said. “The subjects and students I teach have changed, but the memories always remain. It was a surprise for me to receive this award. It’s recognition that I’m on the right track. That following my heart and doing what I’m passionate about is worth it.”
Mei’s love of learning is what turned her towards teaching. In 1990, she started at CNC as an instructor in the electronics department. After the cancellation of that program, Mei was transferred to the ACDU department. She has since taught more than 30 different courses at CNC in subjects ranging from math, physics, computer science, and electronics.
Students taking academic upgrading at CNC are unique, she said. Often, mature students are working very hard at school, their part-time or full-time jobs, and taking care of their families at the same time.
“I’m delighted when students see the connection between what they are learning and the career path they’re working towards,” she said. “It’s so rewarding to see a student overcome challenges and gain deeper understanding of challenging concepts.”
To prepare for each course, Mei used online resources, borrowed books from the library for reference, and spent many nights writing lecture notes. So much so she amassed more than 30 binders on her shelf brimming with notes.
One day she read the quote from Benjamin Franklin that “if you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write something worth reading or do things worth the writing.” This got Mei thinking about converting her tomes of lecture notes into practical books.
“I spent my weekends, evenings, and holidays pre-writing, researching, writing a first draft, adding diagrams, redrafting, revising, editing and proofreading,” she said.
Mei has since published eight books that are mostly the result of her teaching experience. Her last two books, Key concepts of Computer Studies and Key Concepts of Intermediate Level Math, were created as open education resources (OER) through BCcampus.
OER provide a wide variety of teaching-learning materials such as textbooks that allow instructors to build a course without having to start from scratch.
“Creating an OER is like authoring any other book,” Mei said. “Except that you are assigning that content to an open license, which usually allows for its free use to reduce the cost to students.”
Key Concepts of Intermediate Level Math remains one of the most downloaded Adult Basic Education (ABE) resource in the entire BCcampus collection.
“Meizhong was part of our first group of ABE grantees and was extremely eager and through in creating her computer studies resource,” said BCcampus project manager Krista Lambert. “It’s clear she cares about creating quality materials for both her students and to teach with, and her willingness to share widely has been such an asset to the ABE community. We are so grateful for her contributions.