Yang Cao will be formally recognized at convocation for teaching excellence and innovation.
Cao is the recipient of the 2018 Teaching Excellence and Innovation Award that acknowledges teaching innovation and excellence at UBC’s Okanagan campus. The successful award winners are exemplary role models who have had and will continue to have significant impact on the culture of teaching and learning on the Okanagan campus and beyond.
The award criteria include:
- excellence in teaching practice
- impact on learning through innovation
- fostering of a research community
- support of global awareness
- contributions to interdisciplinary approaches
- development of curricula, and
- modelling collegiality
Cao, a Senior Instructor and Associate Director for Undergraduate Studies in the School of Engineering, was recognized for his student-centered teaching approach that has earned him eight “Pioneer’s Award for Teaching Excellence”, among other awards.
Students and faculty alike admire Cao’s teaching ability, his capacity to clearly explain concepts through different means from class lectures, to YouTube videos, all to better support students’ learning. To date, Cao has over 400 teaching-related videos on YouTube, with more than 6,000 subscribers, and more than 800,000 views which have been used and shared as far as Singapore.
In her nomination letter, Director Mina Hoorfar says that Cao’s efforts “continue to make a significant impact on the culture of teaching and learning on the Okanagan campus and beyond.”
As a passionate proponent of the School of Engineering, Cao has enhanced the program by reaching out to Computer Science and Management to develop minors in those areas and make them available to all Engineering students.
Cao is actively involved in provincial bodies for engineering education, including the regional directorship for West Canada of the Canadian Engineering Education Association, and is a steering committee member for the BCCAT Transfer Innovation Project related to the First-Year Core Engineering curriculum.
Congratulations to Yang Cao, the 2018 recipient of the Provost’s Teaching and Innovation Award.