Faculty Profile, People

Dr. Bowen Hui is a champion for students

The Associate Professor of Teaching strives to help students discover their passion

May 16, 2022

FOR DR. BOWEN HUI, IT’S IMPORTANT TO REMIND HER STUDENTS that she was once an overwhelmed undergraduate student too.

“I remember walking into a first-year computer science course, not knowing if I should sit at the back or the front of this huge lecture hall,” explains Dr. Hui, who now teaches computer science in the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science. “I remember following my friend down the stairs and seeing all these male faces reading computer magazines and talking about things I had no understanding of.

“That was my first experience in computer science; it was scary, intimidating and male-dominated.” She continues, “I tell this story to my first-year students because I want them to understand some strategies they can employ to overcome these fears.”

According to Dr. Hui, working in teams and getting help from professors and teaching assistants as part of the lecture are a couple of strategies for overcoming the shyness and communication challenges that many first-year students experience. “Team-based learning is especially important in first-year classes,” explains Dr. Hui, “because it helps students build a network of support among their peers and establish a sense of belonging in the discipline.”

She adds, “Professors aren’t as scary as we seem. If only students knew what we were really like outside of work—that we struggle to check our emails and pick up our kids from school on time. Our days are hectic just like everyone else’s—we’re people too.”

“Computer science isn’t just about programming; there’s so much more to the discipline than that. Expanding young people’s horizons and helping them explore their passion at the community level would be awesome.”

While intimidating at first, her first-year computer science course set Dr. Hui on a path to study—and then ultimately teach—the subject. Now Dr. Hui focuses her research on artificial intelligence (AI), learning analytics and educational technology.

“AI is fascinating because you can have a passion in a different field and bring it to computer science. AI marries it. I had a passion for language, psychology and, more broadly, cognitive science. As a student, I developed language games and worked on projects in machine translation, text extraction and intelligent user interfaces. AI brought everything together for me and has so many interdisciplinary applications. I tell my students, ‘If your passion is AI and you want to do some interdisciplinary work, you can easily collaborate with people in other fields.’”

As for what she enjoys most about UBCO, where she has taught and conducted research since 2012, the smaller campus size is a definite draw. “I get to interact with students differently; I’m not sure I would get that kind of interaction in a larger campus. Students here are so amazingly good at what they do, and it’s hugely rewarding to know that I played a small part in their journey. That’s the key thing I love about my role; the rewards from research take a while to realize, but when I work with students there’s an immediate impact. This campus provides me with a new and different way of making a difference in the lives of my students.”

This sense of encouragement and motivation for her students is just one reason Dr. Hui was recently awarded UBCO’s 2022 Provost’s Award for Teaching Excellence and Innovation. “I listen to students to find out what strategies work for them, and help them achieve what they want out of their education.”

Aside from her work with students, Dr. Hui has also served on several university-wide committees to further promote and integrate computer science into courses, evaluation processes and activities. She hopes to take this work into the community in the future, teaching young children what computer science is all about.

“Computer science isn’t just about programming; there’s so much more to the discipline than that. Expanding young people’s horizons and helping them explore their passion at the community level would be awesome.”