Benedictine professor uses Ping-Pong to challenge students

Don't let Ovid Wong's humble demeanor fool you. He has ice in his veins as thick as the Rock of Gibraltar - at least when it comes to Ping-Pong.

Wong, associate professor of Teacher Education Preparation at Benedictine University in Lisle, challenges his students within and outside of the classroom, and if they are up to the task, he has no problem giving them a deft Ping-Pong lesson, often blasting angling, twisting and spinning winners off the table against his much younger opponents.

"Playing Ping-Pong keeps the brain cells active," Wong said. "It is all about hand-eye coordination. It is research that is proven."

Author of more than 30 books on teaching methods, Wong believes in borrowing from various fields to help guide student and faculty success across the nation and abroad, such as in China where he has taught each summer since 2012 at Dalian Nationalities University.

Playing games is part of Wong's approach to teaching. This past summer, he taught winning strategies on delivering knowledge and skill to faculty at Dalian's School of Economics and Management by having them play Monopoly.

"I divided the faculty members into two groups and told them to generalize some rules and strategies for making money," Wong said. "Most people use deductive reasoning or top-down logic, which means having rules and learning them before you begin, and not inductive reasoning or bottom-up logic, which means figuring out the rules as you go along or after the experience.

"I teach them how to apply this back to teaching through the use of mixed methodologies.

"Constructivism teaches us to construct our own learning," he said. "It takes more time, but this builds ownership and the impact is deeper."

Wong, a resident of Elk Grove Village, emphasizes that teaching strategies are applicable across cultures and disciplines.

He understands the pressures that young college seekers have, as well as pressures on nontenured faculty, and presents approaches to students and faculty that allow them to better relate to one another.

By doing so, they better relate to the subject matter, which can increase understanding and knowledge absorption.

"College entrance exams in China are high pressure," Wong said. "Students want to be nourished at the same time they are preparing for college entrance time so they have IV nourishments."

In conjunction with the Benedictine values, Wong teaches that to be truly successful, one must employ personal tactics that help maintain a healthy lifestyle balance, which includes proper nutrition (not necessarily intravenously) and exercise.

"In my Contemporary Biology course, I had my students work on a diet and exercise plan approved by the American Heart Association for just one week, and I witnessed a more than 70 percent success rate on their Body Mass Index (BMI)," Wong said.

"The BMI project brought success and raised everybody's awareness of the need to stay healthy."

Likewise, Wong's pursuit of Ping-Pong perfection has engaged faculty, staff and students universitywide.

And for students, it makes him more approachable. Some students with whom he has played Ping-Pong have later told Wong, "I want to learn from you."