On December 8, the Department of Accountancy held a pedagogy workshop centered on increasing student engagement and improving the effectiveness of learning assessments. The workshop was organized by Accountancy Professor Matt Wieland.
The workshop opened with Arthur Andersen Alumni Professor Tim Eaton reviewing insights from the latest research in accounting education. The discussion highlighted three main areas:
- Student engagement: keeping students engaged through interactive technology, such as polling, and using student reflections (asking students to pre- and post-assess their knowledge and performance). The key, according to research, is to keep students engaged as much as possible with more frequent, smaller participation and interaction points to supplement longer, spaced-out projects and exams.
- Growing the supply chain of accounting majors: this, again, involves a focus on more student interactions instead of just lectures, and the use of storytelling in the classroom, involving invited speakers and videos to tell the story of accounting—beyond debits and credits. Research finds that storytelling strategies resonate particularly well with less represented student populations.
- Technology: teaching with creative games, technology, and interventions can help engage students and improve performance.
Several faculty members discussed how they were already integrating some of these techniques in the classroom, including polling technology and discussion boards to which students regularly contribute. There was an interesting discussion about having more student reflections after assignments and exams to help them better understand and assess their own learning. Faculty also shared their experiences with invited speakers and other techniques to incorporate more storytelling in the classroom.
Concluding this discussion, two action points for the department emerged:
- While all of the above can be important for all faculty, the strategies are even more important when teaching virtually (e.g., J-term and Summer) to keep students engaged.
- These issues can also be particularly important as we evaluate engagement in our gateway classes such as ACC 221 and 222, where students are making decisions on their major.
Next, Center for Teaching Excellence Assistant Director Gregg Wentzell facilitated two sessions on designing engaging learning activities and effective assessment tools. For the first session, faculty members collaborated in small groups to create a sample activity or lesson plan based on a resource list of active learning activities. In the second session, participants discussed classroom assessment techniques (CATs)—generally short, ungraded, anonymous informal assessments to gauge progress towards teaching goals. They also reviewed the revised Bloom’s taxonomy and how it can be used with CATs to assess learning at different levels.
Faculty members responded well to Wentzell’s presentation, according to workshop organizer Matt Wieland. “His emphasis on interactive teaching was particularly well received, with attendees actively participating by engaging in a gallery walk. I think it fostered a sense of enthusiasm and innovation and hopefully inspired a renewed commitment to enriching the learning experience for our students.”