An International Meeting of the American Accounting Association 2005 Annual Meeting August 7–10, 2005 San Francisco, California Come to the City by the Bay!

Effective Learning Strategies Forum
Monday, August 8, 2005

Session 29
Adapting Cases for Team Approaches

Presenter:
Barbara W. Scofield, University of Dallas

Description:
Cases are a useful instructional methodology to explore unstructured problems. Assigning cases to groups adds expectations to the student learning. However, groups are just as likely to divide up the case tasks and avoid interaction as they are to develop their teamwork skills. This session demonstrates one technique for adapting cases to gain the benefits of team learning while minimizing its negative consequences.

This session recommends the selection of cases requiring multiple parallel data collection or modeling tasks. Each student produces work papers, ensuring that each team member has a similar learning experience as is engaged in the key activity of the case. These work papers are then required for the team to create a common recommendation and joint work product, reinforcing the obligation of students to their team. Thus students must consider multiple viewpoints and experience the collaboration required in teamwork.

This session illustrates these principles with the "Corn & Hogs" case in The FASB Cases on Recognition and Measurement from the FASB. Participants will take with them an example of a case adapted for a team approach with complete instructional notes as well as suggestions for other adaptable cases from The FASB Cases on Recognition and Measurement series.

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