More Than A Classroom

Blending Technology into First-Year Accounting Courses

A Workshop to Encourage Teaching Excellence

The Two-Year College Section of the American Accounting Association with support from an IMA Faculty Enhancement Grant offers the following workshop for two-year college faculty who teach the first accounting courses: A hands-on workshop experience divided into four segments where faculty will:

• TEACH: Utilize CD, video, and web-based teaching resources developed by publishers, colleagues, and professional organizations (i.e., IMA, AAA) and explore how to use them effectively in their beginning accounting courses.
  – Outcome: Participants will create a teaching plan and materials for a topic.
• LEARN: Investigate proven student-centered learning activities developed by colleagues and brainstorm with the faculty designer about the relevance of the activities for their courses.
  – Outcome: Participants will design or adapt a learning activity for a topic.
• ASSESS: Learn about goal-based assessment and examine faculty-developed assessment alternatives.
  – Outcome: Participants will develop an assessment for a topic.
• SHARE: Presentation of participants’ teaching, learning, and assessment materials and ideas to receive feedback from peers. Also, a time to identify other issues common to beginning accounting courses that warrant further dialogue among participants.

Who Should Attend:
Teaching faculty of the beginning accounting courses committed to teaching excellence and course innovation primarily from two-year colleges. Participants will be held accountable to produce teaching, learning, and assessment materials to share with other faculty teaching the first courses in accounting. These web-ready materials will be offered to accounting education-related web sites such as the IMA, AAA, or AICPA web sites so they can be made available to their membership. Participants are encouraged (but not required) to bring a laptop computer and all software and files they plan to use in course development.

Workshop Specifics:
The workshop will be offered two times: once in conjunction with the 2001 IMA Annual Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans, June 17–20, and once in conjunction with the 2001 AAA Annual Meeting in Atlanta, August 12–15. There will be a minimal fee to attend either the June or August workshop. Registration will be limited.

Why A Workshop:

• Users of accounting gain their lasting impression of what accounting is in the first accounting courses. For many, it is their only exposure to accounting. Over half of these courses are taught at a community college. All faculty need to be involved in the process of developing dynamic resources for teaching, learning, and assessment of these courses.
• Since many of current accounting faculty at both two-year and four-year colleges will be retiring in the next five years, the workshop is an opportunity to signal what it means to be the teaching faculty of beginning accounting courses.
• The development of resources in a workshop setting opens the conversation about how accounting is changing and what impact it has on our courses when faculty are ready to implement change.
• The workshop models and rewards exemplary faculty practice. It provides a venue to identify potential master teachers who can provide mentoring to new faculty members.
• The workshop provides proven examples of how to meaningfully integrate current technologies into beginning accounting courses for faculty reluctant to change.
• The workshop allows faculty to gain confidence in leveraging the possibilities of new technologies and practice how they will implement change into their courses.
• The workshop allows trust and collaborative partnerships to form between participants for future dialogue about accounting courses and the demands of our profession.

For additional information, contact Susan V. Crosson. susancrosson@sfcc.net or (352) 395-5137.