Sharpen Your Teaching Skills

Presented on Friday and Saturday at the meeting, sessions in this track will feature presentations by educators from across the country sharing valuable teaching tips that you can put to use immediately in your classes.

Session 1.01a: Advice for Faculty on the New CPA Exam
Mitchell Franklin, Le Moyne College
Michaele Morrow, Suffolk University

Session 1.01b: Order Effects on CPA Passage Timelines, and a Summary of Other Research on CPA Exam Performance
Stephen Perrault, Providence College

Session 2.01: Resources and Teaching Strategies for New Faculty Part 1
Karen Osterheld, Bentley University
John DeJoy, Clarkson University
During this first of two interactive workshops, participants will discuss effective teaching strategies for use in their classrooms. Workshop facilitators will guide participants through a discussion of the best practices that the PhD students and new faculty have observed, as well as receive summaries of advice provided by experienced accounting educators solicited during past sessions. A discussion of learning theory will be provided as well.

Session 3.01a: Online Learning
Lisa Andrusaitis, University of Massachusetts - Lowell
Laura Christianson, University of Massachusetts - Lowell
Chan Du, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth
Alisa Hunt, Post University
Mary Kay Copeland, St. John Fisher College

Session 3.01b: Online Homework Managers
Mary Kay Copeland, St. John Fisher College
Laurel Parrilli, St. John Fisher College

Session 4.01: Resources and Teaching Strategies for New Faculty Part 2
Karen Osterheld, Bentley University
John DeJoy, Clarkson University

During this second of two interactive workshops, participants will practice creating effective learning objectives and syllabi. We will facilitate a discussion regarding which learning objectives are effective and provide tips on how to create a course syllabus. Participants will then select one learning objective and design at a mini class session using at least one or more of the teaching strategies discussed in Session 1 as a means of accomplishing that objective. Through the process of peer review, participants will improve their mini class session and their ability to map effective teaching strategies to specific learning objectives.

Session 5.01: Accounting curriculum and CPA exam success: Insight from the top performing schools
Marie Kulesza, Central Connecticut State University
Pam Weaver, University of Hartford
Cheryl Crespi, Central Connecticut State University

In response to proposed changes to the CPA exam starting in April 2017 and recommendations by the Pathways Commission, higher education will need to address apparent weaknesses in accounting curriculum to better prepare the next generation of accountants. The new CPA exam is placing a greater emphasis on higher-order cognitive skills needed by new hires as they are being called upon to complete more advanced accounting functions. The Pathways Commission studied “the future structure of higher education for the accounting profession and develop[ed] recommendations for educational pathways to engage and retain the strongest possible community of students, practitioners, and others knowledgeable leaders in the practice and study of accounting.” How is this to be addressed? As CPA exam pass rates may be used as a benchmark for post-curriculum assessment of accounting programs, one first step in this needed analysis is to critically analyze success factors leading to top performing on the CPA exam. The National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) surveys higher education institutions regarding CPA Exam pass rates. Using the NASBA data as a primary source of evaluation, this session will compare and contrast the top performing --- as a basis to gain insight into success factors leading to CPA exam success.

This session will describe how to design a curriculum that would ensure the best match of technical knowledge to skill sets expected for success”.