The major difference in Semester 1 2020 was adopting a “breaking down” and “working with” teaching approach.
Course content was reconfigured into relevant and cognitively manageable components. Using insights from practitioners, professional bodies, experts and industry examples, online teaching and learning resources were developed to facilitate a “business world” learning experience that exposed students to the messy, critical and professional matters financial accountants face. As demonstrated in online workshops and case studies, students learnt how to work through complex financial reporting issues. Assignments, formative online assessment tasks and student feedback were designed so students could reflect on their learning in a staged and progressive way throughout the semester. Feedback from students was always welcomed and contributed to this approach, their comments guided the questions discussed in the recap student questions videos and the Topic 12 Review class content.
While the “working with” approach involved constant reaching out and communication with students, it is through this we learnt a lot about our students and could modify what we did to support their learning. Student feedback indicated that the connection to business helped them to better understand content, and that they found the comprehensive set of online activities and resources effective.