Module 3 (Week 14) - Effectiveness of the Teaching Strategies

I believe the deliberate method was effective in teaching my accounting class as the students had many account skills to masters, such as journalizing, posting, and preparing worksheets and financial statements.  In class we did concentrate on problem-solving, discussion and group work.  We went all the way up to the Analyzing level, especially when we discussed accounting errors, but I wish we had more time to do more what-if questions and application-type questions.

We had six assessments (practical & theory) and a comprehensive final exam.  Sixty percent got an A or A- for the final exam, so I saw that most of them did remember things from the beginning of the semester.  It also seemed that students were not fond of lectures and would rather be doing something with their hands.

Meanwhile, the take-home (graded) review that I gave my students contained several case studies, so they had to do a lot of analysis.  That many of them did not do well on it showed that merely memorizing things will not be sufficient to pass the system-wide assessment.  So, we went over their mistakes, and I gave them additional (non-graded) practices.

I have seen my female students’ results of the system-wide assessment.  Basing my conjecture on the marks I gave to scripts from other campuses, I believe many of my students were at or above par the system average.  (The office assessment figures for different campuses are yet to be released.)  Two sections of my female students (68% & 66% average) did a lot better than the single section of their counterparts at the men’s campus (59% average); the last section was problematic with their academic rigor and managed only 45% average.

While I may have spent considerable time preparing my ITEC 399 students for the standardized test, I also gave them an open-ended group project (encompassing project scope, time and cost management) where they would propose a solution to a given business/IT scenario.  So, the focus was not just studying and memorizing, but also on using what they have learned.