Problem-based learning : does accounting education need it?

Problem-based learning (PBL) has been used successfully in disciplines such as medicine, nursing, law and engineering. However a review of the literature shows that there has been little use of this approach to learning in accounting. This paper extends the research in accounting education by reporting the findings of a case study of the development and implementation of PBL at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in a new Accountancy Capstone unit that began in 2006. The fundamentals of the PBL approach were adhered to. However, one of the essential elements of the approach adopted was to highlight the importance of questioning as a means of gathering the necessary information upon which decisions are made. This approach can be contrasted with the typical ‘give all the facts’ case studies that are commonly used. Another feature was that students worked together in the same group for an entire semester (similar to how teams in the workplace operate) so there was an intended focus on teamwork in solving unstructured, real-world accounting problems presented to students. Based on quantitative and qualitative data collected from student questionnaires over seven semesters, it was found that students perceived PBL to be effective, especially in terms of developing the skills of questioning, teamwork, and problem solving. The effectiveness of questioning is very important as this is a skill that is rarely the focus of development in accounting education. The successful implementation of PBL in accounting through ‘learning by doing’ could be the catalyst for change to bring about better learning outcomes for accounting graduates.

Changing relationships : Re-activating student and staff engagement in the design studio learning environment

QUT Teaching and Learning Support Services 'Revisiting University Teaching’program for mid-career academics. 'Innovations in Teaching at QUT' presentations. Presentations were part of a 2 day program that provides opportunities for experienced academic staff with responsibilities for teaching to review their current teaching practices and explore innovations in teaching that will assist them to enhance student learning and develop their own scholarship of teaching. The presenter responded to the following: 1.What is the innovation you have incorporated into your teaching? - give a brief overview/ description/ demonstration of the innovation 2.What challenges/issues prompted you to make changes in your approach? Were they discipline specific? Operational? Opportunistic? 3.What factors did you need to consider in implementing these changes? Which factors enabled success or hindered? 4.What has this innovation achieved so far? How have learners responded? How have the broader teaching team and academic staff from other units in your course responded? 5.How could this innovation be used by other academics in their teaching? What do you see as the possibilities for further expansion of this innovation? (NB. This question could be answered as part of a final sharing of group discussion). Presenter: Shannon Satherley

Enhancing critical analysis and problem-solving skills in undergraduate psychology : An evaluation of a collaborative learning and problem-based learning approach

Critical analysis and problem-solving skills are two graduate attributes that are important in ensuring that graduates are well equipped in working across research and practice settings within the discipline of psychology. Despite the importance of these skills, few psychology undergraduate programmes have undertaken any systematic development, implementation, and evaluation of curriculum activities to foster these graduate skills. The current study reports on the development and implementation of a tutorial programme designed to enhance the critical analysis and problem-solving skills of undergraduate psychology students. Underpinned by collaborative learning and problem-based learning, the tutorial programme was administered to 273 third year undergraduate students in psychology. Latent Growth Curve Modelling revealed that students demonstrated a significant linear increase in self-reported critical analysis and problem-solving skills across the tutorial programme. The findings suggest that the development of inquiry-based curriculum offers important opportunities for psychology undergraduates to develop critical analysis and problem-solving skills.

Students' experience of problem-based learning in virtual space

This paper reports outcomes of a study focussed on discovering qualitatively different ways students' experience problem-based learning in virtual space. A well accepted and documented qualitative research method was adopted for this study. Five qualitatively different conceptions are described, each revealing characteristics of increasingly complex student experiences. Establishing characteristics of these more complex experiences assists teachers in facilitating students engagement and encouraging deeper learning.

An exploration into retrofitting cities with natural design elements - learning from the city of Berlin, Germany

Natural design features in the built environment or biophilic elements are emerging as a potential response to the challenges of climate change, urbanisation and population pressures which have invited issues such as rising urban heat island effect, rising pollution, increased congestion, among others. This concept of living cities was made popular by Professor Tim Beatley in his book titled ‘Biophilic Urbanism’. Evidence of biophilic urbanism can be seen in some cities from around the globe since decoupling environmental pressures from future development is a priority on many agendas. Berlin is an example of a modern economy that has adopted an ecological sustainable development approach to reduce environmental degradation while driving innovation and employment.

Evaluation of assessment in the context of work-based learning: Qualitative perspectives of new graduates

Aim Evaluation or assessment of competence is an important step to ensure the safety and efficacy of health professionals, including dietitians. Most competency-based assessment studies are focussed on valid and reliable methods of assessment for the preparation of entry-level dietitians, few papers have explored student dietitians’ perceptions of these evaluations. This study aimed to explore the perceptions of recent graduates from accredited nutrition and dietetics training programs in Australia. It also aimed to establish the relevance of competency-based assessment to adequately prepare them for entry-level work roles. Methods A purposive sample of newly-graduated dietitians with a range of assessment experiences and varied employment areas was recruited. A qualitative approach, using in-depth interviews with 13 graduates, with differing assessment experiences was undertaken. Graduates were asked to reflect upon their competency-based assessment experiences whilst a student. Data was thematically analysed by multiple authors. Results Four themes emerged from the data analysis: (i) Transparency and consistency are critical elements of work-based competency assessment. (ii) Students are willing to take greater responsibility in their assessment process. (iii) Work-based competency assessment prepares students for employment. (iv) The relationship between students and their assessors can impact on the student experience and their assessment performance. Conclusions Understanding this unique perspective of students can improve evaluation of future health professionals and assist in designing valid competency-based assessment approaches.

goDesign

This research project (September 2009 - ongoing) builds on initial research funded by a 2009 QUT Engagement Innovation Grant, which examined the benefits for rural and regional communities linking with tertiary institutions and design practitioners, to participate in design-based learning activities. During the program, students and teachers were given the opportunity to explore, analyse and re-imagine their local town through a series of scaffolded problem solving activities around the theme of ‘place’. Underpinning the program is Dr Charles Burnette’s (1993) IDESIGN teaching model and a place-based approach that ‘draws upon local cultural, environmental, economic and political concerns’ (Smith, G.A. 2007, p18).

The ‘state of play’ in Australia: Early childhood educators and play-based learning

This article provides an overview of the Education Meets Play study that will investigate early childhood educators’ use of play-based learning, now mandatory under the National Quality Standard. By building on what can be gleaned about educators’ approaches to play-based learning prior to the implementation of the Early Years Learning Framework, the study will contribute to the evidence base concerning the implementation and effects of Australia’s early childhood education and care policy reform initiatives.

Practice-based learning in community contexts: A collaborative exploration of pedagogical principles

The primary focus of this chapter is an exploration of four pedagogical principles emerging from a practice-based learning lab. Following an overview of community engaged learning and the Lab approach, the chapter is structured around a discussion of pedagogical principles related to (1) collaboration, (2) interdisciplinarity, (3) complexity and uncertainty and (4) reflection. Through a participatory action research (PAR) framework, students, academics and community partners have worked to identify and refine what it takes to support students negotiate complexity and uncertainty inherent in problems facing communities. It also examines the pedagogical strategies employed to facilitate collaboration across disciplines and professional contexts in ways that leverage difference and challenge values and practices.

From “somatic scandals” to “a constant potential for violence”? The culture of dissection, brain-based learning, and the rewriting/rewiring of “the child”

This article analyzes the “messy and numberless beginnings” of the hope placed upon neurological foundationalism to provide a solution to the “problem” of differences between students and to the achievement of educational goals. Rather than arguing for or against educational neuroscience, the article moves through five levels to examine the conditions of possibility for subscribing to the brain as a causal organological locus of learning.

Focused Prefetching: Performance Oriented Prefetching Based On Commit Stalls

Loads that miss in L1 or L2 caches and waiting for their data at the head of the ROB cause significant slow down in the form of commit stalls. We identify that most of these commit stalls are caused by a small set of loads, referred to as LIMCOS (Loads Incurring Majority of COmmit Stalls). We propose simple history-based classifiers that track commit stalls suffered by loads to help us identify this small set of loads. We study an application of these classifiers to prefetching. The classifiers are used to train the prefetcher to focus on the misses suffered by LIMCOS. This, referred to as focused prefetching, results in a 9.8% gain in IPC over naive GHB based delta correlation prefetcher along with a 20.3% reduction in memory traffic for a set of 17 memory-intensive SPEC2000 benchmarks. Another important impact of focused prefetching is a 61% improvement in the accuracy of prefetches. We demonstrate that the proposed classification criterion performs better than other existing criteria like criticality and delinquent loads. Also we show that the criterion of focusing on commit stalls is robust enough across cache levels and can be applied to any prefetcher without any modifications to the prefetcher.

Design based research methodology for teaching with technology in English

Design based research (DBR) is an appropriate method for small scale educational research projects involving collaboration between teachers, students and researchers. It is particularly useful in collaborative projects where an intervention is implemented and evaluated in a grounded context. The intervention can be technological, or a new program required by policy changes. It can be applied to educational contexts, such as when English teachers undertake higher degree research projects in their own or others’ sites; or for academics working collaboratively as researchers with teams of teachers. In the case described here the paper shows that DBR is designed to make a difference in the real world contexts in which occurs.

R&D in clean technology: A project choice model with learning

In this study, we investigate the qualitative and quantitative effects of an R&D subsidy for a clean technology and a Pigouvian tax on a dirty technology on environmental R&D when it is uncertain how long the research takes to complete. The model is formulated as an optimal stopping problem, in which the number of successes required to complete the R&D project is finite and learning about the probability of success is incorporated. We show that the optimal R&D subsidy with the consideration of learning is higher than that without it. We also find that an R&D subsidy performs better than a Pigouvian tax unless suppliers have sufficient incentives to continue cost-reduction efforts after the new technology success-fully replaces the old one. Moreover, by using a two-project model, we show that a uniform subsidy is better than a selective subsidy.

Enhancing the learning experiences through Industry-Based Learning from Indonesian university perspective

This paper investigates how students’ learning experience can be enhanced by participating in the Industry-Based Learning (IBL) program. In this program, the university students coming into the industry to experience how the business is run. The students’ learning media is now not coming from the textbooks or the lecturers but from learning by doing. This new learning experience could be very interesting for students but at the same time could also be challenging. The research involves interviewing a number of students from the IBL programs, the academic staff from the participated university who has experience in supervising students and the employees of the industry who supported and supervised the students in their work placements. The research findings offer useful insights and create new knowledge in the field of education and learning. The research contributes to the existing knowledge by providing a new understanding of the topic as it applied to the Indonesian context.