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Dr. Veronica Paz

I was fabulously lucky to be able to participate in the BLEND LT Summer 2017 and selected my Auditing course to blend. By blending I wanted to use my class time to actually "do" the audit work or experience a day in the life of an auditor in a public accounting firm. I decided to move lessons and lectures online and shift the learning to the students so we can maximize our time in class for discussions.

Led the Way to Blended:

  • Learner-based
  • Experimental learning
  • Shift class to problem and project based learning
  • More student collaboration as if they would experience in an audit team
  • Problem solving
  • Formative assessments – more feedback

Provided a Different Student Experience:

  • More real world application
  • Less talking and more doing
  • More learning via doing actual audit tests and procedures

Blended Approach

The blended approach was created to focus on the a weekly module structure to guide students in the blended format.

The pre-module focuses on the readings, study guides and students to take notes prior to coming to class.

In-class focuses on a brief, short lecture before diving into active learning with case studies and IDEA software projects that utilize software that is heavy used by the big four accounting firms. These activities give an opportunity for real life application and exposure, as well as, more dialogue around questions.

The post-module focuses on wrapping up the module with homework problems, written case analysis, etc.

Evidence of Success

Learning objectives, assignment and assessment descriptions, scoring guides or rubrics, student artifacts, and performance data

Learning Objectives

The following are the revised objectives for the redesigned course with the emphasis of the one focused for BlendLT located first:

BlendLT Focused Objective: Students will be able to think critically and assess issues facing the accounting profession, primarily by analyzing and discussing cases in class and completing several projects using IDEA software.

Upon completion of the course, students should be able to:

  • Demonstrate the mastery of auditing technical topics through the completion of written exams.
  • Document the rationale for an auditor’s professional judgment in a difficult accounting context;
  • Apply aspects of environment of public accounting (including professional standards, legal liability, and regulation) in performing written analyses of real world cases;
  • Utilize technology to research the rules and standards governing the public accounting profession and conduct of CPA’s, and document the applicability of standards to cases;
  • Apply the auditing tasks of analyzing issues to be considered when planning an audit engagement, employing various auditing procedures, and interpreting various types of auditor’s reports by completing examples from the text and in projects that mirror real-world audit tasks;
  • Analyze and apply an appropriate framework when considering ethical issues that are common in auditing settings;
  • Codify the auditor’s role in business and society, including ethical and legal responsibilities.

Assessment: Written Case Analysis

Throughout the semester, there are 8 case analysis assignments where students read an in-depth case, such as Enron: Understanding the Client’s Business and Industry. Students formulate their answers and then come to class for a very dynamic class discussion. Afterwards, students write their formal responses and submission to the questions. Each submission must be in APA 6th Style, contain at a minimum 3 references and be 2-3 pages, double spaced.

The cases provide real-life application of their technical knowledge of auditing. For the Enron case, it focuses on the inherent risk and fraud risk to Enron’s changing business model that occurred during the late 1990’s.

Scoring Rubric: Written Case Analysis

The following is the rubric associated with the Case Analysis explained in the previous section.

Artifacts

In addition to the traditional syllabus, a graphic syllabus was created in order to visualize the blended format, highlight critical information for success in this modality, and other key features. The first third of the graphic syllabus is shown below, while the entire graphic syllabus can be viewed via the ACCTG 403W Fall 2017 Syllabus Infographic.

In regards to the cases, before students write their own formal response there in-class dialogue about the readings. To aid in the conversation and capture critical ideas, a Google Doc is used for all students to enter their thoughts/notes as part of a “group think” activity. In addition to focusing on the context, it gives practical experience with another technology used in the business industry. A snippet of an example document can be viewed below while the Case 3.1 Enron Google Document is available to view in its entirety.

Performance Data

Students performed very well in regards to the case studies, as well as, overall in the course. 50% of the students earned an A/A-, 20% earned a B/B-, 20% earned a C+, and 10% earned a C. For the six case studies, the average and median of those who submitted in relation to the 15 point value are shown in the graph. As demonstrated, work on the case studies showed understanding of the material related to real-world applications which is at the core of this course.