During a normal summer, North Carolinians might go to the beach or perhaps the mountains for a camping trip. Not many vacation checklists include leading a team of faculty from across the UNC System to curate content for introductory accounting.
But for Bryan School accounting lecturer Amanda Cromartie, this was exactly the case. At the end of the spring semester, Cromartie says the UNC System reached out to its schools requesting nominations for a Digital Course Enhancement project.
“I have more than seven years of experience teaching financial accounting and more than five years teaching the course online, so I had the background they were looking for,” said Cromartie, who serves as MSA Program Director and Academic Advisor at the Bryan School.
The project brought together small teams of top faculty, librarians, and instructional designers within the UNC System to develop a library of content and digital resources for faculty to enhance or improve their online and face-to-face courses.
“It was an investment to enhance the student experience and provide resources to faculty. To the extent possible, we used open resources that are free for students to access,” Cromartie said.
The financial accounting team consisted of faculty from Appalachian State, East Carolina, NC A&T, UNC Wilmington, and UNC Greensboro. Cromartie’s team tried to think of every possible benefit for instructors, focusing on course structure and key content areas, providing activities, homework, and quiz question suggestions, as well as resources for anyone unfamiliar with the online structure.
“It was quite an honor to lead the financial accounting project and a unique opportunity to collaborate with faculty, instructional designers, and librarians from other UNC campuses,” said Cromartie. “Our team worked really well together. We hope instructors will find value in what we’ve created. I’m looking forward to their feedback.”
