Wilfred Laurier University’s Financial Accounting course: BU127, had me at odds with the reality of learning. It is by far the hardest university course I have taken in my first year. What I learned too late, after the second midterm, was how little support there was for self-directed learners based on the material.
Here are the course materials:
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Lectures by Kai Chien. Accounting is a long and dry subject, so he tries his best to make it “fun”, but doesn’t compare Tony Bell’s free CPA course. “Why not just watch Tony Bell’s course?” you may ask. I would if the material was exactly the same! Kai provides the class a handout of in-class exercises and the slides to check our understanding. But, like all lecturers, he talks to slow and has poorly designed presentations
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McGraw Hill’s Textbook on Financial Accounting: 8th Canadian Edition (there are now 12 editions). Like most textbooks, the chapter assessments are too easy compared to the summative weekly quizzes. The textbook itself is too verbose, so it can be hard to miss important details.
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McGraw Hill’s Practice Videos. These attempt to emulate in-person lectures, but suffer the from same problems as the textbook they’re based on: lack of depth, forgetting to highlight key takeaways, and ineffective practice problems.
So, what can self-directed learners do to avoid suicide (or even worse, failing the course)? Well, we want three things:
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Key takeaways, ratios, formulas, and concepts made clear in the material (NOT in lecture)
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Reasons why things are important to remember (like why a manager needs to know about inventory turnover or perpetual inventory)
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Effective practice problems that emulate the kinds that we will be assessed on
Luckily, these are covered in Kai’s handouts: we just read the slides, and do the in-class exercises outside of class! That way, instead of listening to slow lectures over 1.5 hours while rushing to take notes, we can take our time practicing key concepts and taking notes afterwards.
Although this answer seems obvious, I missed it because of my own laziness and the deceptive nature of the McGraw Hill platform, which makes it seem like you're catching up when you're actually two steps behind.