Leading the Class into the 21st Century

The door in Maryland Hall reads room 200, but students might think they’ve walked into Multimedia Computer Techniques rather than Introductory Accounting I or II. From the moment you step into Professor Barry Rice’s classroom at Loyola College in Baltimore you know something is different. There is a blackboard, but this CPA educator hasn’t written on it in five years. Students have handheld keypad polling devices at each desk to answer questions during inpromptu quizzes. The overhead projector has been replaced with a permanent multimedia console that features a computer with an Internet connection, a VCR and a Easer disc player. A large projection system hangs from the ceiling and stereo speakers are mounted on the front wall. Welcome to the accounting classroom of the 21st century. The bell rings, and the freshmen and sophomores settle into an hour of learning they describe as a “new-wave tool for education” and downright “cool.” In the middle of the lecture and without warning, Rice calls up his CompuPic 32 program on the network and flashes a young woman’s picture on the screen–the student he’s chosen to answer his last question. Whether she knows the answer or not, she has to think, and the exchange is guaranteed to get other students in the class thinking as well. Surprises always await students in Rice’s classroom as he uses technology to teach accounting basics. In fact, his style often raises eyebrows from peers who question whether students actually learn in this environment. It’s a criticism Rice has fought since the first day he decided to think out of the box that is the traditional college classroom. “I do not give quizzes–I get feedback,” Rice says, referring to the instantaneous way of checking whether students are learning. “I do not show movies; I use multimedia. I do not entertain students; I engage them in the learning process. The traditional classroom is a dinosaur and ought to die!” TECHNOLOGY TO THE HEAD OF THE CLASS Because of this innovative use of technology and his creativity in adapting it to the classroom, as well as the leadership role he has taken with other technology-related educational projects, the AICPA has chosen Rice as a pathfinder in its Vision Process. Rice, 55, believes in turning out accounting graduates who are prepared for the world beyond college. And the best way to do this, he says, is to stimulate students by using the computer technology the rest of the world–especially business–has embraced. Rice says educational publishers have been slow to develop high-tech material for colleges, and most educators won’t take the time needed to produce material in this fashion. Creating lectures entirely on a computer is “just too much work for anyone who doesn’t have the drive, tools or inclination to address this in their teaching,” he says. Over the past six years, as technology has become progressively more user-friendly, Rice has changed his accounting lectures. Today, he creates his material at home and uses the Internet to upload it onto Loyola’s server. Mixing Asynmetrix Toolbook, a multimedia authoring package that lets him move through topics in a nonlinear fashion, with the presentation software, Power Point, he infuses his lectures with dynamics aimed at keeping the attention of students who have grown up with the test pace of MTV and the World Wide Web. For example, he can click on hypertext arid go to any page in the virtual textbook or to any location on a page, while bringing up boxes and incorporating audio, animation and graphics that further illustrate his point. Rice continues to give tests the way they’ve always been given, because there aren’t enough computers for all the students in the class, but he hopes eventually; to move to online tests proctored to prevent cheating. He also plans to take these techniques further this fall when he will teach two sections of Accounting I over Loyola’s Intranet.