Historically, textbooks have been presented as dry monologues, a one-way conversation that often seems to talk to the teacher more than to the student. However, modern education instead, must promote an active dialogue. Teachers and students should work together to create an environment where teaching and learning is flourishing: we have to create an educational environment where the teaching and learning process is glad, experiential, where students gain as much knowledge as possible through experience.
We, teachers, want the students to understand the nature of our endeavour: studying can be effective if the methodology of the teaching-learning process is perfect, multifarious, it is always adapted to the nature of the particular teaching material. If a student does not read the textbooks, or chapters of them, maybe she/he finds them boring. If a student does not go along the learning pathways defined in the subject program maybe she/he does not understand the material that the textbook includes, or the offered pedagogic method is not able to motive her/him.
All of these are warning signs for the teacher. We need to think about the methodological solutions of the teaching-learning process critically because otherwise, we will have wasted our own time and that of our students, as well. The question is whether a perfect methodology exists.
I have been teaching in higher education for over twenty years. Year in and year out, the accounting has always seemed to me to be both interesting and relevant to everyday life. From the day I started to teach this subject, my goal was, literally set out to rethink the nature, structure, and purpose of textbooks. Every aspiration was designed to enhance student learning. I wanted the learning material to be presented in a manner that is both innovative, effective, and exercise oriented. I have thought, if I do my job properly during the creation of the learning material and the methodology, those will be unique.
For years, I have searched the student-focused methodological tools of the teaching-learning process, while realizing that in today’s world, I would not be able to reach my goal without electronic tools. Recently, the youngsters’ learning habits have changed radically. They like e-books better than traditional books, they like to share content with each other through community media, and they spend a significant portion of their lives in a computer environment.
It the fact, the COVID-19 Pandemic has forced the education to change rapidly and rely heavily on digital space, what makes unavoidable to elaborate and know good teaching-learning practices, successfully applicable educational methods, and teaching strategies, innovative educational- technology tools. This chapter will present an e-educational methodology which has given a great answer for COVID-19.
The chapter presents the operation of the competency-based education model and 5R learning strategy which is applied in digital education for more than ten years. Will be presented some technological solving of preparing eBooks, like textbooks and an interactive set of examples books, further an accounting lesson in a virtual classroom, pointing out the operation of the classroom and its role in education. We give an opportunity to the reader to take part in the lesson to experience the mood of the virtual classroom.
Traditional or distance-learning?
In recent years, the so-called „What, why, because, how, who, where?” question of didactics in the education, and therefore, the setup of different teaching-learning models has always been on the agenda, irrespectively of the education process takes place in the traditional or distance-learning framework.
Over the last decade, the question – Whether and to what extent can the virtual, electronic-tool-based education, the „guided self-learning”, available through distance learning books, CDs, and websites, serve as an alternative to the traditional education method with the physical presence of the students and the teachers? – became one of the most important issues in high education.
The question seems not to be paid sufficient attention, so far. Certainly, it is not overemphasized to say that those nations will, on a long run, be more successful which will not only incorporate the distance learning in the central elements of their education policy but will also prepare appropriate action plans for research and development, then will, in an immediate way, establish the conditions for the applicability in practice, as widely as possible, especially in the field of the higher education and the postgraduate training.
Behind and in the background of the slogans of „Knowledge-Based Society” (KBS), and “Lifelong Learning” (LLL) there are, on the one hand, the following aims:
– All layers of the society, to the widest extent possible, should have access to the relevant information/knowledge, and should, from time to time, update and develop it.
– The human resource demand in the fast-growing, high value-added producing sectors should be met.
While, on the other hand, the basic conditions for virtual education “in bulk” have been evolving/evolved: the digitalized, electronic communication tools and channels allow to multiply the capacities of education/teaching and to increase their efficiency.
Due to the increased number of students at the universities and colleges and to the „lifelong learning” objectives, the distance education/e-learning is more and more appreciated, thus, it aims at expanding the virtual solutions in the high education, and creating complex (tutor, examiner) training centers, developing electronic teaching materials, which are to support the self-learning, the successful preparation for the examinations, the efficient acquisition of knowledge.
We ‘e-teachers’, believe that e-learning is an instrument for building successful individual carriers, and for modernizing the society, it is a reliable, high quality, open-access method of education.
It is, also, to detect the competences, which will suit to enhance the effectiveness of the teaching and learning activities in the virtual space and to explore the methods, through which the progress performed – both on teachers’ and on students’ sides – in the e-teaching-learning process can be proven.
The structure of the chapter
In the second section, the structure and the operation of the competency-based model and strategy are presented, which had been developed by me for the e-teaching-learning process.
The third section will concentrate on the content and methodology of the e-books prepared in the field of economic sciences for the purposes of testing the effectiveness of the developed e-teaching-learning model and the learning strategy. The reader will find specific references to the relevant parts of the e-books in order to have a more transparent view on the methodology problems and solutions, and the significant difficulties to face, in many cases, during the practical implementation, which requires continuous improvement.
The fourth section will describe the knowledge portal, the Moodle platform, the place to develop the knowledge, to create the interactivity. Here are to present the practical use of the competency-based e-teaching-learning model and learning strategy, the learning process supporting the role of the e-books, furthermore, is lighted on the content and methodology structure of the e-books.
Also, in this part, we will walk through the Moodle-compatible eLearning standards, IT opportunities for interactive knowledge transfer such as SCORM, Quandary, Hot Potatoes Software’s, the iSpring Suite 9 PowerPoint-based toolkit and the WizIQ virtual classroom, so the technology, how to produce and manage the teaching-learning process throughout the clouds.
In the fifth section will be presented the experiential learning as an educational and pedagogical method and the educational games, as tools to realize it. Finally, the sixth section gives an opportunity for the reader to insight into an accounting course at Milton Friedman University