Dear Richard
Well, the busy-ness is back in full swing
L It was one of
those weeks again where I hardly had a chance to catch my breath. But I think
this week coming will be slightly better… I hope…
My work week consisted of working on the
textbook, from home on Monday, and then on campus. And then I went to a
conference at the Lord Charles hotel in Somerset West, of the South African
Accounting Association (SAAA) which is made up of accounting academics around
the country. The theme of the conference was how we can balance our teaching
and research demands – a very pressing issue for all of us, especially those of
us who are more interested in the teaching side of things. So there were some
speeches and panel discussions on the theme, and then for a day and a half
there were a number of research papers being presented, including by me! There
were 5 different streams running concurrently, for Financial Accounting,
Management Accounting and Finance, Tax, Auditing, and Accounting Education. So
my paper fell into the education stream, and I had a pretty good audience –
about 60-70 people! (To put it into context, I attended one talk after mine which
only had about 15 people) But then my title would have helped to draw a number
of people J “Enhancing student
understanding in an undergraduate accounting course through student-created
videos”. You put a word like videos in your title, and it will draw crowds! I
think I told you about the project I had my students do last year where they
had to make a video as a group, taking turns to explain some basic concepts on
one of the topics in the course? Well, I then turned that into a 25 page
research paper, which I submitted, and it got reviewed by two other academics
from somewhere in the country (called being peer-reviewed) and they both
thought it was acceptable, with a few changes, and then I got to present it at
the conference, and my paper also gets included in the conference proceedings,
which even gets assigned an ISBN number, and which gets funding from the
government which goes to the university. So that is officially my first
peer-reviewed conference paper, which is quite a big deal! And my actual
presentation also went really well, with me not really being nervous at all,
which was great, and the feedback I got was very positive as well. The only
criticism was that my paper didn’t have enough research methodology and stuff,
but that doesn’t surprise me, and I know that I have a lot to learn there
still.
On the home front things were pretty
intense as well. Josh had 2 friends coming to play on Monday afternoon. Because
of the conference Andrew was dropping the kids off at school, and even had to
fetch them on Wednesday to get Josh to swimming on time. But Josh didn’t have
any issues with swimming this week – maybe he does better with Andrew there?
Maybe he thinks I’ll give in to him or something if he complains… It’s never
happened, so I don’t know where he’d get that idea from… But when I got home on
Wednesday night, just before the kids went to bed, I got such a nice welcome
from all of them! Caleb especially seemed to have really missed me – he came
running and gave me a huge hug, and then I wasn’t allowed to put him down for
ages!
The weekend didn’t have anything major
happening, but it was just busy anyway, and for some reason I’m in a very
emotional space right now, so I haven’t been handling things very well L
We watched part of that special
missionary broadcast – sounds like you’re in for an exciting mission with some
of the changes that are going to be happening! Can’t wait to hear how that all
plays out J
Hope the training is going well – we were
really excited to hear that you’re getting that opportunity!
All the best
Shelly
