Universities are, essentially, institutions of culture, they participate in the creation of knowledge, social, human, and aesthetic values and in the conservation and dissemination of these values.
Education is still characterized, in much of the world, in a predominant way, with what was a good pedagogical and technological model for the mass instruction needs of the population in a certain historical period, the so-called traditional teaching model, the which is conceptually decadent today for the satisfaction of the needs and material and spiritual demands that have been achieved in society and with the requirements that ICTs are providing and demanding at the same time.
To do this, study plans are made to achieve these objectives, hence the D study plans focus on student self-learning as the center of the process, under the guidance and guidance of the teaching process of university professors, always using as a fundamental tool the use of New Information and Communication Technologies.
Introduction
Education is, without a doubt, one of the most noble human activities, and the institutions that are entrusted with educating constitute a privileged space for those who accept to be educators, to do so in a professional way, with transcendent and enriching results for educators and learners.
Universities are, essentially, institutions of culture, they participate in the creation of knowledge, social, human, and aesthetic values and in the conservation and dissemination of these values. University teaching participates in all these activities incorporating students as central actors.
University students today must stop being passive receivers of information, and become apprentices of producers of culture, in the broadest sense of the word. This is not a mere idealistic or utopian desire, but a necessity imposed on contemporary generations by the complexity of today's life.
The task of the university teacher is not reduced to mechanically complying with the course programs so that students obtain their grades, but his task is broader, he must, through a study plan, manage to commit that student with their profession and prepare them to be able to face the challenges that society imposes on them and provide correct solutions, with a degree of responsibility, honesty and commitment to their country and their profession.
The objective of this presentation is to reflect on the new study plan of the Accounting and Finance career (Plan D) which is applied in blendedness, under the conditions of the new university and that allows to appreciate positive advances in the quality of the students who go through it, in addition to identifying the weaknesses in which we must work to improve it.
Development
The society of the 21st century is envisioned under a new paradigm: knowledge and information become the main engines of development, based on the technological advances that were quickly achieved in the last decades of the last century and that continue to have a dizzying influence. in all aspects of the material and spiritual life of society.
In this context, countries have a duty to equip their peoples with the intellectual capacities that allow them to overcome the challenges of the society in which they live and achieve sustainable development, for which a solid educational system and high equity are essential. Social.
Nuanced by this environment and the new conditions of our Higher Education, the Cuban university is characterized by:
- The permanent search for academic and revolutionary excellence, starting from the principle of quality in the masses, assuming that concept in the sense that the transformations that are carried out have social impact, produce far-reaching transformations. Integral relevance, which means that students have not only a teaching but comprehensive training, linking them to activities with high social impact; as well as policies, cultural, sports, professional reaffirmation, among others Full access, permanence and graduation, without limits or barriers of any kind, that guarantees that every Cuban citizen who aspires to study a university career can do so, in correspondence with his real possibilities, throughout his life.
To support the idea of the need for full access, it is pertinent to quote the Commander in Chief, when on October 18, 1969, at the graduation of the Central University of Las Villas, he said:
"… and the principle of universalization of university education will have to gradually become a reality, also due to necessity, because there will be no universities capable of absorbing this enormous mass."
In those words, spoken 40 years ago, the foundations of an educational project were summarized, which has become a reality: education for all, at all levels, without distinctions, without elitism. In this ever-ascending evolution, which has characterized the Cuban educational context in recent decades, the universalization of higher education is today a reality.
Indeed, his clear vision of this unprecedented project and of the objective it was pursuing, allowed him to foresee that, at a given moment, the annual admission of thousands of students would be a reality for whom it would be necessary to fully guarantee university education, so The realization of such a program would require radical changes in multiple concepts typical of Higher Education in its traditional modality.
He already glimpsed that the multiplication of universities, their cloisters, their facilities and material resources, which was taking place according to the normal rate of growth that university education was reaching, would not be enough when the stage of implementation of the final leap was made reality.
Today Higher Education as a result of the technological revolution and the shift from the industrial society paradigm to the knowledge society paradigm, is subject to significant pressure and transformation. In the first place, there is a demand for a greater, better and more flexible educational offer, since certainly in Higher Education institutions there has been an increase in schooling as a result of non-traditional students. This demand is also demanding, since most of these people are directly linked to the labor market and are demanding increasingly updated courses and more flexible teaching methods in terms of duration, time and cost.
Furthermore, there is pressure to update and globalize the curriculum to respond to current technological trends. Information and Communication Technologies are modifying ways of living, studying and working as the world today appears more interconnected. On the other hand, there is pressure for a greater diversification of educational modalities, towards a more distance and virtual education.
In addition, the use of these technologies allows the student access to more courses and programs that contribute to increasing their knowledge, stimulating the independent nature of study, since the teacher is not present.
For this, a change in the traditionalist thinking of the universities was evident, without losing quality, which is why a new model was necessary to meet these challenges.
Thus, the university emerged in the island's municipalities, with a set of careers that would solve core problems, both social and economic, giving new opportunities and possibilities to pursue university studies to an important part of young people and workers from different development programs, thus guaranteeing access to a comprehensive general culture of the population and the socioeconomic development of the territories.
In the Municipal University Venues, the blended study modality is adopted. This modality reduces the presence of students with their teachers in the planned teaching activities. The Accounting and Finance career is offered in the two types of courses that are studied in the venues: the Continuity of Studies Course, with weekly meetings, therefore 16 in the semester and the Distance Education Course in which students they receive orientation meetings, consultation and clarification of doubts generally on Saturdays with less frequency.
The model conceives learning based on main components:
The pedagogical model designed for the Course of Continuity of Studies conceives learning on the basis of three main components:
1. The system of face-to-face activities: So called because they take place in the presence and under the direction of teachers, it is conceived with the purpose of increasing the efficiency of learning, to ensure the adequate preparation of students.
This system is made up of:
- Tutorials: Each student is cared for by a tutor, who individually advises, guides and helps in the effort to win in university studies. It must be achieved that the tutor is the same from the beginning of the career until the end of their studies Classes: In their meeting modality, depending on the characteristics of each of the programs, with the aim of providing the student with essential information on the contents to study; discuss the content presented in educational videos; develop the corresponding exercises; evaluate the achievement shown by each student and guide the independent study. Consultations or consultancies: They allow the student to evacuate the doubts that arise during their study. They can be individual and collective. They are planned at fixed times.
In the necessary cases in the Accounting and Finance career, the following may be included:
- Labor practices, in the cases established in the study plan. Computer workshops, aimed at encouraging students to exercise and use these techniques as tools for their future professional work, in accordance with the demands of the career.
Face-to-face activities must be planned at each Headquarters, so that they allow access for all students, adapting them to the specific situations of each territory and Program, with the frequency that in each case corresponds.
2. Independent study, mainly using four didactic materials that are delivered to each student:
- A basic text per subject covering all the contents of the program A study guide per subject containing, at least, guidelines for the study of the subjects, the bibliography, and self-evaluations to check the degree of mastery achieved. degree that explains the pedagogical model, the study plan and its ordering by subject, the bibliography and the main organizational and regulatory aspects. Magnetic literature for each of the years of the degree with specific materials and guidelines for the study of each subject for each of the years.
3. Scientific-technical and educational information services. They are offered at the Headquarters or other appropriate facilities, depending on the informational resources available in the territory and the learning needs of the students:
- Bibliography for consultation foreseen in the careers Observation of teaching videos used in the meetings, at the request of the students, individually or collectively, Videos, audiocassettes and materials in electronic format to complement and guide the study of the subjects Radio programs and Local television in support of the content of the subjects. Telephone or email information on the organization, control and evaluation of the teaching process.
The formal areas for the development of these processes that the university makes available to students are: tutoring, which consists of the personal relationship between student and tutor, where the latter acts as a guide and supports the student in their academic career, the classroom where face-to-face activities are carried out, where the re-elaboration of knowledge is a collective process, that is, fueled by the interrelation and participation of the group members; counseling by the teacher, which can be individual or in small groups, where the teacher supports the student to resolve doubts and guides them on the specific subject.
Tutoring is a learning and mediation space that involves a particular type of relationship. Its function is to support the student throughout their academic career: contribute to triggering processes that help them assess their own goals and strengthen their responsibility; encourage her to develop the tools she requires to build new knowledge and which, therefore, allow her to assume her commitments, especially with regard to herself and her training purposes; guide you to recognize and put into practice your best resources for learning, to develop good study habits and strategies, to recognize your own conditions at different times in your career, to follow the recommendations that allow you to persevere in your academic work,and to find the help you need to overcome learning difficulties and lags. This implies a type of relationship that is necessarily built on the respect, empathy and constructive honesty of the tutor.
What characterizes tutoring is that it constitutes the only space where the student and tutor have elements to consider the general situation of the tutors, in terms of their study and learning, both of the set of subjects they are studying at any given time, and in its trajectory throughout the successive semesters. For this reason, tutoring is the ideal environment to recognize the factors that most help or hinder your studies, while there you work on your progress and lags, the actual times of your participation in ¨classes¨ and study without the teacher, their habits and strategies, their academic interests and the personal situations that favor or hinder them from reaching their goals.
Based on the analysis of their work and their formative evaluations, the tutor and tutored can perceive the strengths and weaknesses and obtain clues that allow them to trace a coherent route of actions that the student can and needs to undertake to improve and advance in their process of learning to to learn. This must inevitably be put in relation to the student's commitment to herself and her goals, and to the real situation of work and family obligations that condition her studies.
The classroom is the space where the teacher and the group of students work on the contents and purposes of a course. It is where the "meeting classes" take place. It is also where the teacher probes the ideas and knowledge of the group about the subject matter of the course, to guide the planning of their sessions and the ways of approaching the contents, depending on the needs of the group.
This information allows the teacher to design global strategies to achieve the purposes of the course, and to elaborate the most specific planning, by session or group of sessions, which is specified in learning activities, both those that will be worked collectively during the ¨classes¨, and those to be carried out by students as independent study.
In the classroom processes, it is essential to consider didactic moments of beginning, development and closing that allow students to contextualize their learning. It is necessary that they manage to position themselves in the knowledge problems on which they are going to work, that they have the opportunity to develop activities that allow them to appropriate new understandings and verify them and that they can recapitulate what they have learned, as a way of consolidating the processes carried out and the understandings achieved within the framework of their relationships with previous learning and with those that they will have to carry out in the following session (s).
For this reason, teaching in the classroom largely involves the proper use of so-called cognitive bridges, that is, of known information, background of the subject, ideas and previous knowledge with which students can relate new knowledge, in a incipient form, sometimes approximate, sometimes erroneous, but which serves as an initial starting point for the successive approaches inherent to the appropriation of new information and the elaboration of new understandings.
This means favoring in the students the appropriation and management of the intellectual and practical tools necessary to process the new knowledge: identifying, decomposing and comparing, investigating and considering different perspectives or ways of proceeding, analyzing, synthesizing and arguing are just some tools that allow the journey between initial ideas and meaningful and therefore applicable knowledge.
Finally, it is necessary for the teacher to be clear about what he is going to evaluate for educational purposes and when he should do it, so that the results obtained will help him to analyze the possible need to adjust his sequences and procedures, according to the needs of the students.
The advice (consultation) depends to a great extent on its actors, teachers and student or small group of students; Its object of work is the subject that the students take with the professor whose advice they request, and its fundamental purpose is to clarify doubts of the students about said subject, orient them about the work they need to do on their own, and support them to deepen in the subjects that interest them most.
This implies that they have done some necessary work to raise doubts and concerns, and in these cases it is not difficult for the advisor to make pertinent recommendations and support the students to work their study topics in greater depth. However, it often happens that the student seeks this support without any concrete precision about his difficulties, or without even having approached the study materials. These causes may be lags in basic reading comprehension or mathematical reasoning skills, in indispensable prior knowledge or in the management of their categories of analysis; They may also be rooted in the student's belief that in the assessment the teacher will promptly dictate what she needs to know, without the need for her to work on her own.
For this reason, counseling often requires work similar to that carried out in the classroom, in which the student can proceed to identify previous ideas, essential to recognize errors and key points, and be able to apply the necessary tools that allow to transform them and proceed to new meanings.
In any case, it is the advisor's task to guide the student to carry out some prior work that allows them to at least identify their doubts and then resort to counseling; It is also important to suggest adequate and accessible bibliography, talks with specialists or with any other means where the student can find information to continue learning, as well as follow up on the work that the student prepares and, in general, the development of their learning in the subject matter.
The study plans under the new approach of blendedness.
Under these circumstances, the study plans of the races have been a challenge. The study program is the formal document that explains the structure of a course, describes its components and indicates what it contributes to the training of students. Its design is an educational planning action, which guides its planning in the teaching and learning processes as well as the monitoring and evaluation tasks necessary to enhance the training processes.
The study plan -or curricular plan- is the training proposal in a disciplinary or interdisciplinary area of the degree, where its training purposes, the essential and optional subjects that make it up, and the profile of the graduate, with reference to what the student will know and know how to do when they finish their studies.
The continuous improvement of study plans and programs has been a task of the Ministry of Higher Education (MES) since its inception, thus demonstrating the way in which universities have understood the relevance of Higher Education, which has acquired new and urgent dimensions due, fundamentally, to the impetuous advance that science and technology have in these times.
From 1976 to date, three generations of study plans and programs have been applied (Plan A, Plan B and Plan C), in an effort to train new generations of professionals in a perpetual process of adaptation to the demands of the Cuban reality, without ignoring the main current trends present in other countries.
The current situation has led to the analysis of the current study plan and to the need to carry out qualitative transformations in the study plans, based mainly on the economic and social changes that the country has experienced, in response to the conditions presented by the context. international in which it is immersed; and very especially, for the current Battle of Ideas that our people are waging today and, as part of this, the universalization of Higher Education.
This work to improve the currently in force plans carried out by universities is carried out from a collective methodological work at the level of career, discipline and year, characterized by its scientific, professional level and closely linked to what the territories have warned about. the need for new changes in the training of professionals.
The improvement of the study plans is conceived as a continuous process, as an uninterrupted work of Higher Education. As a consequence, at certain times, it acquires such significance that it is necessary to modify the current study plans.
Since the introduction of Study Plan "C" to date, more than 10 years have passed, in which important transformations have taken place, as a consequence of the changes that have occurred in our country and, in general, in the System of Cuban Higher Education, for which the introduction of the Study Plan "D" was necessary for the different university careers and specifically for the Accounting and Finance career.
The Accounting and Finance career in universalization began with the C study plan, which was perfected after three years of start-up and is currently studying the D study plan, which is superior in terms of conception, consisting of a base curriculum, own and optional subjects and with a new concept and special meaning: teaching focused on the orientation of the student towards self-learning.
The new Study Plan D for the Accounting and Finance career is the result of the experiences accumulated throughout these years, the shortcomings detected in Plan C and the new social commissions that it has received through the governing bodies the National Career Commission.
In this context, teaching takes on a special meaning, by focusing educational action on the people who learn and their learning processes, it becomes a fundamental relationship in which students and their learning processes, the teacher and their function as an educator, the objects of knowledge and the ways in which the study contents are specified, as well as the situation where this relationship occurs. It is also about a relationship where its conscious protagonists, teacher and student, are conceived as responsible people vis-à-vis themselves and in the face of the commitments assumed by their goals: the student as an active constructor of their learning and training, the teacher as a mediator who informs, guides and stimulates student learning.
With the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies, as an integral part of the new study plan in Higher Education, it is intended that the student is trained with all the theoretical-practical knowledge necessary that allow him to integrate into the new society, training in the use of all those tools provided by computing through the computer, which contribute to the student having access to new knowledge, deepening in topics of interest, favoring their self-preparation with a higher level of independence without direct assistance from teacher.
All this would make it easier for the student to be trained as a professional capable of accessing any computerized means to obtain the information they need and also be able to solve any real problem in companies, making decisions that are based in this case on knowledge and procedures own of the specialty.
In Study Plan D, the disciplines of the professional profile are strongly designed, focusing their contents on the one hand to maintain the scientific-technical level of development of the sciences that comprise it and on the other to respond to the training requirements and social responsibility of our country, taking into account the need for professionals capable of solving the specific problems of the Cuban economy.
Fundamentally, it responds to the need to strengthen training in the professional field linked to the systematization of accounting and financial information for any type of entity, both in manual and automated conditions, to the theoretical and practical preparation of students in the field of finance with the objective that they can face problems of the profession inside and outside the country, without losing sight of the real context in which the Cuban economy is developing today, but that in turn, master the most advanced techniques to provide a solution to the complex financial phenomena of the world today, because only in this way can they actively contribute to finding the desired balance between the national conception of the socioeconomic development project and the adjustments that this environment requires.
Curriculum “D” integrates classroom activities with external ones, related to research training and pre-professional practice.
In the case of the training of accountants, the current Plan C brought substantial changes, by perfecting disciplines of the occupational profile with the introduction of new content in subjects such as Finance, Accounting, Cost Accounting, Professional Practice, and Administration and Auditing.
Now, with the improvement, the unresolved problems in these curricular designs are taken into account, and among its main objectives is to raise the relationship of the student with pre-professional practice.
Another purpose is to raise the level of individual student work outside the teaching staff, which is why it gives priority to the creation of research habits based on the needs of the centers, in such a way that they promote solutions to the problems of Accounting and of the business system.
The introduction of government accounting, internal control systems and the intensive use of new information technologies based on these subjects, are some of the innovations of this program, which reduces classes in the classroom in favor of research and independent practice, gives flexibility to teaching with various elective subjects and establishes disciplines common to different careers in these economic sciences.
With the modern conception, as they progress in their studies, the student is less in school and more in economic entities, so that in the first year 95% of the time is spent in the Faculty, while in the fifth course this presence is only 17%.
In the last two years, the program also includes seven elective subjects that also allow the student to specialize according to their future work interests.
The Accountant Pre-professional Practice discipline is strengthened in its conception of an integrating discipline of the curriculum, which should guarantee the development of professional skills of students in the practice of Cuban entities and also, introduce them into the problems related to scientific research as a way to contribute to the solution of the professional problems facing the country today.
New Aspects included in the Study Plan D.
- The Basic and Basic Specific Disciplines were redesigned to respond to the professional problems raised in the Professional Model. The Information Systems and Technologies Discipline of the Accountant is introduced with an integrative approach that provides the student with the necessary tools to face the new challenges in terms of preparation that the professional must have. Time funds are reduced for all disciplines of the student's face-to-face time in the classroom, all of which will make it possible to promote the independent and creative work of the student. A new way of English language teaching that strengthens the student's independent work and the use of new technologies for the development of skills.The pedagogical and methodological principles of teaching achieved in the accounting discipline are maintained, increasing the development of skills for the recording of operations linked to budgeted units and, government accounting, is introduced as a structured subject within the discipline. for the design of Cost Systems, Internal Control Systems and Accounting Systems in correspondence with the projection of the Information Systems and Technologies discipline for the Accountant Audit as a management evaluation instrument and becomes independent within the discipline Internal Control, with the new strategic and integrating approach that is being addressed in the Cuban and international experience.Reformulation of the finance discipline to respond to the existence of a majority public sector in the country, also taking into account the importance that it has had in generating wealth for the country, all of which implies the strengthening of the teaching of the financial techniques that are applied to the budgeted activity without abandoning the general training in the most modern and advanced techniques of the contemporary world. Empowerment of the managerial role of the professional. Strengthening the role of the integrative discipline as a way to achieve the development of practical skills and research that respond to professional problems in the different fields of action defined in the professional model.The inclusion of a number of elective and optional subjects that will allow the student to select and define the complement of their professional training according to their cultural and professional interests The decrease in final exams and the increase in systematic evaluations as a form of evaluation of the subject which allows the teacher to assess students systematically.
The design of the academic years has taken into account the need to guarantee the graduated training of the graduate in accounting and finance in terms of precedence of content and increasing complexity thereof, as well as the degree of independence and creativity that students must develop All of which has been harmoniously articulated with the evaluation forms for each discipline, subject and year. In this case, the tutoring to design the student's curricular path takes on a different meaning, this refers to the program of subjects in which the student enrolls and takes in each semester of their degree, from the recognition of their conditions for study and your academic needs, in addition to your precedents.
The tutoring to design the curricular path is the occasion to review, with the greatest objectivity possible, the elements that show the preparation of the student to take the subjects of their choice and the conditions in which they are carrying out their studies, to reflect on them and to be able to jointly decide the subjects that the student should take, and to be able to make a responsible enrollment and achieve significant progress in the course of the career, without discouragement.
According to group interviews with teachers and students, we can point out strengths and weaknesses that the career has had in its application of the two study plans C and D.
Strengths
- Faculty with a high prestige, with recognition of the student body and with a lot of desire for constant improvement Curriculum D has strengthened the educational work from the instructive aspect Participation of students and teachers in university extension tasks from the curricular point of view, existing recognition in the territories Motivation for the career, they appreciate practical application in the knowledge received The application of Plan D in the career is making possible a higher quality educational teaching process, to the previous one The course work and diploma work are providing solutions to problems of the problem bank of the territories Recognition in the territories of the preparation that their cadres receive (undergraduate and graduate) provided by the SUM in economic matters.
Weaknesses
- The link with the practice should increase its quality, depending on the opportunities of the territory and the social problems Responsible enrollment is an aspect to be attended by the tutors and directives of the campuses Satisfaction of the tutoring is not perceived by all students In most municipalities there are no conditions to have a library at the headquarters and municipal libraries do not meet the needs of this modality The basic bibliography is not enough and arrives with delays, which is essential for independent study in this modality. There is not enough computer equipment in the headquarters and its access is limited in the territory, which affects the Accounting and Finance career in some subjects that have computer science as a complement.
Conclusions
- Cuba carries out a profound process of universalization of teaching together with the improvement of the traditional university, emerging a new concept of university, which encompasses both the central campus and the Municipal University Venues since it develops and is supported by it and allows raise access, improve the ethnic composition and social strata in Cuba, the relevance and social impact of substantive processes (undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, research and extension), with relevance for continuing education, and creates the appropriate conditions for the universalization of knowledge, which puts our country in better competitive conditions in the face of the challenges of the new millennium. The universalization of professional training is based on the creation of a new pedagogical model.The pedagogical model that accompanies the universalization of teaching, adapts flexibly to the particularities of each territory and the characteristics and personal capacities of each student. Learning is conceived through three main components: independent study, face-to-face activities, tutoring, and scientific, technical and teaching information services. Curriculum D, which is superior in terms of conception, formed by a curriculum base, own and optional subjects. And with a new concept and special meaning, teaching centered on the student's orientation towards self-learning. In this context, teaching takes on a special meaning, by focusing educational action on people who learn and their learning processes,It becomes a fundamental relationship in which students and their learning processes, the teacher and their role as an educator intervene. It is necessary to work on the weaknesses that prevent the full realization of this new curriculum.
Bibliography
- Caballero Margarita, González Rita, Campos Lisi and Rivero Ariamna. The Universalization of Higher Education in Cuba: a social need, a challenge and a reality.Coll César. School learning and construction of knowledge, p.179.Díaz Barriga Frida and Hernández Gerardo. Teaching strategies for meaningful learning. A constructivist interpretation, p.9. Juan Ignacio well and Monereo Carlos (Coord.), Strategic learning, p.11. Study plan for the Accounting and finance career defended in May 2003. Study plan for the Accounting career and finance defended in June 2006.
