Cultivating a Culture of Virtual Teaching and Learning: The Case of First-year Accounting Course

Before the pandemic, teaching and learning at the University of Limpopo were primarily lecture hallbased. This paper informs how first-year accounting students at a rural university in South Africa were guided from contact-based classroom lecturing to a new culture of virtual learning due to the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions that the government imposed. The researchers used the Blackboard learning management system to redesign and offer the accounting module to include self-grading exercises and other support structures. Data were collected and analysed into themes to establish first-year students' remote learning experiences. The findings showed that the needs of students in a professional certification scheme did not change with changed delivery mode. Although students did not mind using the Blackboard as the university's preferred platform for teaching and learning, most students struggled with access to learning because of connectivity issues and a lack of data bundles (a socioeconomic issue). This led to stress, which was exacerbated by the fact that they did not have a physical support group to turn to except for the online platform that appeared impersonal. However, the participating students found out that activities such as self-graded twohour tests and concept tests helped them understand the content better, and most of them improved their performance.