Spotlight on Innovations in Teaching and Learning
Have you seen or used QR codes to get information while shopping? Students in Dr. Paul Yan’s courses use them regularly for learning. Dr. Yan is an assistant professor of economics and finance who seeks creative ways to engage students and to provide them with skills that will be useful in their careers.
For example, the business community regularly provides feedback that students should be proficient in Excel. For this reason, Dr. Yan has generated a web page related to learning Excel basics, formulas, macros, and VBA. To make this web page easily accessible, he includes a QR code and puts it on his syllabi. He also uses QR codes to provide students in his finance courses with one or two readings each week.
Dr. Yan is able to generate these codes using open source software (Program R) and he has provided instructions to anyone who might be interested through the QR code in the spotlight. If you need a QR code reader, you can download your own QR Code Scanner using any Android or iPhone.
Submitted by: Sara Morris, associate vice president, academic affairs