This is part one of our Pressbooks Results Series, where we’re sharing the stories of four faculty members who have used Pressbooks Results in their classroom to achieve unique pedagogical goals including reducing withdrawals, empowering faculty, and scaling personalized learning.
Quick Overview
Faculty member: Philip Sookram, Associate Professor of Accounting, Saint Peter’s University
- Phil’s focus is on making accounting — a traditionally difficult and cumulative subject — learnable in a compressed timeline (45 days).
- His use of Pressbooks Results centers on creating flexible learning for students balancing internships, jobs, and other responsibilities.
- A key outcome is a reduction in DFW (drop/fail/withdrawal) rates through a self-paced, mastery-driven model.
Background
At Saint Peter’s University, Associate Professor Philip Sookram set out to solve a persistent challenge in accounting education: providing flexible, affordable resources that support student success, even when life circumstances make consistent attendance difficult.
Over the past two years, Phil has used Pressbooks to develop an openly licensed set of learning materials aimed at making the basics of financial accounting learnable in 45 days. Supported by the university’s O’Toole Library, his project organizes the first five chapters of an OpenStax Accounting textbook into eight self-contained modules—each designed to be completed in a day. The resource includes over 50 embedded H5P activities, such as multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, and matching exercises, which promote active, self-paced learning.
Course Context and Adoption
Phil has now used Pressbooks Results in multiple courses, including both his senior Capstone (AC480) and an asynchronous graduate course (AC520). Integrated with Blackboard Learn, the Pressbooks textbook and its H5P activities offer flexible learning paths for students balancing coursework with tax internships, full-time jobs, and other commitments.
Adressing Key Challenges
By building in interactive formative assessments through H5P activities, Phil has created a learning environment where students can receive immediate feedback, assess their understanding, and stay engaged throughout the course, whether attending live classes or studying asynchronously.
Pressbooks Results allows him to track student performance across different modules, view detailed breakdowns of individual and class-wide activity scores, and better identify areas where students are struggling or need additional instruction. This granular insight was particularly valuable in the graduate asynchronous course, where real-time engagement has historically been more difficult to monitor.
Phil’s use of Pressbooks Results directly addressed several barriers:
Affordability
Through Pressbooks Phil provides free and perpetual access to course materials, removing a potential financial burden for students.
Engagement
Interactive H5P activities encourage regular and persistent engagement with course content, even with material that can be dense and conceptually difficult.
Student Success
Since adopting an openly licensed textbook and incorporating Pressbooks Results in his courses, Phil has observed a notable drop in D/F/Withdraw (DFW) rates, traditionally a major hurdle for degree completion.
Flexibility for Late Starters
Students missing even a few early classes often struggle to recover because of the highly cumulative nature of the content. By using Pressbooks Results, Phil is able to ensure that all learners have day one access to the learning material and that any students facing emergencies or administrative holds can still complete assignments and stay enrolled in the course.
One example involved a graduate student who, initially marked as “non-attending,” began completing assignments asynchronously. Thanks to Pressbooks Results sending grades to the course gradebook, Phil received documented evidence to demonstrate the student’s engagement and prevent administrative withdrawal from the course.
Impact
Phil notes that these individual stories are part of broader improvements to both retention and student success in his courses. “Shifting toward open access resources has been a gamechanger for my course,” he noted, highlighting how Pressbooks Results streamlined both learning and teaching.
Initial feedback from students has been positive. Students appreciate the interactive structure and the self-paced flexibility the platform offers. They also note that these low-stakes practice opportunities increase their confidence leading up to major exams or final projects.
By eliminating costly textbooks, reducing barriers to re-entry after absences, and providing rich, formative learning opportunities, Phil’s adoption of Pressbooks Results exemplifies how open educational resources offer an innovative, flexible approach to supporting student success in accounting education.
Watch Phil’s story on YouTube 👇
More about Pressbooks Results
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