Sharpen Your Teaching Skills Sessions 

  Presented on Friday and Saturday at the meeting, sessions in this track will feature presentations by educators from across the country sharing valuable teaching tips that you can put to use immediately in your classes

Friday 10:45-12:00pm

Finding the Right Learning Equation:  Balancing Pedagogy and Technology in Today’s Classroom.  

Today’s students use technology in their everyday lives, and as educators we often think of technology as a way to engage our students.  However, today’s instructors face many challenges in successfully integrating technology into their classroom environment.  Challenges range from finding the right balance between technology and pedagogy to discovering ways to conquer the digital divide.   Instructors may even ask themselves:  Should my students be “plugged-in or unplugged” in my course for the best learning experience?  This interactive session will help participants determine the right learning equation by identifying their student’s digital literacy, linking technology tools to a pedagogical purpose and assessing the right balance between technology and pedagogy for their courses. 

Presenters: Markus Ahrens, Saint Louis Community College-Meramec and Cathy Scott, Navarro College

Friday 1:45-3:25pm

Integrating Technology and Cooperative Learning in Accounting Courses: Best Practices and Challenges

Are you looking to integrate or improve the use of technology in your courses? Are you looking for collaborative learning activities for your courses? Are you experiencing challenges integrating technology and cooperative learning in your accounting courses? If so, this interactive panel discussion session is an opportunity for you to interact with accounting academics to explore best practices and challenges. Panelists will share some innovative solutions, practices and strategies that can help students leverage technology productively, foster collaboration and enhance critical thinking skills in the context of accounting education.

Panel Discussants: Aretha Hill, Florida A&M University and Emma Cole, Troy University

Friday 3:55-5:35pm

Smart Teaching – Developing Self-Directed Learners

Ever wonder why students are not as successful as you believe they should be in your course?  Herbert Simon stated “the teacher can advance learning only by influencing what the student does to learn.”  Today's students have been socialized to believe in a fixed-intelligence mind-set.  In other words, if learning does not come naturally, it is because their natural intelligence is not able to understand specific topics.  So it is even more critical for today's instructor to develop courses that inspire and alter this socialized mindset.  For teaching to be effective students must understand they can learn and then they must be trained how to learn.  While this topic can take months to cover, this presentation will attempt to introduce principles of student learning and tips for faculty to work towards developing self-directed learners.

Presenter: Doug Parker, Western Carolina University

Saturday 9:05 – 9:55

Master Budget through Financial Statements

The session will demonstrate a Master Budget project that groups of students must prepare in Excel. The project is designed not only to require the preparation of a Master Budget through Financial Statements for a merchandising company (including borrowing and repayment of operating funds), but also to require demonstration of specific Excel skills (e.g., proper formatting, use of range names to make formulas self-documenting, use of ROUND to prevent footing errors, VLOOKUP, IF for simple error checks, and the proper use of input cells to allow the spreadsheet to automatically update when initial assumptions are changed). The project could be adapted for use in a manufacturing company.

The session will demonstrate an Excel template for this project which is fully customizable so as to provide each group with a different scenario with minimal effort on the instructor’s part.

Intended audience: academics who teach introduction to managerial accounting course looking for class project.  Project can also be appropriate for cost managerial.

Learning Outcomes for the Session:

1. Participants will understand how to implement a customizable Master Budget group project.
2. Participants will, if desired, receive a copy of the Master Budget template file in Excel complete with student handout, solution, and grading rubric.

Session format will be an interactive presentation if participants bring a laptop with Microsoft Excel.
Instructional in how to manipulate project for multiple versions.

Presenters: Monica Mendoza, PhD, Stetson University, Bonnie Holloway, Stetson University

Saturday 9:55 – 10:45

Excel Spreadsheets as a Tool for Teaching and Learning Intermediate Accounting Online

This presentation describes several ways spreadsheets may enhance online teaching and learning in the first two intermediate financial accounting courses. Specific examples developed and used by the presenter will be demonstrated and discussed.

Spreadsheet technology may be used to effectively address issues related to online course delivery. In particular, Excel can be used to harness technology to deliver learning and assessment activities and maintain academic productivity in the face of increasing class sizes, diminishing resources, and distance learning formats. Properly integrated, it can serve as a course management system that organizes materials, serves as a communication interface, and summarizes student progress. A new feature in development is to tie Excel spreadsheets to databases so that the functionality is available fully online and the data is continuously archived.

In addition, Excel is an excellent pedagogical tool in a discipline that relies so heavily on the software in actual practice. Students benefit from enhanced opportunities to explore the integrated nature of accounting concepts using this technology, which is equipped to map quantitative relationships. Examples of course assignments will demonstrate how the formatting and functionality features of Excel are incorporated to design and organize data and forms and to provide student feedback. Formative exercises guide students by providing real-time prompts and feedback as they progress. Algorithmic assignments provide opportunities for repeated practice with different data sets and enable individualized exams to be generated with built-in answer keys and feedback where each student receives a unique version.

Audience members will be encouraged to interact with the presenter to promote ways that this technology can be enhanced to benefit both instructors and students. The learning objectives of the session focus on understanding new ways that Excel can be utilized as a teaching and course management tool as well as appreciating how it can serve as an instructional partner for online intermediate accounting students.

Presenter: Christine Jonick, PhD, University of North Georgia

Saturday 11:15 – 12:30

Using Cases in Managerial and Cost Accounting

This presentation will explore the use of cases in teaching managerial and cost accounting.  However, some information will apply to all accounting disciplines, so all instructors are encouraged to attend. Topics covered will include:

WHAT are cases?
WHY should we use cases in our classes?
WHO should use cases?
WHICH cases are appropriate for my classes?
WHERE can I find cases?
HOW can I use cases?

Also, the presenter will give examples of some cases she has used in class and cases suggested by other accounting educators. Instructors will leave the session with a toolbox of tips and techniques that can be implemented right away. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session and time for sharing.

Presenter: Brenda Mattison, CMA, Tri-County Technical College