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.

April 12, 2019

10:45 am - 12:00 pm
Session 1.01: The Future of Technology and Accounting Education: Developing Creative, Critical Thinkers
Presenters: Markus Ahrens,  Saint Louis Community College-Meramec, Cathy J. Scott, Navarro College
Are you having difficulty keeping up with how quickly technology is changing? Do you feel that you already have too many topics to cover in your accounting course? This interactive session will discuss disruptive technologies and how quickly they're changing the accounting profession and the accounting classroom. Disruptive technologies discussed in this session will include Blockchain, AI, Advanced Robotics, 3-D Printing and Big Data. Resources will be introduced which can help to successfully integrate technology into your classroom environment. Participants will be provided the opportunity to determine which technology resources can best facilitate critical thinking within their courses, as well as fit with their teaching style.

1:45 pm - 3:25 pm
Session 2.01: Using Augmented Reality (HP Reveal and PowerPoint) for Student Engagement
Presenter: Edward Monsour, California State University, Los Angeles
This session will include a review and introduction to Augmented Reality with applications for classroom use to include; creating AR (APP/website - application trigger and overlay) and use of AR applications (pre-course/course outline, lesson plans, content development and homework worksheet).
(Session canceled)

3:55 pm - 5:35 pm
Session 3.01: PowerBI Focused Data Analytics for Future CPAs
Presenters: Larry Kanter, Southern Methodist University
This session will provide materials that students will be able to use in their first few years in their accounting careers. Learning objectives include; the importance of data analytics now and in the future, how to request data in a form that is useful, the need to preserve original data received from the client and only work on a copy, data privacy issues and the variability of data privacy laws around the world to include what to do if protected data is provided for analysis, what data looks like in the real world, focusing on the need for cleaning and normalizing data, how to clean and normalize data before performing analytics, how to analyze data in an efficient way, how to create visualizations and how to present findings to clients.

April 13, 2019

9:05 am - 10:45 am
Session 4.01: Part 1: Leveraging Data Analytics into Internal Audit: A Teaching Case
Presenters: Benjamin Carl Anderson, San Jose State University, Caroline Tso Chen, San Jose State University
In a very large multi-national corporation, the internal audit (IA) department relies on a data analytics software program to identify anomalies in the data from company-wide expense reports. The IA department also conducts randomized live reviews of expense reports from varying departments within the company. Upon reviewing normally immaterial expense reports from one employee in Marketing, who works remotely from the company's headquarters, a keen-eyed member of the IA team noticed a repetitive immaterial charge that did not need substantive documentation. From this seemingly insignificant point, the internal auditor was able to use the data analytics software to uncover a pattern of unjustified expenses and illicit fraternization with a senior manager in the same division. We use this case to demonstrate an application of data analytics to the internal audit process. Students also have the opportunity to learn about how investigating seemingly immaterial items can lead to discovering potentially material matters.
Part 2: Incorporating SAP into Accounting Coursework
Presenter: Colin G. Onita, San Jose State University
Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP), such as SAP, have been adopted by nearly all multinational business organizations as a way to integrate their accounting and finance operations together with their business operations. One of the main features and advantages of SAP in particular and of ERP in general is to provide management with a holistic and integrated view of the organization. Real time information about processes, events, resources and people in an organization enables decision makers to quickly adapt strategies that are effective and efficient to meet challenges and seize opportunities. Accordingly, it is extremely pertinent that accounting students become familiar with how ERP works and how accounting is integrated into ERP. This integrated view of organization enables students to understand processes, internal controls and risk in accounting systems. Such understanding should facilitate better comprehension of governance and assurance issues. With a process-based understanding that is complemented within a SAP platform, students, upon graduation, should effectively meet the needs of organizations. Using SAP as an example application, this session will provide instructors with a background of what ERP is and how accounting works in an ERP system. 

11:15 am - 12:30 pm
Session 5.01: Writing in Accounting Courses
Presenters: Elizabeth Grace, San Jose State University, Catherine Lycurgus, San Jose State University
The AICPA Core Competency Framework, the Accounting Education Change Commission, and others identify written and oral communications as  essential competencies for accountants in practice. As accounting educators, we teach students to prepare and use accounting information, but generally do not assess whether our students can communicate their ideas to clients and employers, and rarely help them develop communication competency. This session examines how accounting educators can fit writing into courses heavy with accounting content. We will share best practices learned from our experiences teaching accounting-oriented writing courses at the undergraduate and graduate level. Specifically, we plan to discuss and share the following; goals for writing in accounting courses, what types of writing assignments are effective in accounting courses, rubrics to help with grading and resources to help with grammar, how to teach writing when you are not a writing instructor and sample assignments previously used in our undergraduate and graduate courses.