Accounting 101 or the “basic” course in the USA has many, many issues or areas that could be improved for most students. The top 10 issues as I see them.
- Accounting 101 generally covers an impossible amount of material to learn in one semester
- The general material and difficulty, scope, varies widely
- Teacher is not clear on expectations or even provide the class notes
- Lack of relevancy – Do the students want to be CPAs or balance a checkbook?
- Lack of empathy to work, to have the “slow kids” understand
- Tricky tests. Why?
- What is to be remembered in the class when the semester is over?
- Irrelevant study guide. Just saying.
- Lack of sensitivity to different learnings styles and student education background
- No excuses anyway – Accounting Play is here and may students persevere
Teaching is a challenging task and it is impossible to be perfect for every student. We educators are operating with significant constraints of time, budget, and resources. Education is a strange juncture of being extremely expensive – say $2,000 for one private school tuition alone (not to count other living expenses) to being free on the internet. Technology has changed the face of education – but how? So much technology and noise it is possible to be creating more work for ourselves. And are students really better for it? It is our firm belief that yes, accounting education can be better through technology.
The core didactic philosophy of Accounting Play involves teaching using different learning style delivery methods to engage and retain students. By teaching the basics through conventional lessons, to audio, illustrations, games, and worksheets – we are looking to get take the fundamentals off of the teacher plate. By providing students such resources, you can save your voice for what counts in the classroom.
What counts for accounting instructors this year? Relevancy. Personalization. Projects. Critical thinking. Let us help with the regurgitation part that requires little customization. Increase cash with a debit. Got it. But what the technology cannot do is walk students say through a group project where maybe a public company is analyzed. Technology cannot easily acknowledge that a student might barely speak English. Technology cannot guess the most effective delivery method for your group of students. Technology does not effectively grade accounting group written projects combined with class presentations, nor adapt or provide important feedback as it relates.
Thanks for your interest in providing your students an additional resource. How has tech in the classroom changed things in positive or negative ways? Please sound off on your issues, thoughts, questions, and concerns below.