By Eric Weinstein, author of Labyrinth Learning’s Excel for Accounting and Payroll Accounting
Tag Archives: accounting teaching tips
Effectively Teaching an Excel for Accounting Course
By Eric Weinstein, author of Labyrinth Learning’s Excel for Accounting and Payroll Accounting
Continue reading Effectively Teaching an Excel for Accounting Course
Learn the Importance of Teaching Students Ethics in Accounting
In order to become successful accountants, accounting students must learn a wide array of skills, mathematical concepts, and software. In the midst of imparting all of this technical knowledge, it’s common for instructors and schools to overlook an important part of the field of accounting: ethics. Teaching students ethics in accounting is far less common than it should be. Once you step back and consider its importance, you’ll likely be inspired to spend some time focusing on ethics with your students.
Unethical accounting practices don’t just cost companies a few dollars. Although accountants often assume they are doing little harm by engaging in unethical practices from time to time, the truth is, poor accounting can bring down entire companies. Many businesses have crumbled to the ground following an accounting scandal that started as a simple breach of ethics and quickly grew into something larger.
By showing students examples of instances in which a lack of ethical accounting practices brought down big companies, you are demonstrating to them just how much power they will actually hold in their future positions. You’ll also show them that what starts off as a small breach of ethics can have profound effects that they never predicted; it’s better to adhere to ethical practices from the very beginning.
Labyrinth Learning provides the materials you need for teaching students ethics in accounting. Contact us to learn more about our learning software that benefits both instructors and students.
Teach Students Accounting by Playing Monopoly
Teaching new subject matter can sometimes be difficult – one way to get information across easier is by using an activity that students are already familiar with. For example, you can actually use the popular board game Monopoly in order to teach students accounting. The following are tips on how to teach accounting with Monopoly:
- Ask your students to use profit and loss sheets while playing the game and to predict expenses and income as they go. Make it so that a single trip around the board equals a single month on their profit and loss statements.
- Compare the management of personal and business expenses in real life with playing the game by highlighting the importance of anticipating their expected income and their expenses. Discuss what happens if they don’t plan properly, using examples of losing businesses and homes in the game to mirror real life consequences.
- Require that receipts be written out whenever money is used within the game, whether it’s for purchases or for paying rent. These receipts will be used for when the students are writing up their profit and loss statements.
- Ask your students to create a graph that compares their initial predictions with their actual expenses and income to see how things change as the rounds progress. This will help them see whether they became better at making financial predictions or worse.
Use these tips regarding how to teach accounting with Monopoly. Contact us at Labyrinth Learning for additional teaching resources and advice.
The Promising Future of Accounting
Trying to decide what area to study when going to college can not only be difficult, it can be downright scary. All you have to do is look at the economic landscape – many college graduates are struggling with repaying their massive student loans as well as in trying to secure employment in their chosen field of study. Fortunately, those who are studying to become accountants can feel safe in the knowledge that the future of accounting looks bright.
The new wave of accountants entering the job market have a lot to offer, so it should come as no surprise that they are excited about their future. Accounting students were recently asked about their thoughts concerning the future using Conferences.io, an interactive conference participation software, as well as MBSN (management by sticky notes). Accounting students were also asked what they wanted from their future employers.
Using the Insights to Action process, accounting students provided questions as well as comments on everything from the history of the profession, the future of the profession and the current state of the profession. Much of the information from the presentation was recorded or filmed and has been organized by hindsight, foresight, and insight categories.
Find out what accounting students think about the future of accounting and what they expect from their accounting careers and employers. For additional information on accounting and for information about our educational products and services, be sure to contact us at Labyrinth Learning today.
How You Can Make Accounting Exciting for Students
How many times while teaching your accounting classes, you’ve looked around and your students are sitting there with glazed eyes, trying to appear interested in what you’re teaching? You can shake things up in your accounting classroom by including some of these fun and educational games to get and keep your students’ attention.
- Bingo. Create bingo cards with a variety of questions. Students have to come up with the correct answer in order to cover spaces on their card.
- Trivia. Everyone loves to play trivia and there are several different variations which can be played when it comes to making accounting fun. Divide students into groups or allow them to play individually. Then set questions up to be answered as true/false, multiple choice or open-ended.
- Faux Reports. Develop a pretend company complete with fake records then have the students, again either in groups or separate, analyze the statements and financial records. Devise the game so a specific goal or solution has to be reached.
Labyrinth Learning offers textbooks, instructor support materials, eLab components and other interactive on-line teaching tools covering a wide variety of subjects, including accounting.
For additional information on how we can assist your students through their educational journey, please contact us today.