New Educator’s Forum — Dear Angie

Welcome to Dear Angie!

Dear Angie is the Education Committee’s new forum to help us in the classroom. It’s for the class-torn, not the lovelorn. Send Dear Angie your questions and problems or offer her some great advice.

Advice to Dear Angie can be generic or course-specific, but you must provide enough information to enable classroom implementation. “Quick Tip” submissions are fine! Here’s an example of what we mean:

After I introduce the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) to my introductory management accounting course, I ask the class to suggest a startup company complete with goals, objectives, and a strategy (e.g., low cost, differentiation).
I divide the class into groups and have each group address one BSC component (e.g., financial, customer, internal processes, learning, and growth). With more groups, simply give multiple groups the same component.
The groups must identify the KSFs of the company in their component, decide what to measure to ensure success, and specify how to measure it. I then circulate for 15-20 minutes, helping and prodding, while ensuring that they measure items linked to the business strategy.
When I bring the class back to order, I have four individuals record the groups’ ideas on the board while I encourage discussion and questions.
The requirement to link “what’ to measure with “how” to measure while aligning everything with the stated strategy enhances student learning. This process occupies most of an hour.

The inaugural Dear Angie column follows. The Education Committee hopes that you both share your great teaching inspirations and pick up some terrific tips.

If you have tips to offer, please share! If you have a problem communicating a concept to a class, just ask and I’ll try to get you help. You can be anonymous — just tell Dear Angie and I’ll use your initials or a pseudonym. (Note that items may be edited for space.)

Dear Angie’s email address is:
angela.downey@uleth.ca
Hope I hear from you soon!
Angie

Dear Angie:
We have lots of group work in our classes. Students seem to feel that group “think” assignments are for fun, so the rigour with which they attack the discussion is lower than I would like. How can I improve the output of this group work?
Wondering in Waterloo

Dear Wondering in Waterloo:
Jane Bowen has two great exercises from her financial accounting course. You can apply these ideas to any group exercise to improve both focus and output. Jane writes:

"I had five groups of about six students each. I wanted them to review a financial statement and identify an analytical procedure the auditor could use to help assess whether a particular amount is appropriate.

"I asked the students to select an account, describe the test, and state whether it provided strong evidence or would be used to corroborate the amount with other evidence. Letting them work and then soliciting examples in a “class take-up” yielded responses unpredictable in quality and quantity. I have used the following techniques to improve things:

Before the group work starts, I place an index card on each group’s table. After a short discussion, I tell the groups to document their conclusions on the card and give the card to the group beside them. The group receiving the card must explain the procedure to the class. The group presenting the procedure can ask the group that wrote the card to clarify inadequate or unclear information. The process of writing the conclusion while knowing someone else will present it increases the diligence of the students. You can collect the cards at the end for future reference.
As the groups begin work, I place a blank overhead slide at the front of the class. The groups are told to write their procedure on the slide. Each group must contribute a different example to ensure diversity. This also increases the speed with which groups reach a consensus, since it gets increasingly difficult to come up with an original example. I then use the students’ slides to lead the class discussion with the groups contributing as required."

Jane and Angie both want to know about other ways to improve the output of group work.

Dear Angie:
I must convey the Cash Flow Statement to an introductory class. Do you have any hot tips that can make this easier and more effective?
Longing to know in London

Dear Longing to know in London:
I haven’t delved into financial accounting for a long time. Any good reader ideas out there?

Dear Angie:
Many new financial accounting students have difficulty understanding share capital and the idea that it is merely contributed investment. Can you help me get this idea across to a class?
Concerned in Calgary

Dear Concerned in Calgary:
Brenda Blakely has a great idea for helping you confused cowpokes. She uses a simulation to get her points across:

"As each student comes into class, I give them a $100 bill issued by the “Bank of Our College” with a picture of our program chair replacing the queen. Then I give the students an opportunity to invest by buying $100 shares in a brand new company we are forming. I provide blank share certificates that a law office might use when incorporating companies. When all the shares are sold, we put the first balance sheet up on the board.
"To start our business, we “buy” on account a supply of suckers. We then revise the balance sheet to show our inventory and payables, emphasizing that the income statement doesn’t change. Everyone then gets an opportunity to buy suckers from a person appointed as the inventory clerk. They can either use their $100 bill or buy on account if they get credit from the student appointed as the accounts receivable clerk.
"Once the transactions are complete, we update the balance sheet and income statement to reflect the cash and credit sales and the cost of goods sold. We can then pay off part of the supplier’s bill and again update the balance sheet while emphasizing that the income statement remains unchanged.
"After discussing the optimistic prospects for this business (if people are willing to pay $100 for a sucker!), I suggest that some shareholders might want to sell their shares for a profit. We illustrate that these transactions, being between investors, do not affect the financial statements. We can discuss the possibility of paying dividends, and students have asked about the impact of treasury stock (a concept raised early in our textbook).
"The exercise takes about 20 minutes and has been well received by students. I’ve found that the best time to do it is after the balance sheet and income statement are covered, about three weeks into our course."

Dear Angie:
I teach Intermediate Accounting and find two types of exam questions difficult to grade: Percentage-of-Completion Construction and Earnings per Share. How can I get students to organize their solutions so they are easy to grade? I have provided step-by-step instructions in the course notes, but grading both these topics remains a treasure hunt.
Torn in Toronto

Dear Torn in Toronto:
On some exams I give marks for format and/or clarity. For example, I do this with an equivalent units question with its multiple part computations. However, I don’t like to provide formats as I think it leads the students too much. Who has some ideas on this topic?

Dear Angie:
Here’s a great motivational tip! I send a formal letter, on real paper, to the home address of all A+ students in my intro classes. Excellent students can be anonymous in these classes, and should be congratulated on both their abilities and their desire to excel. The letter congratulates the student and comments on the continuous efforts needed to earn the mark. Students often learned of their grade through this letter (though marks are now posted immediately online). However, the chance to say “Hey Mom/Dad, look at this!”, and get some positive reinforcement, is the real benefit. I get a tremendous response from students and their parents when the letters arrive. My favourite is from a student who lost his suit on the plane coming home for Christmas and was “in the doghouse” as a result. That ended when the letter arrived. Jon said his mother cried when she read it.
Joan Conrad

Dear Joan:
What an amazing idea! I imagine that students would remember getting this letter for a long time. I would like to take a course from you! However, a note of caution: I’m not sure that FOIP will let us have student addresses anymore. What other inspirational ideas can you readers share with us?

Dear Angie:
What do I do when my accounting students can’t write a proper sentence? I’m not trying to teach English, but their writing is unacceptable in a business environment.
Frustrated in Fredricton

Dear Frustrated in Fredricton:
We may all share this problem. I spend an enormous amount of time grading case assignments for English content. Some of the marks are for English grammar, organization, etc. However, this doesn’t reduce the time required. Are we responsible for the writing skills of our accounting students? I think we are. What are your thoughts about this problem? What can/should we do?

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