Abstract

In our view some students have grown accustomed to memorizing what the textbook and Professors say (maybe even with a review session before exams to go over what will be on the exam), and then the students parrot it back on exam day -- often ‘earning’ a good grade  in return -- with the students then suffering a ‘mental enema’.  In other words, these students are satisfied and often rewarded grade-wise in becoming ‘human parrots’.  In today’s world, with Google available to ‘look everything up’, we do not see a tremendous future for human parrots.  Instead we are trying to get students to become adaptive problem solvers -- who will be better able to handle future opportunities and problems that do not even exist today.

Our two main objectives, are 1.) to simplify accounting presentations to help students understand – NOT to ‘dummy down’ accounting and 2.) to tailor our presentations for use in the ‘live classroom’, or the distance learning environment.

How do we do it?  As illustrated in this article we: do not cover every page in the textbook;   stress the ‘Whys’ not just the ‘Hows’; state when and why we don’t agree with the textbook;  and expose our students to some of the controversial items facing the accounting/business world in the rapidly Changing world.

Although we are accounting professors, and our examples therefore are couched in accounting, many of our approaches are equally applicable to other disciplines.