AICPA Accounting Education Center

The AICPA Accounting Education Center homepage (http://bit.ly/2P5yJdi) provides an overview of some of the organization's academic resources, such as classroom materials and the Extra Credit newsletter. There are also several items focused on becoming a CPA and links to AICPA TV videos, student scholarships and educator awards, and Young CPA career specialization information. The Accounting Education Center Resources page (http://bit.ly/2MSKPt8) includes a 32-page downloadable “Spring 2016 College Texts & Resources Catalog” of the AICPA's textbooks in several areas, including fraud and business valuation, management accounting, accounting and auditing, not-for-profit, and tax (http://bit.ly/2PHEn6A). Although the booklet is two years old, readers should be aware that most textbooks other than tax are not updated annually, so this is still a very handy resource.

The AICPA Classroom Materials for Accounting Educators webpage (http://bit.ly/2Nmtu8F) serves as a portal for educational materials by topic, including a Core Competency Framework and a Curriculum Toolbox. The Curriculum Toolbox (http://bit.ly/2wqNm3i) can create a customized class project using the AICPA's website resources. The user selects the class level (initial course, junior- and senior-level, or graduate), the discipline, and the competency (skill). A trial selection of junior-and senior-level, tax, and communication resulted in “Out-ofthe-Box Learning in Tax Class” as a 30-page e-book.

Another option for locating teaching ideas is to scroll through the topics covered under Classroom Materials, which include auditing, business valuation, ethics, financial accounting and reporting, fraud and forensics, and information management and technology assurance. Users generally need AICPA membership to access the specific topic resources, but most are available without specific section membership. For example, the audit classroom resources page offers a case with extensive handouts, an audit simulation game, and a list of technology to use in the classroom, along with assignments that use the tools (http://bit.ly/2olsRSd). The financial accounting and reporting page includes nearly 40 ideas, such as “A FASB Accounting Standards Codification Project for Introductory Financial Accounting,” which is downloadable as a 10-page lesson guide that lets students get hands-on with the ASC (http://bit.ly/2Lv7TsQ).

Although tax accounting educational resources are absent from the Accounting Education Center, instructors can find useful materials on the Tax Resource Library (http://bit.ly/2MCXQaT) and the Tax Reform Resource Center. Tax section members can access Tax Education Resources for Students and Teachers (http://bit.ly/2MALZKb), which includes access to the Model Tax Curriculum and archived Tax Advisor “Campus to Clients” columns (http://bit.ly/2wvuVug), along with many useful tools such as the Federal Tax Law Hierarchy Quick Reference Chart (http://bit.ly/2P8U9Xi).

“Campus to Clients” articles describe classroom projects and specific teaching tools, as well as discuss general teaching methods. “The Model Tax Curriculum: 2014 Revisions Provide a Valuable Tool for Accounting Programs” (August 2014) describes the AICPA's vision for tax education, the importance of undergraduate tax education, objectives and learning outcomes, and teaching methods (http://bit.ly/2LuPvRd). “Sample Course Syllabuses [sic]: Undergraduate Accounting Majors” (August 2014) contains detailed content outlines for two different approaches to teaching a basic tax class, in alignment with the revised Model Tax Curriculum (http://bit.ly/2wtlWKb). Syllabus A addresses business entity taxation first and individual taxation second, while Syllabus B does the reverse. Both include tax research, tax planning, and tax return projects. A Model Tax Curriculum publication is available as a downloadable 16-page PDF and includes most of the information in these two articles in one handy document (http://bit.ly/2wpJMXf).

Extra Credit is a free e-newsletter that provides articles on teaching, general current information for educators, and links to AICPA news items (http://bit.ly/2NtTEq0). The August issue includes “Great Activities for the First Day of Class” to help instructors and students get to know each other. Suggestions include giving students two minutes to interview each other in pairs, conducting “scavenger hunts” to get students to move around and talk to their classmates, and using accounting puzzles and games (http://bit.ly/2MwobY5).

A July article, “Should Students Learn Sustainability Accounting?” provides ideas for introducing students to the topic in an existing accounting course, such as using textbook supplements, bringing in expert speakers, and assigning a short project (http://bit.ly/2Pazodw). “Educator Resources from the Big Four” is a June 2018 article that describes the case studies, classroom materials, videos, teaching notes, and other tools provided by these organizations (http://bit.ly/2wuZPmJ). Finally, suggestions for “How to Attract More Diverse Accounting Students” include connecting with high school students, hosting support networks for diverse students, and helping students get to know classmates from different backgrounds (http://bit.ly/2ofpGeF).

ICAEW Educational Films

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), the U.K. counterpart to the AICPA, is committed to raising the standards for audit and tax work by providing educational resources, many of which are highlighted on its website (www.icaew.com). The ICAEW produces educational films with a broader, more conceptual perspective for training and business development purposes, which it licenses to accounting firms, banks, and universities. The films, which can be found at www.icaew.com/films, present hypothetical scenarios that allow participants to discuss difficult issues and ethical responses. They run approximately 40 minutes each, but are designed with multiple segments that can be viewed and discussed one at a time.

False Assurance presents a hypothetical scenario in which a company's survival has been threatened by bad actions of the board of directors and failure of the auditors to find the problem issues. The purposes of the film include increasing awareness of common risk issues and improving capabilities in corporate governance, forensic accounting, and risk advisory services. A two-minute trailer and more information about the film are available at www.icaew.com/falseassurance.

Without Question examines conflict within a family-owned business that is trying to become a listed entity, including the founding owners' loss of control and the struggle by the new directors to take control and follow good governance practices. The film addresses reliance on experts, accounting estimates, and confidentiality, as well as risk assessment from both audit and nonaudit service providers. A one-minute trailer and additional details can be found at www.icaew.com/withoutquestion.

https://www.icaew.com/learning-and-development/icaew-educational-films

Teaching and Learning Toolbox

The Teaching and Learning Toolbox (http://teachingandlearningtoolbox.com/) is a website created by accounting professors to share their interest in technology tools for the classroom. Many of the resources, however, are actually general business tools, and CPAs in practice will find them useful for organizing their work, preparing documentation, making presentations, and other professional activities. The high point is the Technology Tool Resource List (http://bit.ly/2of1SHT), which is an alphabetical list of currently 60 resources covering activities from scheduling to document creation to collaboration. Accounting instructors should check out the “Using Technology and Blooms Taxonomy to Raise the Learning Bar!” (http://bit.ly/2wqQ4G0), a one-page PDF that groups the toolbox resources under Bloom's six learning objective levels of remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating.