Lincoln Academy of Learning & Teaching

During a school community action day, we had discussions with students about the third-year Accounting and Finance programme and specifically the core financial accounting module.  There were concerns about the relevance of the assignment as well as comments on how unprepared the students felt moving into employment.  Soon after the school action day we had discussions with local and national accountancy and finance graduate employers.  They commented on the lack of awareness of what an accountant does in practice and the different roles available to students.  The employers were also disappointed with the student’s experience of accounting software and other technology.  Considering this feedback, we very keen to redesign the module to enable students to really understand the relevance of the subject to an Accounting and Finance career as well as incorporate technology and tasks they would likely experience in future employment.

I attended the CABS LTSE (Learning, Teaching, Student Experience) conference and was introduced to AccountingPod – an accounting software teaching tool.  I received funding from the LIBS T&L innovation fund for £1,000 and worked with AccountingPod to develop a programme that would be suitable for the third-year students.  Students completed the trial over a six-week period with an aim to maximise digital application and digital agility as well as improve future skills.  Students worked in a live version of Xero, a well-recognised cloud-based accounting tool and were guided through set tasks using mock data and scenarios.  The tasks were created to ensure coverage of the required syllabus and learning outcomes.

The project was a great success with students enjoying some practical hands-on experience of an accounting software which they may encounter in their professional lives.  The reporting they created formed the basis of an assessment and both the correct application, the final output and additional commentary in the form of a client email was incorporated in to the final mark.

Following the trial, 24 students responded to a questionnaire asking about their experiences.  All 24 students answered yes to ‘Do you think AccountingPod would be a good addition to the ACCFIN programme?’.  Students commented: “Really practical and related to the real word”, “it was a very good experience/opportunity and doesn’t make me as nervous going into my career as someone who has no experience in accounting due to covid” and “This was a great opportunity to have as it provided me gaining another skill that I could use in my CV!”.

During the revalidation of the UG degree, I redesigned the core module to incorporate AccountingPod and practical sessions into the teaching schedule.  The final assessment was also amended to incorporate the reporting created in Xero.  All students are given different data sets which are algorithmically created to allow for an authentic and unique assessment.  The newly revalidated module was recognised on the revalidation commendations for including significant employability skills.