Abstract
Our educational model is predicated on an expert lecturing to a class of attentive disciples. We rely on standardized repeated exams. As a junior accounting professor, I was encouraged to take a senior faculty member’s teaching notes and simply go and deliver the material. Rely on older exams or some variant thereof. Have a standard key to grade the exams. In essence, minimize the time spent on teaching so that I can work on research and get tenure. To be fair, my senior professors were watching out for me and were trying to put me on the shortest path to tenure.
I suspect AI will kill or at least severely challenge this teaching model. My lecture notes, either written out on the board or later in slides, contained condensed takeaways on the detailed rules to account for transactions. The usual intro and intermediate accounting classes cover the following topics: basic principles behind financial statements, revenue, cash, cash and cash equivalents, inventory, accounts receivable, property plant and equipment (PPE including depreciation and depletion, intangible assets, and leases), current liabilities and contingencies, long term liabilities (including leases, pension obligations, post-retirement obligations), stock holder’s equity, calculating EPS (earnings per share), investments, income taxes, and accounting changes and errors.
Read the full article on Forbes.