Using Collaborative Learning Techniques to Teach Ethics to Accounting Students-Using Collaborative Learning Techniques to Teach Ethics

Video Transcription

Video Summary

This ethics webinar, hosted by the AAA with speakers Chevonne Alston, Tara Shawver, and William Miller, focused on innovative approaches to ethics education in accounting. Chevonne emphasizes cultivating ethical reasoning by integrating discussion boards, case studies, role plays, and self-evaluation into curricula. She recommends using real-world news articles and documentaries as teaching tools, highlighting the importance of engaging students with practical ethical dilemmas beyond textbooks. Chevonne also noted the need for educators to continually assess and improve their methods.

Tara presents the Giving Voice to Values (GVV) program, a collaborative, script-based approach asking students to consider how they would act on their ethical values in real scenarios. GVV addresses common rationalizations for unethical behavior and encourages students to identify and respond persuasively to these. Tara uses team-based video role plays graded with rubrics that assess ethical analysis and teamwork, fostering creativity, peer interaction, and reflection. Students reportedly find GVV engaging and memorable.

Bill discusses enhancing introductory accounting courses by integrating fraud and internal control concepts, centered on an internal control fraud case study involving a pharmacy. His approach includes individual case assignments with detailed feedback and a competitive group presentation event judged by local professionals. This practical, case-driven method increased student engagement and understanding of ethical dimensions in accounting practices. Bill also shared strategies for managing grading workloads and detecting AI-generated work.

Overall, the webinar showcased diverse, interactive ethics teaching strategies that connect academic content with real-world professional challenges, aiming to better prepare accounting students as ethical, trusted advisors.

Keywords

ethics education

accounting ethics

Siobhan Alston

Tara Shover

Bill Miller

Giving Voice to Values

case studies

role plays

internal control fraud

student engagement