Flipping the tax classroom for a better student learning experience.

• Author: Franklin, Mitchell

Over the past several years, the author has observed through networking with various firms and other professional organizations that many accounting major recruits have a key weakness: Students' verbal and written communication skills require improvement.

Universities and firms want students and graduates to be able to communicate clearly and professionally for everyday email as well as professional documents, such as research memos. A tax class offers opportunities to practice drafting research memos and client letters and the related research and to develop critical-thinking skills crucial to such writing. Though many tax faculty include preparation of these documents in their courses, the classroom time committed to writing and coaching likely is minimal or nonexistent because so much time is devoted to lecture and discussion of technical topics.

A tax professor's desire to work more with students on key communication skills comes up against the reality of time constraints. A traditional semester or, in many distance-learning formats, a condensed semester, with the significant amount of technical content necessary to prepare students for future courses as well as the CPA exam, leaves little time for instructors to focus on writing. Thus, much of the effort to advance student writing and critical thinking is left to other courses within the college curriculum, often taught by faculty who are not even part of the business program and do not have experience in the writing or analysis required of tax professionals.

With the increased use and availability of technology, it should be easier, though, for faculty to deliver technical content in a way that allows devoting more class time to writing without eroding the delivery of technical content. This approach should better meet the needs of the workplace.

This column looks at how technology and innovative teaching methods can be used to help students develop better writing and analytical skills for tax work. The approach described is commonly referred to today as "flipping" the classroom.

The Basics of Flipping

The classroom is "flipped" when the instructor uses the opposite of traditional teaching methods to deliver content. In a traditional classroom, class time is used to deliver information. The instructor blends lectures with some examples, introducing material enabling students to describe and understand basic concepts. However, there is often no significant opportunity in class to think critically and apply concepts. The student is expected to use critical thinking and apply skills independently through homework and projects outside class, individually and as a group.

A flipped classroom takes the opposite approach. Students are responsible for learning the traditional lecture material outside class. Then, more of the work traditionally done outside class is done inside the classroom. Thus, "homework" becomes more about reading and listening to recorded lectures and similar materials, while class time is devoted more to problem-solving and writing activities.

To better ensure that students watch lecture videos outside class, a follow-up quiz or questions can allow students to demonstrate their understanding of the assigned material. The follow-up activity in class is not meant to repeat the content of the videos but instead is devoted to application problems and having the students work together to apply the concepts. This application can be through computing homework problems from a textbook or performing other in-class activities and projects prepared by the instructor. In many subject areas, videos are available on the internet through sources such as Khan Academy or YouTube that can provide additional support after classroom activities. Some textbook publishers might also have suitable video or similar materials for students to use.

Within a flipped tax class, class time is used to work not only on more complicated projects and problems but also on the writing skills necessary to prepare more powerful workpaper memos and client letters.

Through a partially flipped classroom, the mix of outside multimedia and class time is allocated so that approximately 75% to 80% of class time is dedicated to the flipped...