Reel life in the tax classroom: learning through movies.

• Author: Cook, Ellen D.

ONE OF THE CHALLENGES IN THE TAX classroom is to develop students' ability to-ognize when a tax issue exists as a result of a situation/transaction so that the students can then research an answer or planning opportunity and communicate that idea. According to the AICPA Model Tax Curriculum (http://tax.aicpa.org/Community/Model+Tax+Curriculum.htm), first developed in 1996 and significantly revised in 2007, a student completing the tax component of the body of knowledge for entry into the accounting profession should have the ability to:

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* Draw supportable conclusions on tax issues by using research skills (including accessing and interpreting sources of authoritative support) to identify and evaluate strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities; and

* Communicate tax conclusions and recommendations in a clear and concise manner to relevant stakeholders.

This column describes the Movie Project, a project designed to be used in the first introductory tax class, which accomplishes the learning outcomes described above while engaging Generation Y's digital interest and desire for collaboration.

Movies and Television in the Classroom

Simply put, movies and television provide material that instructors can use to illustrate real situations. Movies have been used for this purpose extensively in higher education in psychology, criminal justice, management, accounting, health information management, ethics, and English classrooms. Entire websites such as teachwithmovies.org, Allmovie.com, and Uk.imdb.com are dedicated to providing supporting material, including learning guides, lesson plans, and quizzes for hundreds of movies for use at the K-12 level.

The Movie Project, based on an idea presented at an American Taxation Association Mid-Year Meeting teaching session, has been used in various forms in alternating semesters over the past several years to drive home the fact that tax issues affect students as individual taxpayers every day in ways they may not realize. Currently, students watch the movies away from the classroom. However, an instructor may screen an entire movie or snippets of movies to accomplish many of the same objectives in an in-class activity. Federal copyright law specifically exempts teachers at public schools or nonprofit educational institutions who show lawfully purchased or rented copies of a movie in classroom instruction (17 U.S.C. [section]110(1)). The same exemption applies if the teacher wishes to...