Student Guide Corner

This blog went over 50,000 views a few days ago. Obviously, no one would have ever heard of this blog over the past 27 months if it weren�t for people like you who have spread the word. First, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I cannot tell you how very much I appreciate your helping out by telling other people about my writings. Second, I�d like to ask you for a very personal favor. The second edition of my Financial Accounting textbook that I wrote with C. J. Skender (of UNC) came out today. (Today!!!!) I feel like I just experienced the birth of another child. I thought the first edition was good but I honestly think the second edition is great. It approaches the introduction of financial accounting differently because it is written in a Socratic Method style. It is the book that I have always wanted to write and I am thrilled with it. It covers what I think college students should learn in an introductory course. And, although I am obviously bia...

Before I write about my next favorite quote about teaching, I have a quick announcement. I know that a lot of the folks who read this blog teach accounting. As most of you probably know, I am the coauthor of an Advanced Accounting textbook (McGraw-Hill) and an Introduction to Financial Accounting textbook (Flat World Knowledge). Over the past 6-8 months, I have spent an incredible amount of time helping to create the second edition of the Financial Accounting textbook (with C.J. Skender of UNC). That second edition will be coming out in the next 4-5 weeks. The book was very successful in the first edition but (as you might imagine) I�d love to increase that adoption rate for the second edition. We didn�t make any huge changes but we must have made 1,000 small tweaks. I was pleased with the first edition but I�m truly ecstatic about the second. I know it is a clich� but we set out to build a better mousetrap. For example, it is the only Socratic Method textbook that you ...

When marketing guru Seth Godin enters the fray, people listen. His Textbook Rant blog post today focuses on the expense, impracticality, and lack of engagement textbooks provide and stresses how quickly they become outdated. He declares, "As far as I can tell, assigning a textbook to your college class is academic malpractice." And he concludes, This industry deserves to die. It has extracted too much time and too much money and wasted too much potential. We can do better. A lot better. What didn't he say? He never mentioned that textbooks are inaccessible to many students - those with physical, vision or other print disabilities. But he offers a digital solution that offers accessibility at no cost to the student. The solution seems simple to me. Professors should be spending their time devising pages or chapterettes or even entire chapters on topics that matter to them, then publishing them for free online. (it's part of their job, remember?) When you have a clas...