Voices of Impact: Meet Wendy Tietz transcript

I'm Wendy Tietz. I teach Introduction to Financial Accounting, Introduction to Managerial Accounting, and Advanced Accounting Analytics and Technology at the other end of the curriculum. I've been at Kent State University in Ohio for 26 years. And I am an author of three textbooks at Pearson, two financial accounting textbooks, and one managerial accounting.

I think the biggest challenge that we as accounting educators are facing today is pretty much lack of engagement with students because students have their attention pulled in many different directions, whether it's AI or TikTok.

So what we're working really hard on is making the material engaging with examples that students can relate to and reasons for them to pay attention to this.

What's unique about my books is that I think we've made them very student-friendly. I teach about 300 students per class, and I've worked very hard to make the language accessible, to make the examples interesting, and make them real-world relevant.

So what drives me as an educator is working with students who are the future of our profession, the future of our country, and knowing that I have the chance to influence these people in how they interpret accounting, how they operate in business, and how they understand how business is run.

I have tested everything in the book in my own classes, and I have run it through hundreds of students before it even makes it into the public eye.

My students have seen it, I have fine-tuned it with them, so it is very clear and easy to understand by the time it makes it into the book.

In my lab, there's several assignments I use with my own students. One thing I really like are the Excel auto-graders. And the reason I like those is because they really reinforce cell references and formulas, which sound so basic with students, but they can't just have it in one class and know it. So we keep layering it in. And in those Excel auto-grader exercises, there is a tutorial version where I have recorded a video of me walking through that exercise to show the students how to do it step by step. So you have the option as an instructor to pick the tutorial version or not. I also think we've done a really good job of providing chapter lecture videos in there for students to watch.

We've also done recordings of how to do the homework. So we've provided a lot of help resources right in MyLab for the student.

We know that AI is rapidly changing how our students are learning and how the accounting profession is operating and how business in general operates.

So we have developed several assignments that are bite-sized chunks for students to begin to learn to use AI in responsible ways. So there are assignments built into MyLab where students are told to use AI or interpret AI results, and then they can submit their answers, and it's auto-graded. We also are currently putting in more exercises to help develop critical thinking and professional skepticism as it relates to AI. And those exercises will be in there for students to use as well. And those are technology agnostic, so students use them without requiring to use a particular tool.

If I could offer advice to students who are just starting their journey in higher ed, it would be to read and take in as much as you can and question that as well.

Just don't accept it in blind faith, but critically analyze it and keep learning.