Linking Concepts to a Student’s Life

A response to the Misunderstood Activity
created by Peter Sheedy (@PeterS)

Number of views: 130

I teach Management account, which is a topic that most students think they don’t have previous experience with formally, but with many concepts, they actually have personal experience (such as budgeting).  However, a concept that students struggle with is understanding and applying the different components of costs.  For example, a cost can be direct or indirect, variable, fixed or mixed.   Understanding the composition of cost is a key component to having a deep understanding of any business.      This is a new concept to most students, and I have had a hard time connecting it to their own personal experiences.

I tried a class exercise where we took Q-cards with various business costs, and they had to put them in the right pile.   I also used large Post-it notes to try to bring a visual representation.  I have had good success using this exercise to learn debits and credits when teaching bookkeeping and financial accounting.   While it seem that they could grasp the concepts, when it came to applying those concepts in an actual problem-solving situation, they were unable to do so.  This leads me to believe that they never internalized the learning.

So the question becomes how I can link this concept to a student’s life so they can experience it themselves.

Exercise: Direct & Indirect Costs:

Ask the students to consider if they wanted to get an A in the class and what they would have to do to achieve that.  They would identify things like going to class, doing assignments, studying, reading the course material etc.   I would guide them to think beyond just course-specific activities because there are many other things they need to do, such as sleeping, managing stress, eating, getting to class on time, and paying their bills etc..    How many of these things do they directly control?  Which of these things do they not control?  Which of these things do they sort-of control?

This would allow students to connect personal experience to the concept of costs you directly control and costs you do not control (indirect) and costs  that sort of control (mixed)

Example for "Linking Concepts to a Student’s Life":
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