Discipline & AI Literacy 

The gap between what students expect and what the profession actually demands is what led me to build a Discipline Literacy module for ACCT 2301, Principles of Financial Accounting. The module launches before any traditional content begins. Its job is to help students make a mindset shift before the material gets hard and before they quietly decide that accounting is not for them.

Objectives

There are a few key components to this module: 

1. The Expert Lens: Defining what discipline literacy means in accounting.

2. Science of Studying: Stating that accounting can not be crammed and tips on how to effectively study using the textbook and video resources.

3. AI and Digital Literacy via EY ARC (the experience lab): This is a free resource offered by the Big 4 Accounting firm EY. Students will complete a series of AI and digital literacy assignments to introduce AI and its ethical use in the accounting profession.

4. Closing Reflection: The module closes with a structured reflection activity. Students write about where they currently sit in their own cognitive development, what surprised them, and what they want to be more intentional about as learners. Research on metacognition consistently shows that this kind of prompted self-examination improves learning outcomes, not just engagement. For many community college students, being explicitly invited to examine their own thinking as a skill is a genuinely new experience.

Results

Come back to see how this turns out! I developed this module in the spring of 2026 and plan to implement it starting the summer of 2026 in my principles of financial accounting courses.

👀Keep an eye out in Faculty Focus for an upcoming article about this adventure!