Teaching Tech Agility in Business Education

• Rapid advancements in technology require regular updates to course materials so that students graduate with relevant, up-to-date knowledge.
• Business schools must take the lead in preparing students to navigate a rapidly evolving technological landscape, equipping them with the agility to adapt to new tools and innovations.
• Educators should emphasize that technological expertise is not a one-time achievement, but an ongoing process of learning and adapting.

Transcript

Joyce Strawser: [00:11] I think what we have to do as educators is, first of all, we have to embrace all forms of technology. We can't fear them and worry about how this will impact, for example, academic honesty.

[00:22] We have to be sure that our students know what the tools that are being used out there and that we apply them so that ideally, in an ideal situation, throughout our accounting curriculum, we would see students increasingly using different platforms, different technologies, as they move through their accounting courses so that we could bring to life the concepts with applications. 

Claudia Girardone: [00:46] We need to prepare the students for this world that is changing and is changing really fast. I mean, technology has a pace that clearly it's also difficult for faculty to keep up.

[Educators] have to embrace all forms of technology

[01:01] Having, you know, the lecture notes one year and the next year, you need to update them significantly because there's been some breakthrough in technology. And really, that has to completely be updated for students to make them ready to go in the workplace.

[01:20] I really believe that business school has a responsibility to do that, but also an opportunity.

Strawser: [1:28] This would be this area of really educating students and making them technologically agile. It would really be an opportunity to partner with employers, to partner with CPA firms, [and] corporations, to ask them to expose our students to the tools and platforms they're using and to show the students how these are applied.

I really believe that business school has a responsibility to [update its curriculum], but also an opportunity.

[01:50] We do have to emphasize to students that these are all things that will change. So it's more about teaching them how you would learn something like this. Where would you go to maintain your training, maintain your expertise, than to say, all you have to do is know how to do this particular coding or use this particular software, and then you're set.

[02:14] It has to be about educating them that it never stops in terms of learning and absorbing new tools, new techniques.