Travis R. Martin, CPA, MBA

Product placements in movies and television shows have become common thanks to Steven Spielberg and his inclusion of a little-known bite sized Hershey product into his movie, E.T. n this lesson, students learn the basics of product placement.

“Accounting Monopoly” is a great way to give your Accounting students practice journalizing business transactions in a simulated business environment.

In this activity, students combine their knowledge of bank accounts with online research to produce a sales presentation for a bank of their choice.

You can demonstrate the power of anchoring to your classes using this in-class activity, which comes directly from the book Predictably Irrational.

This budgeting lesson consists of a PowerPoint discussion, two activities, and a budgeting project – suitable for 9-12 grades.

In this activity, the students research and recommend hotels based on a set of criteria I give them. The students then pitch their hotel ideas using a PowerPoint presentation. From these presentations, I pick my hotel room. The winning student (or group), gets a “mystery gift bag” from the hotel, which consists of everything I can take from the room and lobby without going to jail.

We have all been there at some point. You receive a bill in the mail that just isn’t right. Or maybe you purchased a product and were less than satisfied. Knowing how to handle these situations is part of being a smart consumer. In this activity, students will learn the process for filing a complaint.

Nearly all teens are into tunes (some so much that they stay tethered to their iPod 24/7). With this in mind, I like to work a few music-related activities into Computer Applications.

To break the monotony of typing out “www sss xxx ooo lll …” over and over, I like to incorporate Keyboarding Basketball, a simple game that gets the students out of their seats during timed typing exercises.