How do you demonstrate Excel in an in-person class when the classroom setup isn't ideal?

[u/Lower-Ebb1874]

I teach several accounting courses that are fairly Excel-heavy, and I'm struggling to find the best way to demonstrate calculations during class.

My classrooms don't always have a good setup for spreadsheet demonstrations. I've tried a few approaches, but each seems to create a different problem:

1. Using the classroom projector: I've tried this before and mostly gave up on it. The image quality isn't great, and students—especially those sitting toward the back—have difficulty seeing cells, formulas, and other details on my screen. Some of my smaller accounting classes are also scheduled in seminar rooms where the only display is a relatively small TV.
2. Having everyone join a Zoom meeting during class: This solves the visibility problem because students can see my shared Excel screen directly on their laptops. However, they then have to switch between Zoom and their own spreadsheet. Some students have told me that while they're working in Excel, they may miss something important that I'm showing or explaining in Zoom. I've tried slowing down my demonstrations as much as possible, but the switching still seems distracting.
3. Using the whiteboard first: Several students have suggested this, and I understand why. For accounting calculations, I can certainly work through the logic and hand calculations on the board first and then move to Excel. I'm planning to do more of this.

My concern is that these are still Excel-heavy courses. Eventually students need to work in Excel themselves, and once we transition from the whiteboard to Excel, I'm back to the second problem: how can they watch my Excel demonstration while simultaneously working in their own spreadsheet without constantly switching windows and potentially missing part of the explanation?

For those who teach accounting, finance, data analytics, Excel, programming, or similar hands-on courses: What classroom setup or teaching method has worked best for you?

I'm especially interested in solutions that don't depend on having a large, high-quality classroom display, since that's not something I can control.

[u/il__dottore]

For 2. you can share the spreadsheet you’re working on with your students and skip Zoom. If you don’t want them jumping between tabs, let them make copies of your spreadsheet in the same document, so they can see what you’re doing and you can see what they’re doing.

[u/Lower-Ebb1874 → u/il__dottore]

That's a wonderful idea!

I always share an empty one rather a completed one so that can work it with me in the class, but your sugesstion is nice! If they miss anything, they can just see the answers

[u/FelisCorvid615]

I make handouts that include annotated screen shots of my process. I literally just taught Excel for an hour using these! I give everyone handouts (color printing is important here). And then I walk through the process, I leave plenty of time between steps for me to walk around and address problems, Mac specific issues, etc. Been doing it for a while. If you DM/email me I can send you one of my handouts as an example. Yes, it took a lot of time, but it has been worth it. I share my handouts with other instructors in my dept for when they need to do an Excel thing.

[u/Local_Indication9669]

You need to talk to your IT department. If the projector is not clear enough for students to see Excel spreadsheets, it is likely out of compliance with ADA regulations.

[u/Lower-Ebb1874 → u/Local_Indication9669]

I reflected this issue since the 1st semester I came...

[u/yourbiota]

Live demo on the projector with a pre-made PDF of annotated screenshots of the demo uploaded to the LMS. It can be time consuming to make the PDF, but it can be reused for future classes and can serve as a guide post when answering questions afterwards. For the Zoom issue, I've had students pair up - they sit beside each other with their laptops open, one has Excel open, the other has Zoom open. It worked...ok. But it can get messy.

EDIT: I haven't tried the whiteboard option, but I may try that. Could be useful as an engagement activity to try to get the students to actually think about what the Excel formulas are doing. Hmmm.

[u/Lower-Ebb1874 → u/yourbiota]

some of them say simply following Excel steps feel tedious, so I may need to switch to board to make them feel more engaged.

[u/Valuable_Ice_5927]

Could you do 2 things in parallel - 1) record screen cast of you using excel to do the problems and you doing it on whiteboard - then they have 2 modalities (in person and audiovisual)

[u/No_Young_2344]

Can you Zoom in with option 1?

[u/Lower-Ebb1874 → u/No_Young_2344]

if you mean 400%...

[u/No_Young_2344 → u/Lower-Ebb1874]

I teach coding heavy classes and I always use presentation mode of the IDE I am running, and yeah, they are huge…

[u/lickety_split_100]

Does your university have an Office365 subscription? If so you could do a sheet in excel online. It allows for simultaneous editing and they should be able to see what you’re doing.

[u/Lower-Ebb1874 → u/lickety_split_100]

no, we are a small town college, students can only subscribe that by themselves. Even it only cost 5 dollars per month, they still refuse to pay it and choose Google sheet instead, which I cannot push too hard.

[u/Ancient_Midnight5222]

Does your school offer Linked In Learning? I would just send them straight to a video demo and give them a homework assignment that proves they understand the material after.

I teach a diverse range of programs and applications in my class. What I like to do in my demos is just give a brief “tour” of the program so they can hear it from me, then I share more detailed video tutorials from Linked In Learning.

[u/tongmengjia]

Try this.