October 2014

NASBA hosted its 3^rd National Registry Summit on Sept 17-19 at the Omni Hotel in Nashville, TN. This year’s conference attracted the largest attendance to date, with 162 attendees, marking a 40% increase from last year’s Summit.

Themed Looking to the Future, attendees from over 100 organizations, including eight state boards of accountancy, discussed the trends, standards and changes in continuing professional education.

NASBA’s President and CEO, Ken L. Bishop, kicked off the 3-day summit by welcoming attendees to Music City and sharing highlights of NASBA’s focus and initiatives.

Following Bishop’s welcome, members of NASBA’s CPE Standards Working Group shared insights on the process for reviewing and evaluating revisions to the Statement on Standards for CPE Programs (Standards), highlighting significant areas of change.

Two keynote speakers, author and scholar, Karl Kapp, and entrepreneur, Krishna Depura, offered their expertise in using gamification to produce more effective learning experiences.

Kapp’s presentation, titled “Rules of Play: Using Games and Gamification to Drive Engagement,” featured research and techniques for increasing cognitive engagement and learning through the use of gamification.

“As instructional designers, we know we should be doing things to add interactivity to what we’re doing,” Kapp said. “Gamification gives us the cover to add that interactivity.”

Krishna Depura’s presentation, titled “Making Learning Effective and Efficient through the Combination of Game Mechanics and Social Tools,” allowed attendees to engage firsthand in a gamified learning experience using the MindTickle platform.

“Considering the pace of change in the trends in learning and the technology supporting content delivery, we must be looking to the future to create the most meaningful CPE for CPAs,” said Jessica Luttrull, Associate Director of the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. “Learning trends suggest that learners want their experiences to be personal, social and engaging, which led us to this year’s keynote presentations.  Karl Kapp focused on techniques for engagement in a group live setting.  Krishna Depura focused on including elements of gaming and socialization in the learning environment.”

Other sessions covered topics including self-study, developing compliant learning objectives, instructional design/content development and group programs. Attendees were also invited to make comments through a workshop on the new Standards, and received an interactive overview of LearningMarket.org –the website for the National Registry.

“I found the Registry 101 pre-conference workshop very helpful, especially the discussion on self-study, something my company is interested in exploring in the near future,” said Elizabeth Thompson, Training Specialist from Merrill Corporation. “I also found the discussion of nanotechnology very exciting, and definitely something I could see my group finding tremendously useful after it becomes an option. Just seeing the working draft of the revised Standards was very helpful and I came away with a lot of good information for my managers.”

The National Registry Summit is held in the fall of each year and open to members of the National Registry, state societies and affiliates of the Boards of Accountancy. It is meant to serve as a forum for CPE providers to both learn the latest information and trends regarding professional education and compliance, and give providers an opportunity to exchange dialogue regarding the setting of revised standards.

“Education has undergone dramatic change in the past decade and those changes will have a significant impact on the future,” said Maria Caldwell, NASBA Chief Legal Officer and Director of Compliance Services. With that in mind, various NASBA committees have been reviewing what revisions to the Standards and CPE rules may be needed to ensure that the CPE required of the profession includes the most effective type of learning. We looked at the National Registry Summit as an opportunity to explore those potential changes and experience them with very interactive keynote presentations from experts in the field of gamification.”

Special thanks to all Registry Sponsors and others who attended this year’s National Registry Summit. We look forward to hosting you next year! Details on the 2015 National Registry Summit will be available in the near future.

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