What is the importance of using spreadsheets as a tool in teaching and learning?

Spreadsheets are an essential business and accounting tool. They can vary in complexity and can be used for various reasons, but their primary purpose is to organize and categorize data into a logical format. Once this data is entered into the spreadsheet, you can use it to help organize and grow your business.

Business Data Storage

A spreadsheet is an easy way to store all different kinds of data. These data types can include financial data, customer data and product data. Excel spreadsheets can support more than a million rows and more than 16,000 columns, so you’ll have plenty of space to store a huge amount. That’s what makes them ideal for database creation.

Accounting and Calculation Uses

Businesses across the world use spreadsheets to keep track of their business accounts. You can enter formulas that will do all of your business calculations as you go without the expense of using accounting software. Spreadsheets will do all the calculations for you, which saves you having to do those calculations manually.

Budgeting and Spending Help

Keep track of your business spending on a spreadsheet. You can create custom budget spreadsheets to manage your income and your expenditures so you don’t end up with any surprises when it’s time to file your tax return.

Assisting with Data Exports

Spreadsheets can be used to contain data that has been exported from other systems. Sometimes online data management systems don’t present data in a format that is easy to read, or it is difficult to access the data offline.

Data Sifting and Cleanup

Use your spreadsheets to identify inaccuracies and duplicates in your data. With a spreadsheet, it’s easy to get rid of unwanted or low quality data. This is especially necessary in relation to customer data, which you are required to keep up to date and accurate.

Generating Reports and Charts

Use spreadsheets to report trends or make business forecasts. These reports can be made available to everyone at the company; they can take the time to analyze the data for themselves. It’s easy to make comparisons between sets of data. You can pivot tables to showcase particular aspects of your data as well, which is necessary when you’ve got huge amounts of data to sort through.

Data in a spreadsheet can be used to create charts that can then be used for reporting. You can create graphs and pie charts that condense the data in a format that’s easy to read at a glance. It’s a fantastic feature that can be great for business presentations that require you to showcase lots of data in a short time.

Business Administrative Tasks

Use spreadsheets for the creation of receipts and invoices. You can also use it to do business related forecasts and plan ahead for the future.

These are some of the common purposes spreadsheets are used for, but there are additional ways you can utilize a spreadsheet to achieve your business goals. Configure them to your needs, and tap into all the ways you can use this simple yet effective tool.

Spreadsheets allow students to "get their hands dirty" by working with real-world data. Spreadsheets make abstract or complex models accessible by providing concrete examples and allowing "what if" analyses. Charts on a printed page are "dead" while spreadsheet representations are "live" in that students can interact with the concepts underlying them. Spreadsheet programs contain a number of powerful tools, some well-known, some less so. See more about spreadsheet tools.

Spreadsheets promote learning in a variety of ways from helping to prepare lectures to constructing laboratory sessions. See more about learning environments that can accommodate spreadsheet exercises.

Find more information about teaching with spreadsheets

SERC offers other modules related to teaching with spreadsheets, including What is Excel? from Mathematics and Statistics Models and Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum. In addition, the References page includes links to other modules related to teaching with data and models.

Why Teach with Spreadsheets?

Spreadsheet applications are easy to implement because most students already have spreadsheet programs on their computers. Spreadsheets are also an attractive technology because students are likely to use spreadsheets in future projects, careers and in personal life. Spreadsheet programs are enormously flexible, familiar, and relatively easy to use. As such, they can increase both the breadth and depth of the topics covered in a class. In addition, spreadsheet activities may be assessed in a number of different ways.

Find more information about advantages of teaching with spreadsheets

How to Teach with Spreadsheets

As with any pedagogical tool, using spreadsheets effectively takes careful thought and planning. However, by going through a series of steps to develop an appropriate exercise, spreadsheets can indeed measurably enhance learning. Furthermore, applications can be constructed to either hide or require understanding of mathematics, and either obscure or build up or spreadsheet modeling skills. See more about example design or Excel basics.

Find more information about how to teach with spreadsheets

Examples of Teaching with Spreadsheets

This Examples of Teaching with Spreadsheets page contains a searchable database of example spreadsheet applications that can be used in a variety of teaching environments. Some examples are cross-listed from the Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum module which provides exercises that bring students step-by-step through the process of basic spreadsheet construction.

What is the importance of using spreadsheet?

How can spreadsheet help teachers?