Answer: The spreadsheet is shown below (see figure 2)
Step-by-step explanation
Spreadsheet software is strongly recommended. It's what I'm using to create the figures shown below.
The annual rate as a percentage is 5.5%
This converts to the decimal form 0.055
Divide by 12 to get the approximate result of 0.004583333333333 where the 3s go on forever.
Or we could say 5.5/1200 = 0.004583333333333 approximately
This value is very important. It's the decimal form of the monthly interest rate. Place this in cell G1 of the spreadsheet. We'll refer to this value later, and we'll use it to fill out column C.
In cell A1, place the label "beginning balance". Then cell B1 will have "payment", and so on. This forms the row of labels shown in the table.
Cell A2 will have the beginning balance value of 27,334.76
Just next to that (in cell B2) is the payment 295.00
To compute the interest in the first row (cell C2), we will multiply the value inside cell G1 with the beginning balance for this row.
The formula to type into cell C2 would be
The equal sign up front is important. Otherwise the formula won't evaluate. The rounding is needed because money is commonly rounded to the nearest penny unless stated otherwise. The dollar signs tell the spreadsheet to keep G1 locked in place. This will be very useful when we go to drag the formulas down to fill in the other blank cells.
After the interest is calculated, the principal is the remaining amount after taking the interest from the payment.
principal = payment - interest
Then we subtract the principal from the beginning balance to get the ending balance.
Refer to figure 1 to see how the formulas look when typing them into the spreadsheet (before evaluating each formula)
Figure 2 is what happens after each formula is evaluated. A way to check we did things right is to notice the 26,823.28 at the end of the third row matches with what your teacher gave you.
Please let me know if you have questions how to fill out the spreadsheet. Using spreadsheet software is strongly recommended.