Archives for May 2020

Flipping the Online Classroom – Post Webinar Q&A and Comments

by Leave a Comment

On May 22, I gave a presentation, Flipping the Online Classroom (this links to my previous post about the presentation). My presentation was one of a dozen for a McGraw-Hill webinar, “Our New Normal in a COVID-19 World.” During my presentation, we asked for questions, comments, and ideas from the participants. I was unable to answer all those questions during the webinar, so this post is designed to answer those questions and share participants’ comments and ideas.

“Flipping the Online Classroom” – Resources for Online Active Learning

by Leave a Comment

Today (May 22, 2020) I have the pleasure of being a presenter for a McGraw-Hill webinar, “Our New Normal in a COVID-19 World.” My presentation (one of 12) is titled, “Flipping the Online Classroom.” The presentation will be recorded and I will post a link to it after McGraw-Hill posts it. The slide deck was kind of heavy, with lots of images, so I created a lite version for download in  PowerPoint 6-up handout format. After the webinar, I will write another blog post “Flipping the Online Classroom – Post Webinar Q&A and Comments” and answer to questions from the webinar and post participant comments and ideas.

During the presentation I mention some resources I have found helpful in thinking about how to put more active learning into my online teaching. Here are links or downloads you may find useful as well:

  • Flip Your Marketing Class (an ebook download). I wrote this book a couple years ago. The book was not written for online flipping — as I note in my presentation, flipping an online class may not make sense at first blush anyway. But as I went back to that book, I realized that much of the theory laid out in there (I reference a lot of education theory as you see in the presentation) was also relevant online. It was mainly figuring out how to apply it in the online context.
  • “Suddenly Teaching Online? Free Resources to Help Faculty Affected by Coronavirus.” LinkedIn Learning offered this resource to faculty soon after the pandemic forced many of us into online teaching. A nice compilation and demonstration of one way to teach online. I only took a few classes — not a lot of active learning but a good initiation to online teaching for newbies.
  • “Moving Your Classroom Online.” Harvard Business School Publishing also put on a number of webinars and wrote articles specifically about teaching online. I have found this to be a very useful resource with some great tips about case teaching, managing class discussions, and using simulations. Some emphasis on synchronous teaching (I think that is how Harvard Business School responded) but lots of great insights, including some thoughts on how to connect COVID-19 to your coursework.
  • I am proud of how quickly The Institute for Learning and Teaching (TILT) at my home institution Colorado State University stepped up with great resources for our faculty (Keep Teaching) and students (Keep Learning).  Most of these resources are open access.
  • “Active Learning in an Online Course” from The Ohio State University. I liked how this page categorized different active learning experiences. The page is brief with links to more details.
  • “Optimizing Student Engagement with Connect Marketing” – a McGraw-Hill presentation on Connect from Allison Smith and Nicole Young. The focus is on McGraw-Hill’s Connect. This was put together right after the pandemic broke.
  • PlayPosit is a great resource for adding questions to videos. A way to make your lectures more active and interactive.
  • McGraw-Hill has partnered with online proctoring service Proctorio which is built into Connect. The arrangement offers you a bargain for online proctoring — which can be helpful in online teaching and learning.

World Changing Ideas – New Product Development at Its Finest (#M4BW)

by Leave a Comment

I always enjoy Fast Company‘s innovation issues. This year’s “World Changing Idea Awards honor the businesses and organizations driving change in the world.” There is always an emphasis on new products and services that make the world a better place — a natural connection to our Marketing for a Better World (#M4BW) theme in the most recent edition of Essentials of Marketing. Winners included:

  • Abbott Labs which made a tiny implant that keeps babies’ hearts healthy (see video below)
  • Carbon Lighthouse which uses AI which adjusts businesses energy consumption by up to 30%.
  • Invest Your Values (I love when the brand name tells you what the product is) is a digital tool that helps employees invest their retirement money in companies that share their values.

These examples can be used across a number of chapters — but may relate most closely to Chapter 8 (goods and services) and Chapter 9 (new product development). The video below (first 2:20) features a few of these companies and might be shown in class.

 

Critical Thinking for Students – What businesses are harmed (helped) by the pandemic?

by Leave a Comment

OK, life gives you lemons (or worse, far worse, a pandemic), how do you make lemonade. Because the pandemic is everywhere these days, we might use this current event to get students to think about the impact on various types of business. You might ask your students questions like…

  • What types of products (or companies) are likely to do particularly well (or poorly) in the pandemic? And more importantly why?

Many of their answers can be tied back to consumer behavior changing. This gives them the opportunity to see how understanding customers influences business. For more interesting examples you might share with your students, consider these articles: “Puzzles, hair dye, yeast: Companies thriving during COVID-19,” and “Early department stores were incredibly innovative. What happened?” to find less obvious examples.

  • How should companies engage in promotion during the pandemic? Why? 

Again, more examples from successful and less successful companies. See these articles about advertising “We have hit peak pandemic advertising, and now they’re just annoying,” and “Brands With Strong Twitter Personalities Stay the Course During Covid-19” (you may need to sign up to access that last one — you can get three free articles a month after signing up).

Do B-Corps react better to adversity? (#M4BW)

by Leave a Comment

A new key term in 17th edition of Essentials of Marketing, is B-Corporation (B-Corp) certification “a private certification that meets a high standard for social and environmental performance. An independent company, B Lab, conducts this certification process. Some B Corps are subsidiaries of publicly traded companies. There are more than 2,500 certified B Corps in more than 50 countries, a list that includes small companies and well-known names like Ben & Jerry’s, Patagonia, and Method.” (Chapter 17).

This article, “How businesses emerge better after COVID-19, according to B Lab” (Fast Company, March 31, 2020) describes how the challenges of this pandemic may get companies thinking differently. I think many consumers will emerge from the pandemic differently as well. It might be interesting to get your students thinking and talking about how the pandemic will influence consumer and company behavior.