Lighting a fire
Stuff I do
I mean, we all do stuff, right? Some of it works, some of it doesn't, but it's all done with the best of intentions. We never stop trying, because when it works, when you see that glimmer of understanding, that spark of interest and even, sometimes, that note of thanks, it makes it all worthwhile.
Sustainability
Every year I'm reminded to participate in the SDGs teach-in. This year the Business School also signed up to PRME. In the future we're going to have to address the issues listed and many of our students will be in positions of influence. So this year was small, a couple of sessions, one with final years, one with first years. But soon we'll be looking for ways to fundamentally embed it in our approach to teaching. After all, it's in everyone's best interests to change how we do things.
Innovation in assessment
Innovation in assessmentFor a first year marketing module, taught to non-marketing students, I decided it would be a good idea to get them to run a notional business. So in groups of 4 or 5 that's what they did. We gave them 8 to choose from including an independent cinema and a bottled water company, all of them available because there was a Mintel report that students could access and plenty of other industry information available online. Six times over 18 weeks the groups had to have a board meeting and make a marketing decision, one week pricing, another week branding and so on, applying what had been covered in the lectures and the other seminars. The decisions were then all uploaded to a Turnitin submission via Blackboard (our VLE). Each week I gave every group some feedforward, which they could use to improve the decision before the submission of their final report. I also gave them a mark of 1, 2 or 3 depending on how much they had understood and how appropriate and well-justified their decision was. The marks were published after each decision and the cummulative total gave them an idea of how well their business was doing compared to their competitors. At the end of the module there was a prize for the best business in each category. This is now part of the AdvanceHE Torch Bearers relay for innovative assessment.