Message in (online) Bottle

Due to my extensive professional experience in marketing communications throughout the past 20 years, and my passion to share this knowledge along with my industry contacts with my students, I am frequently asked by my students ‘what can I do to get ahead in the industry?’

My goal is to guide students so they can achieve and be successful creative leaders in the industry, not as Harley (1993) suggests how ‘in many university courses, the teacher’s role is a didactic one, “telling” students what they need to know rather than a coaching role.’

I have the strong belief that if we learn and inquire about others and everything we are in a better position to understand each other, demonstrate respect and be willing to share ideas. I aim to lead by example and encourage my students to be a sponge: to question, consider and create ideas through their learning (as supported by Light and Cox, 2005).

I also reflect on my teaching and consider a range of approaches that will assist me to be an effective teacher who engages with students and peers. I support the leading academic writer and critical thinker, Stephen Brookfield’s concepts of the four ‘lenses’ (1995). These being: theoretical, student, peer, and autobiographical lenses.

In one of the subjects that I convene at University of Canberra, Client Relationship Management 8137, I use as a textbook, ‘The Art of Client Service’ by Robert Solomon (2008). This ‘text’ is symbolic of the way I teach as it is the furthest thing from a text book. It is an advertising industry professional’s honest and at times brutal account of the industry. It achieves what Herrington and Herrington (2006) explain provides a ‘multitude of perspectives to enable students to examine problems from the point of view of a variety of stakeholders (and this) is more conducive to sustained and deep exploration of any issue or problems’ (page 6).

Last year I contacted Solomon in an effort to establish a relationship between this leading industry professional and my students. Even though he is based in New York, Solomon has demonstrated tireless ongoing support and encouragement to my students. He wrote to them suggesting one thing that they could do to get ahead in the industry is to ‘be voracious consumers of everything, and I mean everything, in both old and new media. Ideas can come from anywhere, and you will find inspiration in the most unlikely of connections. Be open to this, and pursue this, with passion and dedication.’ (personal communication, 2010).

At the beginning of each semester I provide students with an information sheet on ‘Useful Advertising-Marketing Communications Resources and Websites’. I do this as I encourage and support my students to be ‘sponges’. Included on this list is the Australian industry’s e:bulletins Mumbrella http://mumbrella.com.au/ and AdNews http://www.adnews.com.au/ These online resources offer free daily e:bulletins that can be delivered direct to an email in-box featuring up-to-date information and news on the advertising-marketing communications industry. Anyone and everyone in the industry subscribe to these bulletins, and industry also makes itself available to be interviewed or showcased – as it is acknowledged that both these online resources are influential and can influence.

I know my teaching challenges students as I place high demands and expectations on them, including being aware of industry trends and current affairs issues, but I want them to be the future leaders of our industry. Students appear to respect this approach and applaud it. This is demonstrated through the strong results I receive in the University’s Unit Satisfaction Surveys on which academics performances are measured. Comments from my Advertising Strategy 6809 2011 anonymous student survey include:

‘Sally Webster has so far made Advertising Strategy a good experience. Her strengths include knowing exactly what she expects of herself and her students. for example, she often critiques professionals in the field of advertising and explains why she does this. I appreciate that she emphasises the fact that advertising is constantly changing, that the consumer and customer will not respond positively to the same tactics they were exposed to years ago.’

‘I have never had a tutor who knew so much about everything, Sally seems to be one of those people that is always on the ball - something extremely rare to find these days, she is the best tutor I've ever had.’

‘Sally is very informed about the material and tries to get us as the students involved and uses a lot of examples to show us and link that to the \"theory\"’

‘Sally is very enthusiastic and passionate about advertising. She's concise and clear in the strategies and theories she teaches us and provides examples we can relate to which makes it fun and easy to pay attention.’

As Race and Pickford (2007) explain: ‘Possibly the most pleasant feedback that any teacher can be given is that their enthusiasm was inspirational to students’ (p15).

Race and Pickford highlight how satisfying this is, however they do not focus on how students and peers can inspire and motivate teachers, which also relates to the Brookfield ‘Student and Peer Lenses’(1995). For me, this inspiration from my students and my peers supports and motivates me to be an even more informed, effective and innovative teacher.

References:
AdNews http://www.adnews.com.au/ accessed 7 May 2011.

Brookefield, S. (1995) Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Harley, S. (1993). Situated learning and classroom instruction. Educational Technology, 33(3), 46-51.

Herrington, A. and Herrington, J. (2006) What is an Authentic Learning Environment? Idea Group Inc.

Light, G. & Cox, R. Learning & Teaching in Higher Education: The Reflective Professional. Sage Publications, London, 2005.

Mumbrella http://mumbrella.com.au/ accessed 7 May 2011.

Race, P. & Pickford, R. Making Teaching Work: ‘Teaching Smarter’ in Post-Compulsory Education. Sage Publications, London, 2007.

Solomon, R. (2008), The Art of Client Service, 58 things every advertising & marketing professional should know. New York, NY: Kaplan

I have set up a very simple blog using Google www.blogger.com I deliberately chose the bookish template as I liked the juxtaposition of the traditional bookshelf / library look with the blog's title of Sally's Education Technology.

I have also activated the settings so it is private and not for public access. I couldn't find where I could change the settings so it is displayed in chronological order...but I'm unsure that this is important for me to view the original post first. I'm so used to email where the most recent hits the top of the screen and when the messages fall off the screen - well, they do just that!

I've wondered how I could integrate Blogging into my classes. The units I have developed have a strong blended learning focus - and sometimes I wonder how far to go...and is it possible to go 'too far', especially in the learners mind. I am very mindful that students are trying to learn and at times just comprehend - everything can be fresh and new...perhaps if we keep adding in new social media tools it could just be a bit too much for some?

Before I answer this I believe it's best to explain about my teaching style.

I know I now spend a substantial amount of time educating my students on my teaching and learning approaches (I have units / subjects of about 150 students). I didn't when I first started at UC and many students struggled, because they were used to a more traditional approach to learning: the lecture and the tute - and going page by page in a text book (often a dull text book!).

My approach is more dynamic, very much focused on blended learning and Work Integrated Learning. It is formative in style and has that great buzz / jargon of 'constructive alignment'. I believe by not trusting my students and explaining my teaching style meant that many students struggled because it seemed they were just trying to coping with the learning of new material in a university context - then I was expecting them to understand and adjust to vastly different teaching styles in their new learning environment. They weren't used to the freedom, flexibility and some appeared not to want to be independent learners. I came to this conclusion as the more senior students (those in 3rd and 4th years) and mature age students coped so much better with my style.

I didn't give up though...what I did in my second semester of teaching was to trust the student more, respect them and tell them my approach. I walked and talked them through this. By giving them this respect they accepted it more, even though they said it was challenging, but they embraced it and the majority loved it. The results in my Unit Satisfaction Survey were dramatically different. In my first semester they were mid-50's and mid-60's, in my second semester they were all mid-90's. For one unit (admittedly a small unit) I got 100s! Pretty fantastic. Of course it wasn't just about explaining this teaching and learning approach to the students - I got these USS results for a range of reasons. However, I really believe this approach of discussing my style with them helped them and supported them as they had a better understanding of why I was doing something and how this assisted them.

For information, Unit Satisfaction Survey (USS) is the University of Canberra's student survey that is used to measure our teaching performance and the results provided to DEEWR).

So, would I use blogging in my teaching. One area that I could integrate it is on the Unit Moodle site and replace the announcements. This way students could respond. But then they do have this opportunity in other Forums. Interestingly, I set up a Wiki on my Moodle site and my postgraduate students asked me to convert it to a Forum. They much preferred this style...why? because...drum roll! they could see the unread posts - whereas they couldn't with a Wiki. To them it was more important to manage their time and know they had to go to a forum to read a post, than to dip in and out...with Wiki's there is an assumption that you have the time to do this. I suspect it could be the same with blogs. If the majority of online material was published via Moodle, then I couldn't imagine students would be overjoyed having to log on to another site / network to get more information, that could easily be placed on the Moodle site.

At UC we have a Yammer blog for all staff....perhaps my reaction, reflection and thoughts on this would be worth holding off for another post...it's a hmmm....reaction!

Overall, I support blended learning and believe it is useful for us as educators to explore different tools and options. But, I also believe it's important to only use them if they will add value - and not just for the sake of it. The critical thing is that students learn, are motivated and achieve against the desired learning outcomes.

Sally