Syllabus Learning Objectives
Introduction
Herb Rotfeld's take on university requirements to include learning objectives in Marketing syllabi
INTEREST CATEGORY: TEACHING AND LEARNING
POSTING TYPE: Dialog
Author: Herbert Jack Rotfeld
Once upon a time, a class syllabus would fit on a page or two, listing assignments, grading, and class schedules for reading. Today, theres such a large list of university requirements that many faculty fill the entire first meeting going over the document. A common requirement on many campuses is that every syllabus must include a clearly stated learning objective. One big item is a statement of learning objectives. Does having learning objectives improve a course? Most faculty dont know & dont care, taking the easy path by transcribing the course catalog description.
Not liking the easy path, I wrote much more. These were my learning objectives for courses from my last three syllabi.
Learning Objectives for Consumer Behavior are developing students perspectives for understanding published research and theories that explain and predict how consumers respond to marketing strategies and tactics. It’s not tied to any specific job, but engenders a basis to guide managers evaluations of their information on decision alternatives. Consumer behavior theories and research published in academic marketing journals can be broadly characterized as: 1) providing insightful perspectives for business decision making; or 2) pragmatically-useless yet academically-interesting studies that generate discussion among faculty and students; or 3) useless dung of the bovine that somehow gets published despite logical inconsistencies, conceptual weirdness or absence of any confirmatory support in research data. Our class will try to stay focused on #1, sometimes with a side trip to #2, and whenever possible, derisively noting #3 by some socially acceptable expletive.
Objective for [any] Advertising course is creating a basis for understanding the business context for mass communications decisions, covering: the common business activities and terminology; perspectives applied when making optimal decisions; and the rationale behind common-but-less-than-optimal practices. If anyone signed up for the class because the title created an expectation of an entertaining semester of viewing Super Bowl commercials or revealing a secret formula for writing consumer-manipulating advertising copy, they were mistaken. The course should create a different perspective for students that they will no longer view mass media content as part of the audience watching television commercials, driving past billboards, or waiting for their online video choice to start, but instead, as managers trying to inform and persuade audiences
Learning Objectives for Marketing & Consumers Interests are to engender a broader knowledge of the pragmatic social and regulatory environment of marketing decisions. It’s about marketing regulation, which requires a bit of law, but it isn’t a law course. It’s about business self-regulation, but it isn’t about altruism. It’s about marketing management decision making, but it isn’t defined by specific marketing jobs. In addition to the powers and limitations of business self-regulation, discussions will look at work of government regulation by CFPB, FTC, FDA and other government agencies that pundits falsely claim “kills jobs” while ignoring that they are keeping the cannery from using poisonous diethylene glycol to preserve your peas (yes, that really happened), fighting pollution that can cause a (yes, this happened to the Cuyahoga River) or stopping banks from having another meltdown that saves money for billionaires while kicking grandma to the curb (e.g. 2008 Great Recession).
[For all classes] Slackers or others who have managed to give themselves a pharmaceutical lobotomy yet often pass courses on the work of others are on their own. The primary requirement for the class is a functioning brain, preferably one that is not an example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, as well as a willingness to use it for a critical evaluation of the plethora of questionable expansive statements that dominate the practitioners and publics perception of marketing. Students proudly exhibiting their cerebral flat lines, plus other tuition-wasting education-avoiders who came to campus primarily devoted to parties, to cheer for sports teams, or to go to parties to cheer for teams, or who would rather be elsewhere but the family made them go to college, all would probably see the How to Fail sarcasm as a college work manual.
[Any student who didnt know what is meant by the Dunning-Kruger Effect and looked it up after seeing it mentioned here would probably enjoy the class.]
For further reading:
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