Oh the Finance of It All...

I love finance...I just love crunching those numbers...it's really fun for me. Unfortunately, my students don't always feel the same way...

In my Sports and Entertainment Marketing classes we've been studying the 7 key functions of marketing. This week we're studying finance. Since this is a one-semester course, I don't have the luxury of spending as much time as I would like on the topic; however, I make certain that I cover ratio analysis.

I must be getting better at teaching this...the students had a blast running ratios on Harley-Davidson and then analyzing the results to see if HD would be a good investment--this was our "Guided Practice."

They're "Independent Practice" assignment was to conduct ratio analysis on Nike for the past four years and then interpret the results/trends. They got it! They were able to verbalize what those results/trends meant!! Yeah! Several students started talking about investing in the stock market!

Cool stuff...when they 'get it' it always brings a big smile to my face and reminds of why I teach...

Creative Collaboration and Web2.0

Since the beginning of the school year my Sports & Entertainment Marketing class has been learning about the 7-key functions of marketing, the marketing mix, target marketing, segmenting, and positioning (whew!). My approach has been to incorporate activities with all of the concepts to facilitate understanding of them. For example, when we studied the key function of Marketing Information Management (i.e. research), I had the students participate in taste test of colas and then complete a questionnaire. My student teacher, Kim Clayton aggregated the results for us and we discussed the possible implications. The students loved it...frankly, I had fun, too.

So...this week my class began a comprehensive project--It's called, "Rock On!". The goal of this project is for them to synthesize the concepts they've learned thus far and plan a 20-city U.S. tour for a musical group (sounds like fun, huh?).

Now, I wish I could take total credit for creating this project, but I cannot. I found the original project from a "Best Practices" ebook put together by Jeff McCauley of The Marketing Teacher. However, the original project involved lots of printing and creating of 'static' artifacts--I want to incorporate Web2.0 into the project to make a more rigorous and relevant project for my students. I created a Wiki for my classes this year. So far though (thanks to the hurricane 'vacation'), I really haven't had time to implement the use of it--until now.

I have placed the Project Parameters on the Wiki and created a BlogRoll page for the Sports Marketing students with links to their Team Pages. They will placing their artifacts on their Team Pages, discussing their progress in Discussions, etc. We should finish the project in a couple of weeks.

I would LOVE to have some feedback from both educators and marketing gurus on the Project. Do you like it the way I have it set up? What can I do to make the project 'better?' And the BIGGIE: would you be willing to 'judge' the results? What are your thoughts on the artifacts the students produce?