Playing the Marketer – Bringing the Joy of Marketing into the Classroom (Academy of Marketing Conference 2024)

Description

In today's fast-paced business landscape, continuous learning and skill development are essential for success. Marketing education faces a number of challenges, among which is the creation of learning environments that engage students and create meaningful learning opportunities. As such. there is an increasing acknowledgement of the need to find novel means of engaging students and reflect changing learner approaches. At the same time, pandemic-necessitated remote learning has highlighted the limitations of passive approaches to knowledge acquisition, where, in short, engaged learners are not passive learners. In turn, this begs the question, how do we foster a generation of actively engaged marketing students? In this workshop we query whether playful or ‘fun’ approaches to marketing pedagogy offer a potential means to further student engagement, and importantly, how marketing educators are navigating current challenges around student engagement, viewed through the theoretical lens of play.

Although play has been previously argued to support the creation of a 'ludic learning space' (Kolb & Kolb, 2010), it is also recognised that playful learning may be unfamiliar for many students and educators. Having recently engaged in a number of initiative playful modes of learning (e.g. marketing board games, PR crisis role plays, marketing insights ‘treasure’ hunting), supported by the PRME i5 project, the workshop convenors invite participants to contribute insights into novel pedagogic approaches encompassing play dimensions. In line with work of Huizinga (1955) play takes various forms and can encompass both mimicry (e.g. role play, dramaturgy, emulation, simulation), competition (e.g. individual/group based gamified learning operating within the boundaries of rules), chance (e.g., games based on luck or ‘randomness’), and vertigo (e.g., experiences that result in heightened emotions such as ecstasy, fear, etc…). The impact of play across teaching and learning contexts and it’s broader impact on learning and classroom dynamics will be considered. In particular, submissions considering the design, implementation and evaluation of playful learning approaches in marketing pedagogy are welcome. Submissions may consider both learner and educator challenges and opportunities arising from novel playful learning approaches.

Workshop Format: participants will be invited to use a single relevant artefacts to illustrate and convey their discussion topic. This may include relevant imagery, teaching artefacts (e.g. student feedback, assessment briefs, teaching guides), slide (single slide) alongside a 5 minute presentation on their chosen topic which will prime a guided discussion among colleagues. Given the competitive element of play, participants will be invited to score the best in show and tell and reflect on the impact of winning and losing, the perceived fairness of the game, and how this impacts the teaching environment.

Period	3 Jul 2024
Event type	Workshop
Location	Cardiff, United KingdomShow on map