Open, dynamic teaching concepts: Students and professors jointly contribute to more knowledge
The concept of a frontal lecture, in which students learn exclusively from professors, has been significantly expanded to include further didactic approaches: Nowadays, young academics acquire knowledge together with their lecturers in an interactive way. Dr. Marcus Schulz, Professor at the Faculty of Business and Engineering at the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt, gave an example of how this process could look like.
Within the scope of a marketing course, advertising strategies of barbecue cooker producers were discussed. Using the example of a well-known grill producer, content marketing was discussed: It is not primarily the product on which the company concentrates, it is the BBQ experiences that are made up of people who enjoy barbecuing and society. The product itself tends to take a back seat, becomes secondary and sells itself as part of the emotional world and collectively shared experiences.
Following this discussion, one of the students from the United States, Rob Glatchak, contributed to the discussion by introducing a so-called BBQ smoker who was quite new to the market, came from a small family business and whose marketing ideas had convinced him. The professor took this idea home with him, bought a smoker like him, was convinced of the barbecue results and then analysed their company website. In the subsequent course, the professor presented the students with marketing elements such as content marketing, sales strategies, storytelling and relationship marketing. According to Schulz, this way of jointly creating knowledge has clear advantages: Perhaps the greatest advantage is the possibility that the speaker can benefit from the existing knowledge and ideas of the students. In addition, the young scientists at the university are involved in the transfer of knowledge, which contributes to more interaction, appreciation and concentration in the classroom.