Assignments and Project Ideas
21 Coronavirus Reflections
For many post-secondary faculty, the Coronavirus Pandemic caused a seismic shift in our teaching. As a marketer, educator, and consumer, I spent a lot of time thinking about how my shopping habits profoundly changed as a result of the pandemic. For example, our family went from grocery shopping every couple of days to once a week. We didn’t visit a mall or store for many months and instead made any necessary purchases online. Our needs were prioritized over our wants. The balance of our purchases reflect basic needs and safety needs (masks, sanitizer, soap) and over time we invested in some “luxury” items such as items to exercise at home and a subscription to the very popular Peleton app (but not the bike!).
I invited my students to reflect more deeply on how their consumption habits have changed as a result of the pandemic and if they weren’t comfortable sharing their own experiences, I asked them to interview someone instead. I encouraged them to even consider interviewing someone they know in another country who is experiencing life differently than they are. The results did not disappoint: this assignment provided students with a meaningful way to engage with the content in the book and contextualize concepts to fit their own lived experiences.
Students submit their work at the end of the course because they have now completed all lectures and readings and have a much larger range of concepts to draw from.
Coronavirus Reflection
Approach
This individual assignment provides students with the opportunity to “pull it all together” and build on the structure they are already now very familiar with: persuasive, evidence-based writing. For this reason, this Reflection assignment pairs very well with the other Peer Review assignments presented in this ancillary resource. I would recommend structuring those smaller Peer Review assignments earlier in the course so students can build familiarity and work with the feedback they have received. This is a great way to scaffold assignments in this course and increase complexity but maintain familiarity.
The choice is yours!
I invite my students to choose between two different options for completing this assignment. They are both very similar and weighed the same.
- Personal Consumer Coronavirus Reflection
- Consumer Coronavirus Interview
Option 1: Personal Consumer Coronavirus Reflection
For this assignment, students should reflect on their consumer habits, consumer decision making, and consumption preferences before the Coronavirus Pandemic and during the time of self-isolation and social distancing. This is a profoundly different time in our lives: our beahviours have changed; our preferences have altered; our attitudes, motivations, and needs have had to adapt to new circumstances. All of the changes we have experienced as consumers have impacted what we buy, how we buy, how much we pay, and what our shopping experiences feel like.
This reflective piece of work should include as many concepts from our course as possible (at least 5!). This is an analysis as much as it is a reflection: that means, students need to connect our consumer behaviour concepts to their own consumption decisions and consumer experiences.
Similar to how students would have prepared their Peer Review assignments, apply the same structural approach:
- Select a consumer behaviour concept
- Define and/or explain it (in their own words or using a cite/quoted definition and explanation)
- Provide detailed and specific examples to demonstrate its applicability to a consumer situation
For both assignments I let students know that they should not put themselves or others at risk by violating any self-isolation, social distancing, or quarantine protocols that govern where they live in order to complete this assignment.
Option 2: Consumer Coronavirus Interview
For this version of the assignment, students should interview a friend, family member, roommate, or co-worker on how their consumer habits, consumer decision making, and consumption preferences have changed from before the Coronavirus Pandemic to the present conditions of self-isolation and social distancing. I recommend drawing up a list of questions for discussion that will help identify how they have changed as consumers.
After the interview, students need to provide an analysis that contains a thorough explanation identifying several (at least 5!) consumer behaviour concepts relevant to this subject’s consumption decisions and consumer experiences.
Once again, the same structure should be followed:
- Select a consumer behaviour concept
- Define and/or explain it (in their own words or using a cite/quoted definition and explanation)
- Provide detailed and specific examples to demonstrate its applicability to a consumer situation
For both assignments I let students know that they should not put themselves or others at risk by violating any self-isolation, social distancing, or quarantine protocols that govern where they live in order to complete this assignment.
Submission Formats
For me, this is where the fun comes in! If your course isn’t writing intensive then I would take advantage of the different options for submission formats. Work with students to explore what their preferences are and how they might like to develop their work. Some students may prefer to complete this in a traditional essay format, but others may welcome an opportunity to express their work more creatively: some of the best work I have seen has been in Infographs, Podcasts, Posters, and H5P content!
If students are not facing any severe technical limitations (wifi, computer access, etc.) and if they wish to expand on their technical and creative skills, I tell them they are welcome to explore the use of:
- Video
- Audio
- Podcasts – e.g., “Clips”
- Infographics – e.g., Canva.com
- Digital Posters – e.g., H5P.org
- Blogging – e.g., WordPress (https://wordpress.kpu.ca/)
- And anything else I haven’t thought of!
Evaluation
There are a number of ways this assignment can be graded, but above all else, I believe it should be formative and feedback should be given generously so students can achieve their own learning goals. I review students’ work and provide an ample amount of feedback before ever grading their submission: this way, they can improve upon their work, learn from the feedback, and achieve their own grade-goals. Whether you are using a traditional grading rubric, a single-point rubric, some element of self-assessment, contract grading, or a simple completion grading approach, remember that students are sharing something very personal with us and our feedback and evaluation should be handled with care.
Students should also be given pointers and tips on how grading might happen: I like to provide a few friendly reminders on what they should remember throughout their work:
- Make sure you have a sufficient number and range of concepts in your assignment. I have suggested at least 5, but I encourage you to do more.
- Make sure you are citing your definitions and explanations of the concepts and terms you are using; don’t just use the word, show me how you understand it’s meaning!
- Make sure your examples are really detailed and that they fit the concept accurately. This is where you want to spend a lot of time developing a strong connection between concept & example(s).
Media Attribution
- The image of the two men shopping at a grocery store is by Melanie Lim on Unsplash.
