Each semester as a part of course development, professors must set up their courses in a learning management system and turn in a syllabus, setting expectations and the pace of the course objectives and deliverables. In the learning management system (Blackboard, Canvas, Moodle, etc.), professors must introduce themselves to the students and “meet the professor.” This helps build the relationship, trust, and credibility with the student.
I am an Assistant Professor of Marketing and teach and have taught undergraduate-level courses across all four years: Principles of Marketing, Internet Marketing, Digital Branding, Facebook Marketing Freshman Seminar, and Marketing Technology, typically Juniors and Seniors. In digital marketing, the pace is continuous and requires a thirst for learning, curiosity, self-analysis, communication, empathy, and emotional intelligence.
Today’s students were born in the digital age and have experienced their lives through technology. Additionally, they have experienced a global pandemic and shut down at a highly impressionable age. Their behavior has had to pivot and adapt and survive a world where each minute where 5.9 million searches are completed per minute on Google, 1 million videos are streamed per minute, and 2.43 snaps are shared per minute (Statista).
Engagement is essential for active learning, and in my experience, getting students involved in learning in ways that are personal to them (just like consumers), results in higher engagement. Many articles discuss how big data can improve the customer experience through clustering, machine learning, natural language processing, and other artificial intelligence applications to personalize the experience.
To personalize the student experience, I would like to highlight an activity that involves the use of a tool (humantic.ai) to help students understand themselves. Per their website, “Humantic AI is a Buyer Intelligence platform for revenue teams. Top revenue teams use Humantic's Personality AI to identify early adopters, help their business development representatives and recruiters personalize outreach, and enable their account executives with vital customer insights for every deal.” I used this tool to test myself and use as an example to help students perform their own self-analysis.
When running the chrome extension on my own LinkedIn profile, Humantic AI came back with the following information about me – “Heidi is precise but practical, fast but analytical, and occasionally confrontational.”
The AI was accurate in the assessment that I am decisive after I have completed my analysis and am a fast adopter after due diligence. I prefer respectful interactions and, like many, prefer a clear objective.
The results expanded to please get to the point of your request and clarify what you would like to ask. I am a results-oriented person so that I will evaluate the return on ask. I am not a massive fan of long-winded emails or texts – however, I think this is very consistent with our current society. I am very comfortable with risk and am willing to make risky decisions if I feel I have the data to support them. My DISC profile, high dominance, and high calculativeness (doesn’t sound great) have not changed over the years. This speaks to my interactions with professionals such as neurologists and scholarly researchers – you are born with your personality – genome. My Big 5 (OCEAN) profile sounds a bit better, and I tend to be agreeable, conscientious, and somewhat introverted. Again, back in college, this was pretty much the same outcome when taking the Myer’s & Briggs personality assessment.
There are many applications (software and social media platforms) using artificial intelligence to understand their users. Turning the tables to leverage ai in applications to help students and ourselves as consumers better understand what the data is saying about us can help build more vital emotional and digital awareness. Hopefully, my research will validate my hypothesis! Subscribe to my blog to stay tuned!