Teaching Portfolio for

MC 456–Advertising Techniques

Spring Semester, 2007

Submitted for Peer Review of Teaching

Project

Kansas State University

Robert W. Meeds, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Associate Director

A. Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications

Kansas State University

June 2007

2

Table of Contents

Objectives of Peer Review …………………………………………………………3

Goals for analyzing this course …………………………………………… 3

Major objectives and approaches to their attainment

……………………. 3

Questions I would like reader to address when

reviewing portfolio ……… 3

The Design and Structure of MC456–Advertising Techniques

…………………. 5

Course description and context …………………………………………... 5

The students in advertising techniques ……………………………………

5

Course goals and learning objectives ……………………………………… 5

Where advertising techniques fits in the broader

curricula ……………….. 6

Teaching Methods/Course Materials/Course Activities

…………………………. 7

Teaching methods …………………………………………………………. 7

Mechanisms used to evaluate students and how they

relate to objectives … 8

Criteria for evaluation …………………………………………………….. 10

Analysis of Student Learning ……………………………………………………... 11

Description of initial exercises ……………………………………………..

11

Analysis of major assignments …………………………………………….. 11

Grades and grade trends ………………………………………………….. 12

Progress in achieving course goals and student

learning objectives ………. 12

Reflection …………………………………………………………………………. 14

What I’ve learned about my pedagogy …………………………………… 14

Most effective practices and mechanisms …………………………………

14

Least effective practices and mechanisms …………………………………

14

Advice given by peer review partner and mentor

………………………… 15

Future plans for the course ………………………………………………... 15

Appendices

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4

Objectives of Peer Review

The goals for analyzing this course:

Of the eight different courses I’ve taught in my ten years

at Kansas State University, Advertising Techniques (MC 456)

is the course I’ve taught the most. Advertising Techniques

is an intermediate level creative and skills class in JMC

School’s advertising and which has prerequisites that

typically limit its enrollment to advertising sequence

majors. It is a lecture/lab class that meets for two hours

twice a week and class size is limited to 18 students per

accreditation requirements.

In general, I’ve always felt that this course fits my

teaching strengths well both in terms of content and the

class structure. Its focus is on using creative strategy

to develop advertising concepts that are interesting,

compelling, visually attractive and professionally

competent. I’ve taught the course many, many times. And

although I have tried to keep the content current and have

continually updated assignments, I had fallen into a

routine in my teaching of this course and felt like I

needed to take a close, fresh look at how I taught it and

how I interacted with my students. This peer review

program provided both the structure and the opportunity to

do so.

Major objectives and approaches to their attainment:

My primary objectives for analyzing this course through

peer review included:

• updating my course lecture content (attained by,

well, rewriting old lectures, writing some new ones, and

updating examples). This is not a static field..

Advertising trends and effective tactics are constantly

changing.

• better connect with students early in the semester

through extensive feedback on early assignments.

• provide a learning atmosphere that encourages

students to take creative risks and to work

collaboratively.

Questions I sought to explore through the peer review

process:

Comment [mj1]: strategies? (I think the

singular is appropriate here. Creative strategy

is considered a sub-discipline of the creative

process in advertising.)

Comment [mj2]: yay!

Comment [mj3]: I see your point, but you

might want to keep in mind that this portfolio

may well be read by teachers from all

disciplines, including Chemistry; and I suspect

that they find their field as dynamic and

evolving as the rest of us find ours!

(Thanks. You’re quite right.)

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What could I learn from watching other professors about

lecturing, delivery of course content, and grading?

Also, though I’ve always felt comfortable with my students

and I think they feel comfortable with me, I wanted to see

if I could pick up some ideas that would enhance class

discussion and collaboration among the students.

Questions I would like readers to address when reviewing

the portfolio:

Evidence of the questions I sought to explore is not really

observable in the materials contained in my teaching

portfolio. So, some things I would like for readers of my

portfolio to look at are:

• my lecture outlines—Are they too detailed and, if

so, does that make it harder for students to

understand new concepts?

• my assignments–Do they clearly communicate the

requirements and expectations?

• my grading–Are my comments on assignments helpful to

the students for their future assignments and work?

Comment [mj4]: I didn‟t have enough

time to read all your lecture outlines. This

question would seem perfect to pose to

Michael, who saw you deliver lectures, right?

He also probably saw some student reaction,

and can therefore give you a better answer than

I could, since lectures are by nature a live

event rather than a text. (The feedback I got

from Michael didn’t indicate that the lecture

outlines were too detailed, but I trimmed the

ones he saw a good bit. I’ve always felt I’ve

had a tendency to put too much info on these

slides.)

Comment [mj5]: I think in the integrated

campaign assignment, you could be clearer

about what you mean by “nontraditional

media.” The examples you give in your

discussion below seem to me to be

nontraditional venues more than media. That

is, isn‟t a print ad on an elevator door still

using the medium of print, just on an unusal

venue? If you mean this, that‟s fine, but I

think it could be clearer in your assignment. If

you mean nontraditional media, I think it

would still be helpful to give some kind of

example to get people started thinking. (I

suppose jingles were a non-traditional medium

when they started, I don‟t know what would

be, now.) If this is something covered in your

textbook, you might use the assignment sheet

to refer them to that book (which would also

address something you mention at the end of

the portfolio: that you‟d like to better integrate

their reading with their assignments.) (Very

good point. I’m distinguishing traditional

from nontraditional in terms of mass media

formats that advertising agencies have

traditionally used to reach mass audiences

rather than in terms of sensory modality. In

this context, print would be magazines,

newspapers, direct mail, billboards/signage,

etc. Billing and commission structures for

these media have been well established for

decades, but less traditional forms of getting

messages to audiences (e.g., YouTube, viral

marketing, certain forms of event sponsorship,

etc.) require advertising people to think about

contact points with audiences rather than just

the cost per thousand impressions). But you’re

right that I don’t make the distinction very

clear in the assignment sheet. Originally, that

was intentional—I wanted the students to think

creatively about nontraditional media. But

after they struggled with it for a couple

semesters, I started showing lots of examples

of nontraditional media placements in class.

Of course, what I got from students were

mostly slight variations of the examples I

showed them.)

Comment [mj6]: see comments below

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The Design and Structure of MC 456–Advertising

Techniques

Course description and context:

The university’s catalog describes Advertising Techniques

as ―the planning, creation and production of advertising

messages for the various mass communication media.‖ It is

the third or fourth of the six required advertising courses

that advertising students must take in the Miller School.

Most semesters, the students coming into the course will

have had the same professor for Advertising Writing, the

prerequisite course usually taken the semester before

Advertising Techniques. Sometimes, however, the students

have had different instructors in the previous course,

which makes it particularly difficult to assess their

familiarity with the creative strategy process in

advertising. On the other hand, it is a clear advantage

that Advertising Techniques is not the students’ first

laboratory course in advertising. I can start out with an

assumption of a certain level of shared knowledge and move

very quickly into the actual course content and skills

development.

The students in advertising techniques:

The typical student in this course is an advertising major,

a junior in terms of earned credit hours, a native Kansan

and a woman (nearly two-thirds of our advertising majors

are women). Nearly all of the students in this course meet

the definition of a traditional student (full time

enrollment and under the age of 25). For spring semester

2007, I had 18 students in the course (this is the maximum

allowed for lab classes under our accreditation criteria).

Four were male; 14 were female. All were Caucasian. The

lack of diversity among the students sometimes makes it

challenging to get them to consider alternate viewpoints in

terms of consumer preferences, habits, lifestyles and

values. And yet while the students’ backgrounds tend to

show more similarity than might be the case in other

universities and majors, the pre-existing skill levels they

bring to the class are quite varied and present yet another

challenge. Some students will be highly proficient with

the design and image manipulation software we use in this

course; others will be novices with a great deal of

apprehension about using the computers. This is especially

a challenge early in the semester.

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Course goals and learning objectives:

As a mid-level professional skills class, the objectives

for this course are to help students improve their ability

to come up with ideas for ads and campaigns that are

consistent with advertisers’ marketing and promotional

strategies, that communicate clearly and interestingly, and

that attain a requisite level of technical competence

expected of new professionals entering the advertising job

market. Very few of our students (or those in other

advertising programs) actually get a job in an agency

creative department right out of school. It is much more

common for students in entry-level advertising positions to

get jobs involving media planning and buying, account

services, research, and so on. Landing a creative job is a

highly competitive undertaking; frequently, new graduates

will work in other advertising agency departments for a

while before they really have a chance to work their way

into the creative department. This is a relevant issue for

this course because I need to be candid with students about

the probabilities of working in a creative department right

out of college, and impart to them the value of

understanding the creative processes involved in

advertising even if they don’t wind up working in that

particular area of the business. I also need to be candid

with the students who do not show the potential to work in

a creative department.

The expected student learning outcomes for this course (and

the primary way I try to attain each outcome) include:

• to enhance students’ understanding of and ability to

participate in conceiving and developing creative ideas for

advertising campaignsthe concepting and ideation processes

involved in developing creative advertising. This is

attained by conducting in-class strategy sessions for each

assignment in which we discuss the nexus of product,

audience and message. Also, for most assignments, I ask to

see a variety of potential creative concepts before they

actually spend the time designing and producing the ads.

• to understand and consciously apply basic principles

and elements of two-dimensional graphic design as they

relate to print advertising materials. This is attained

through lectures and exercises that introduce the students

to these concepts, which they then attempt to apply in

their graded assignments.

Comment [mj7]: This word may be

common professional jargon, but it won‟t be

known to most of your readers. Would the

older and more common word

“conceptualizing” work just as well?

Comment [mj8]: This is another word

I‟ve never heard. I can guess what it means,

but (ok, yes, my English Professor side is

kicking in), is there a less jargony and more

attractive synonym available? Does “the

concepting and ideation process” mean “the

conceiving and developing of a concept”?

(Sorry to be picky here, but one of the things I

try to work on when I teach writing is to avoid

the common American habit of creating new

verbs from nouns that were already derivations

of pre-existing verbs. (Conceive concept

concepting). I like the old verbs, and think

they add richness to our language that I‟d like

to sustain.) (You’re right. After a while, I

don’t notice that I’m using trade jargon. And I

agree with you about creating new verbs.)

Comment [mj9]: sounds fun!

8

• to follow a creative brief to produce advertising

that is both creative and that adheres to the

advertiser’son strategy to communicate effectively with

diverse audiences in a multicultural society. This is

attained by providing students with creative briefs in the

first graded assignments and discussing with them how their

approaches and ideas are either following the

assignedstrategy or not. Later in the semester, I have the

students start writing their own creative briefs.

• to better revise one’s work and develop a portfolio

of the best revised work. This is attained by allowing

students to re-do two assignments for a new grade if they

make substantive revisions to those assignments. Also, the

last assignment of the semester is a portfolio of their

best work. (See ―MC456spring07syllabus.pdf‖ in the

Appendices).

Where Advertising Techniques fits in the broader curricula

of the Miller School and the university:

The advertising sequence is one of four areas of

undergraduate specialization in the Miller School of

Journalism and Mass Communications. The others are print

journalism, public relations, and electronic media.

Advertising majors typically comprise 25-30 percent of the

School’s majors. It is a mid-level required course for the

advertising majors. It is also typically a course that the

students look forward to, since this is the first course in

which they produce assignments that look like real ads.

Historically, almost all the students who take this course

have been JMC undergraduate majors, but we have had

occasional students from the fashion merchandising major in

Human Ecology, and from the communications major in the

College of Agriculture.

Comment [jk10]:

Comment [mj11]: again, I think this is

disciplinary jargon that might be better phrased

for an interdisciplinary audience; for example

as “both creative and effectively

communicative to diverse audiences…”

Comment [mj12]: “assigned strategy”?

Comment [mj13]: This was in second

person – addressing student (your…). I‟ve

edited to keep in 3rd person style, as the others

are.

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Teaching Methods/Course Materials/Course Activities

Teaching methods:

Advertising Techniques meets as a two-hour laboratory

course twice a week. Most class periods are spent as a

combination of lecture and work time. During work time, I

attempt to visit with each student (or student team if they

are working on a team assignment) each class period. This

helps me stay abreast of how the students are developing

their projects and it gives them frequent feedback and

opportunities to ask questions and try out new ideas. For

the lecture portion of the class, I place a heavy emphasis

on principles of graphic design and visual communication as

they are applied to advertising. Early in the semester, I

also include several exercises and in-class, ungraded

assignments that are designed to assess student skill

levels, to help less skilled students learn some basic

techniques and achieve greater confidence in their

developing abilities, and to illustrate specific techniques

that students may be able to use in their assignments.

Examples of the lecture content that address conceptual

aspects of design principleals and visual communication

include lectures on: principles of design; color theory;

layout principles. In particular, for the principles of

design lecture, I found classic print ads from the early

1900s up through the 1950s and compared them with current

ads to show that while techniques and art styles change,

the principles of design remain consistent. (Slide

presentations of these three lectures are included in the

appendices as PowerPoint files: principles of design.ppt,

color theory.ppt, and layout concepts.ppt). The original

presentations were created in Keynote; in converting the

files to PowerPoint, some animations, colors, and object

opacities were changed.)

I used several exercises early in the semester to introduce

students to basic graphic solutions to design problems and

to teach them elementary software techniques that they

would need to master in order to complete their later

assignments. Although I review all of these, none of these

are graded. The first was a diagnostic exercise I use on

the first day of class to see how well they can write and

to get an idea of their basic skill levels coming into the

course. Three tutorials were Photoshop exercises that I

created a few years ago; they teach basic techniques such

Comment [mj14]: “principles‖ (okay, but

they are my ―pals).

Comment [mj15]: great idea!

Comment [mj16]: do you mean “to see

how they write” – to understand their style – or

do you mean “to see how well they can write”

– to determine the quality of their prose?

Please edit for clarity.

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as various ways of selecting objects, removing foreground

portions of images from their backgrounds, stamping and

cloning to fill in missing parts of images, creating new

background textures, and color manipulation through masking

techniques. I also created two new in-class

tutorials/exercises this semester. The first was a layout

exercise using a grid system to provide an organizing

structure for the two-dimensional space. The second was an

exercise that showed the students how to use a photograph

for a background image, and then create areas for text

(called mortises) in front of it. Both of these exercises

were designed to help the students figure out graphic

solutions to their menu page designs, which was the second

assignment of the semester. Both of these tutorials worked

fairly well, although the students found the grid tutorial

more difficult to understand than the mortise tutorial.

Examples of the tutorial instructions, the original image

files and sample image files that students created are

included in the Appendices. See intro exercise.pdf, grid

tutorial.doc, background mortise tutorial.doc, and

lakemichigansunset.jpg).

Mechanisms used to evaluate students and how they relate

to course objectives:

Advertising Techniques is a course that places a heavy

emphasis on out-of-class assignments. I used eleven graded

items—nine out-of-class assignments and two ―quests‖ (my

version of a cross between a quiz and a test). All eleven

assignments are equally weighted. The assignments and

quests, in the order in which they were completed, are

described below:

1. Collateral assignment #1: Personal Identity Package. In this assignment, students create their

own identity package, which consists of personal

stationery, a résumé, a business card, an envelope,

and a promotional item. The goal is for them to

have professional and creative stationery that they

can use for job/internship hunting, or for personal

correspondence. It also encourages them to think of

themselves as a branded item, because when they

graduate with their advertising degree, there will

be thousands of other new graduates competing for a

few hundred really good entry level jobs. As such,

students need to learn early on how to differentiate

themselves in a crowded product category if they are

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going to capture the attention of their audiences..

(See assignment 1 identity.pdf).

2. Collateral assignment #2: Restaurant Menu. In this assignment, students come up with a concept for a

fictitious restaurant. They then create a logo for

it, and design and produce a prototype menu. The

goal is for them to create a consistent look and

appealing layouts in a multi-page document. (See

assignment 2 menu.pdf).

3. Small Space Newspaper Campaign. In this assignment, students take the restaurant concept they created in

the menu assignment, and develop a black and white

small space newspaper campaign. The goal is for them

to extend their restaurant concept by creating ads

that fit the personality of the restaurant they

hoped to convey in their menu, and also to have a

complementary promotional campaign to include in

their portfolio along with their menu. (See

assignment 3 newspaper.pdf).

4. Magazine Campaign #1: Buderim Gingerbons. In this assigment, I wrote a creative strategy for a real

product – an Australian candy that has been

successfully marketed in Australia and Europe, but

which was unfamiliar to the students. The worked in

teams of two (randomly assigned) and created a full

color campaign consisting of three ads. The goals

for this assignment are to have them work in teams,

to come up with creative concepts that follow a

specific creative strategy, and to do their first

―real‖ ads of the semester. (See assignment 6

magazine.pdf).

5. Quest #1 (midterm): This traditionally formatted test/quiz covers the lecture material and outside

readings from the first half of the semester. (See

midterm quest.pdf).

6. 30 second TV Commercial: In this assignment, students are randomly assigned to groups of three.

From there, they decide what advertiser they would

like to create a commercial for, write a creative

strategy, come up with concepts for the commercial

and develop a storyboard, ―film‖ the commercial

using a digital video camera, and edit and produce

the commercial. The goals of this assignment are

for them to experiment with television, a format

that traditionally students think will be much

easier to work in than it turns out to be. They

also experience first-hand the difficulty of telling

Comment [mj17]: Why do you want

students to think of themselves this way? (see

additional clause)

Comment [mj18]: I‟m a little confused by

this sentence whether this is a real candy and

campaign that you wrote, or whether this is all

made up for the sake of the assignment. If

you‟ve written a strategy, and the students are

to come up with the campaign, it confuses me

that the candy has been successfully marketed

already. Could you clarify this, please? (It’s

real, and quite tasty if you like ginger. Let me

know and I’ll bring you a package if you like

ginger. Hopefully my edit fixed the ambiguity.)

Comment [mj19]: again, could a less

jargony synonym be used? (“conceive of” or

“conceptualize”?)

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a coherent story and delivering an effective sales

message in 30 seconds. Since the average network

television 30-second spot now costs more than

$200,000 to produce, the goal here is not to

complete ―production quality‖ TV spots without a

budget; rather, the goal is to create a movie file

that looks and sounds enough like a ―spec

commercial‖ that a prospective client could evaluate

the spot before spending a lot of money on

production. More and more advertising agencies are

using this technique as a way to pitch TV commercial

ideas to their clients. Although the TV commercial

is not one of the assignments I decided to analyze

in depth, I have included one example of student

work from this assignment so that the reader can

better understand what I mean by a ―spec commercial‖

(See ―science diet 30 second commercial.mov‖ and

assignment 5 TV.pdf).

7. Magazine Campaign #1: In this assignment, students get to choose if they work with a partner or not,

and they also get to choose who that partner is.

Then, as with the TV assignment, they come up with

the advertiser, the creative strategy and the ads.

This assignment is done with the final portfolio in

mind. Doing a second assignment in the same medium

(magazine) should result in better work overall, and

creative directors in the advertising industry

recommend having multiple magazine ads in student

portfolios. (See assignment 6 magazine 2.pdf).

8. Quest #2 (skills quest): This is a late-in-the-semester check to see if the students’ software

skills are as developed and precise as they should

be. In this quest, I give the students a copy of a

real ad. Then I provide them with digital copies of

all the photos and artwork contained in the ad.

From there, the students have to re-create the

original ad as precisely as possible. (See

quest2instructions.doc).

9. Integrated Campaign: In this assignment, students also form a creative team with another student if

they wish to, come up with the advertiser, the

creative strategy and the ads. The new twist on

this assignment is that they have to execute the

campaign using different types of advertising media,

including at least one nontraditional medium. The

goals here are to get them are to get them to think

about creative uses of nontraditional media (e.g.,

Comment [mj20]: Wow. This sounds

incredibly ambitious – and fun at the same

time! (It is – on both counts. It’s also why so

much of the TV advertising you see is so banal.

It’s a lot harder than it looks.)

Comment [mj21]: I realize that since you

are a professional school, it may seem utterly

run of the mill to have assignments that are so

clearly and immediately relevant to the

profession for which you are training these

students – but it‟s worth noticing, I think.

You‟ve done a really fine job having your

lessons be so clearly pertinent. I‟m sure your

students appreciate both the relevance, and

also your articulation of that relevance so they

can see it. (Thanks. I was thinking exactly the

same thing . . .)

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garbage cans or elevator doors), and to learn to

extend advertising creative concepts beyond a single

advertising medium. (See assignment 7 integrated

campaign.pdf).

10. Billboard campaign: In this assignment, I give

the students a creative strategy for a billboard

campaign for Michelin Tires. Their assignment is to

come up with a campaign that concisely communicates

tire safety tips as a way of engendering more

positive attitudes about the Michelin brand. (See

assignment 8 outdoor.pdf).

11. Portfolio: In this assignment, students were

asked to select five or more of their best pieces,

revise them where appropriate, and combine them in a

professional, well-designed portfolio. They could

decide if they wanted to do a traditional printed

portfolio, a ―mini-book,‖ a web site, or a DVD. The

goal for this assignment was to have them create a

first portfolio that they could use when

interviewing for jobs and internships.

In the following sections, I will show examples of some,

but not all of these assignments, along with my evaluations

of them and reflections on them.

Criteria for evaluation:

I use three primary factors in evaluating student

assignments: strategy and adherence to advertiser’s stated

objectives; quality of creative concepts; and quality of

executions. Within these three factors, I typically use a

grading rubric that evaluates the assignments on a 1 to 5

scale for items such as: execution’s adherence to strategy;

creative concept; unity/consistency among ads in the

campaign; art direction; copywriting; mechanics; and

presentation/display of material. (See Appendices for

examples of grade sheets). The standard for a high mark (a

―5‖) on each item would be that the work is of a high

enough professional quality that it could be speculatively

presented to an advertiser for consideration. A mark in

the 3.0-3.5 range would be a medium grade, and a 2.5 or

below would be a low mark on each particular item.

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Analysis of Student Learning

Description of initial exercises:

I’ll begin with a few of the early ungraded assignments and

exercises—the items I use to diagnose varying levels of

student ability coming into the course.

The first three examples are from the first day of class.

In looking at ―intro exercise 1.pdf‖ I see a student who is

careful, thorough, and precise about following

instructions. I also see a student who is tentative about

taking risks. In looking at ―intro exercise 2.pdf‖ I see a

student who is not comfortable with the technical aspects

of the software, but who thinks three dimensionally (e.g.,

overlaps items) and who is not bound by symmetry (uses an

asymmetrically balanced layout). In looking at ―intro

exercise 3. pdf‖ I see a student who thinks spatially (uses

a landscape layout rather than a portrait), and who has

already developed a sense of using type, color and negative

space.

For the duotone and mortise tutorial described earlier,

―duotone and mortise.pdf‖ is a typical example. Most of

the students came up with something very similar to this.

But the goal of this assignment was to show them the steps

to creating a technical image manipulation for text and

background that they could then adapt to their designs and

ideas at a later point.

Analysis of major assignments:

I analyzed three graded assignments in more depth. These

were the menu assignment, the small space newspaper

campaign, and the second magazine campaign assignment. I

chose these because the menu assignment was arguably the

most complex assignment I had the students do in terms of

art direction and production. For example, figuring out

how to bind a multiple page document while taking into

account page margins, trimming of pages for bleeds,

lamination or page mounting media, etc., is a challenging

production problem to solve. I chose the newspaper

assignment in part because of its relative simplicity. It

was the easiest assignment from a production standpoint;

therefore, the students were, hopefully, able to focus

their efforts more fully on the communication task at hand.

I chose the second magazine assignment because the students

Comment [mj22]: It would be very

helpful here if you told us what those

instructions were. (When I look at the

assignment, it seems text heavy and the

graphic elements seem random and distracting

– I am thus left wondering what the

instructions were – is the inclusion of shapes a

good thing, given the requirements, even if

they actually get in the way visually?) Also, I

really like the way you find something

valuable in each of these student‟s work; that

you really are learning what they are like at

this point, rather than evaluating quality. But

I‟m left wondering whether you convey this

assessment to them. Do they get this feedback

from you? How? (I return the assignment to

them with comments, though my comments

weren’t this focused on my perceptions of

them. Good point about whether including a

task to see how they use design elements in

conjunction with an introductory writing

exercise is really a good combination or useful

on the first day of class. My thinking behind

combining these elements was to force them to

think about text and visuals as elements that

must work together on the very first day, but

I’m not sure how successful it is. The students

who have some design experience coming into

the course can generally come up with

something that doesn’t suck on this

introductory assignment, but I don’t get a lot

of good insights from the rest of the students.)

Comment [mj23]: This is pure curiosity

in my part, but how do you see this discomfort

in this piece? (The student expresses her

discomfort in the text, not so much in the

layout or her use of the graphic elements.)

Comment [mj24]: more complex than the

TV one? I guess, in the sense of having to use

various media. (Yes, it’s a real production

challenge early in the semester. They have to

think about paper stocks and colors for

interior pages, paper stock or some other

medium—e.g., wood or fabric—for a cover

stock, binding, laminating, printing on odd

page sizes, etc. It drives them a bit nuts, but

they learn a lot about solving problems on the

fly.)

15

had almost complete autonomy in this assignment and because

it was their second try at working with magazines as an

advertising medium. One restriction I did place on this

assignment was that the students had to produce their own

primary artwork for this assignment; they were not allowed

to use stock photography or stock illustrations. Another

reason for using the second magazine assignment was that it

occurred later in the semester.

For the menu assignment, ―haunted house menu version1.pdf‖

is an example of below average work. The evaluation sheet

―hauntedhouseevaluation.pdf‖ is also in the appendices.

The student put a lot of work into this assignment, but did

not make very effective design decisions, particularly in

terms of color, typography, and artwork. I was pleased,

however, that she re-did the menu later in the semester and

turned in a much stronger and cohesive project (see

―haunted house menu version2.pdf‖). The menu ―kure urban

lounge.pdf‖ is an example of average-to-slightly-above-

average work for this assignment (also see

kureurbanloungeevalution.pdf‖). The student’s graphic

design abilities are somewhat limited at this point in the

semester, but she did a very good job of working within the

ability she possessed to create an open, airy, colorful and

contemporary that fit her restaurant concept nicely.

An example of excellent student work is included for the

small space newspaper campaign. Here, since the ads were

small, I was not looking for heavy-handed art direction.

Rather, brisk copy that fit the personality of the

restaurant and a clean look were the main things that made

this campaign successful. The restaurant concept was

―Fancy It,‖ a place serving British food and beer that

doesn’t take itself too seriously. (see ―fancy it

newspaper.pdf‖ and ―fancyitevaluation.pdf‖). Another

example of good student work on this assignment is for The

Dueling Ivories, a dueling piano bar. The student used a

stark contrast of black and white, like piano keys, and

wrote copy from the perspective of people who might be shy

about singing along to well-known songs (see ―dueling

ivories.pdf‖ and ―duelingivoriesevalution.pdf‖). An

example of medium quality student work is for the campaign

for the Cheetah Room. Conceptually, the student came up

with a fairly good idea (―Big Cats . . . Big ____‖).

However, the space is too gray to effective attract a

reader’s eye on a busy newspaper page. More importantly,

though, the communication was not as clear as it should

Comment [mj25]: Since you asked

specifically for feedback on your evaluation of

student work: Overall, this evaluation seems

very useful and helpful in its specificity of

suggestions for improvement, and in finding

elements to praise as well as to criticize. Two

suggestions: 1. Add a written phrase in the

topic she did best in – the one item on which

she received a “5” has no written comment to

explain why, or to reinforce that this was well

done. 2. you might consider doing these on

the computer. It would be easier for your

students to read a typed version than a

handwritten one, and it would also mean you

have a copy of your own; especially useful in

evaluating revisions.

Comment [mj26]: Again, since you asked

specifically about this: I actually think the

final sentence of this paragraph here in the

portfolio would have been really useful

feedback for the student – it‟s more specific

about the value of the work she did, as well as

acknowledging (without demeaning) her

limitations. I think sometimes we are afraid to

be as direct with students as we are when

talking to colleagues, but I‟d encourage you to

convey this sort of specific, supportive, and

constructive assessment to her in your

comments. (Thanks. Good points.)

Comment [mj27]: I liked this one too, but

the rhyme in the first page threw me off (first

and second lines are metrically the same, and

rhyme, then rest doesn‟t). Do you talk about

that sort of thing under copywriting?

(Actually, I hadn’t even noticed the rhyme.

Looking back it again, I can see how a reader

might, especially with the centered type. When

I have taught the Ad Writing class, which is the

pre-req for Ad Techniques, I talk some about

working in meter, especially when it comes to

jingles. But I don’t deal much with copywriting

in Ad Techniques, except in individual cases

as I see the ads developing.)

16

have been for a restaurant that newspapers readers might

not be familiar with (see ―cheetah room.pdf‖ and

―cheetahroomevaluation.pdf‖).

For the second magazine assignment, all of the student work

turned in was quite good, according to my grading criteria.

This was an encouraging sign of student progress both for

me and for the students. The first example was an

excellent campaign, both conceptually and in its execution.

I was also pleased with this campaign because it was done

by a student who had struggled with some of the assignments

earlier in the semester. The campaign was for Fender

guitars, and the student wanted to emphasize the high

esteem of the brand and its image as a classic brand. She

accomplished this very skillfully by juxtaposing important,

well-known paintings with photographs of someone playing a

Fender guitar. The paintings were in color; the photos in

black and white. The two disparate concepts were brought

together with the themeline ―The Masterpiece of Guitars‖

(see ―fender.pdf‖ and ―fenderevaluation.pdf‖). The second

magazine example I wanted to comment on was a campaign for

Essie Nail Polish. Most advertising for nail polish looks

pretty much the same—a closeup of a beautiful model and her

stunning nails. In this campaign, though, the students

wanted to emphasize the color, and did so very creatively

by creating simple vector illustrations that appear to be

made with the nail polish. These illustrations were set

against a strong negative space of a solid black background

(see ―essie.pdf‖ and ―essieevaluation.pdf‖). The third

example in the magazine campaigns that I wanted to comment

on was a student project for Body Butter, a line of lotion

products sold by The Body Shop. For this example, I have

included one of the ads and the creative strategy the

student wrote. It is the creative strategy that I think is

the most compelling part of this project. The student

wrote a very concise and well focused creative strategy for

the brand that had a clear creative objective, positioning

statement, andcan consumer insight (see ―body butter.pdf‖

and ―bodybutterevaluation.pdf‖).

Grades and grade trends:

As an upper-level laboratory and project based course, I am

more concerned about student progress and proficiency than

I am about grade distributions between and among class

sections. As I tell the students at the beginning of the

semester, this is a course that requires an exceptional

Comment [mj28]: Also, does a customer

with a big ego want it tamed by the restaurant

he patronizes? In regard to your evaluations,

though – I like the way you talk with them as if

they are going to revise everything. It makes

the comments constructive.

Comment [mj29]: I also loved this

campaign, and your comments are fine, but I

think it‟s important to be as detailed when

students do things right as when there are

corrections to be made, so I‟d encourage you

to explain more of those „5‟s. (And maybe

even differentiate between the ads. I thought

the last one worked, but really only after the

other 2, which for me had more visual interest

– the intersecting diagonals of the Munch, the

fragmentation of the Duchamps… I didn‟t see

such visual echoes in the final Van Gogh piece

– though, perhaps revealing the full body

works as a culmination to the other two.)

(You’re absolutely right. I do need to give

more written feedback on what the students

have done well. Often, I’ve talked with the

students verbally about those aspects as I see

the ads develop, but they won’t remember

those comments later when they are working

on their portfolios.)

Comment [mj30]: should this be “and”?

(Yep, thanks.)

17

amount of time and effort to complete the assignments.

Consequently, final course grades in this course tend to be

relatively high (averaging in the 3.0-3.4 range). Another

reason the final grade distribution tends to be high in

this course is that I allow students to revise two

assignments for new grades; typically, students whose

grades are borderline are more likely to take advantage of

this option. The spring 2007 section fell within this

range as well. Also typical of my past experiences in

teaching this course, grades for individual assignments

tended to get higher as the semester went on and student

performance improved.

Progress in achieving course goals and student learning

objectives:

In reviewing the stated course goals and student learning

objectives, I believe that all the students showed marked

improvement in the quality of the advertising concepts and

executions over the course of the semester. This is

reassuring, perhaps, but not necessarily surprising in a

course like this that has many assignments, lots of time

built into the course structure for instructor-student

interaction, and which consists of work that most students

find to be fun and enjoyable, though much more difficult

than they originally anticipated.

One informal measure of whether or not an assignment

achieved its objectives is to have students show their work

to the class on the due dates for each assignment. Then we

have a brief discussion of things they learned, problems

they had to solve, etc., in completing the assignment.

This practice gives me a good indication of whether or not

the students’ understanding of what was expected in the

assignment was consistent with my expectations. I have

also found this practice of having the students show their

work (and therefore see everyone’s work) to be extremely

useful. Before I even grade the assignment, the students

have all had a chance to compare how their work stacks up

with those of their peers.

Comment [mj31]: Great idea.

Comment [mj32]: yes, but I also like the

discussion of problems that these assignments

required them to solve. That seems really

useful for those who didn‟t do well – to hear

how others solved the things that stumped

them. And also allows students to teach each

other. I think structuring it this way (rather

than “what‟s good/bad about this work”) is

really smart – I‟m going to borrow this for my

next peer workshop!

18

Reflection

What I’ve learned about my pedagogy:

I’ve learned that I think I do a pretty good job in one-on-

one student interactions. I try to keep the lab time

informal and interact with the students as individuals and

developing professionals. I sit beside them at the

computers, rather than across a desk from them. It takes a

few weeks to develop rapport with students and some

students are not immediately comfortable with this type of

classroom interaction between themselves and the professor,

but most adapt to it after a while, and seem to enjoy the

laid-back atmosphere. Often these students will stop by my

office to chat in subsequent semesters, so I think it’s an

interactive approach they ultimately come to appreciate.

From a pedagogical standpoint, I think the value of this

approach is that it makes it easier for both the student

and the instructor to discuss their work candidly. They

know when I say they have a good idea or have found a

creative solution to a problem that I mean it. They also

know when I tell them that an idea sucks that I’m not

trying to make them feel bad; rather, we’re acknowledging

together that the creative process is both difficult and

iterative, and sometimes you have to dig your way through a

long set of bad ideas before you start uncovering some good

ones.

I’ve also learned, after ten years of being a professor,

that I still need to work at lecturing. Although I updated

many of my lectures this semester, and developed a few new

ones, I sometimes have a tendency to talk a little over the

heads of the students and to put too much detailed

information on my slides. I also feel like I’m too

dependent on presentation software for delivering course

content, and will keep working to incorporate more ―off-

screen‖ discussion, lecture and activities to enhance

student learning.

Most effective practices and mechanisms:

The things I do in class, in grading and in my interactions

with students that I think work most effectively in

achieving course goals and learning outcomes are:

• handing out an assignment sheet for each assignment

plus discussing the objectives and strategic issues of each

19

assignment in class at the time the assignment is handed

out.

• giving the students a heavy workload that includes a

broad range of assignments.

• giving students plenty of feedback on their work,

both verbally in class while the work is being developed,

and written feedback on their evaluation sheets.

• delivering conceptual material during lecture,

particularly concepts associated with the physical and

psychological properties of visual perception.

Least effective practices and mechanisms:

• I really don’t utilize the textbooks that I require

very well. I assign all of the chapters as readings, but

mostly encourage the students to use the textbooks as

learning resources, and probably don’t do enough to make

sure the students are utilizing these resources as well as

I’d like them to.

• Although I think the midterm quest was a fairly

reliable measure of the students’ mastery of the lecture

portion of the course content, I wonder whether it is

really an effective measure of student learning given the

applied project nature of this course.

• At times my own mastery of some of the software

applications the students use in this course is not strong

enough to help them troubleshoot problems quickly or to

demonstrate advanced techniques to them.

Advice given by peer review partner and mentor:

My peer review partner for this project was Dr. Michael

Krysko from the Department of History. We observed each

other’s classes three times, exchanged memos based on the

class observations, and met to review work from each

other’s classes. After each class observation, we also

spent a few minutes discussing things we observed the other

do. As our two courses were quite different both in content

and structure, neither of us had much specific advice for

the other on things to do differently; rather, the gist of

most of our discussions and memos focused on affirming

things we thought the other person handled well and some

insights that we gained from each other that we might be

able to incorporate in our own teaching at some point.

My mentor for this project was Dr. Sue Williams from the

Department of Sociology. The advice I got from her was to

Comment [mj33]: I‟m glad you found

these observations at least partially useful – did

you provide each other before the visits with

things you‟d like the other to watch for/ help

with? That can make it easier for the observer

to offer suggestions. (No we didn’t. We

generally scheduled our visits at the last

minute. But I really enjoyed working with

Michael. In fact, we’re going to try to see if we

can get his History of Mass Media course

cross-listed with JMC, and we talked a little

about developing a cross-listed graduate

seminar that he could teach sometime down

the road.)

20

reduce the number of expected student learning outcomes

listed on my syllabus. I followed that advice.

Future Plans for the Course:

I would like to see the students have better software

proficiency overall coming into the course. This is an

issue that is not specific to this course, but cuts across

all the sequences in the Miller School. For the students

who come into Advertising Techniques with very little

knowledge of the software, their anxiety about the course

is sometimes quite high. In addition, as more students are

buying their own laptops or home computers with the

software we use in the course, fewer students have the need

to use our open computer lab in the evening to complete

their assignments. An unfortunate unintended outcome of

this is that when the students used to work in the computer

lab at night, When we used to have a full lab of students

working on projects duringthe evenings, they learned a lot

from each other. And I would also be able to pop into the

lab in the evenings and interact with the students more.

As more students have their own equipment, though, and

prefer to do their work at home, we are losing this really

good learning environment. Additionally, when students are

working on a wider variety of computers and different

versions of software, it becomes increasingly more

difficult for the instructor to help them troubleshoot

problems and errors. As a result, one of my future plans

for the course is to find a way to re-create the

collaborative learning opportunities outside of class that

used to occur naturally by virtue of the students needing

to work in the same space. One possible idea would be to

have a weekly lab night with optional attendance in which I

would also be in the lab to talk with students about their

projects.

Another plan that I would like to incorporate is to have

more students entering contests using projects from this

course. Several students in the past have successfully won

awards for work created in this course, but it takes a lot

of instructor time to find available contests, work with

students to revise their work for the entries, and

coordinate the entries. I did not take the time to do that

this semester, but it is a useful and potentially rewarding

experience for the students.

Comment [mj34]: I‟m sorry that she

wasn‟t more involved in your work this

semester; I wish I‟d known sooner that this

was an issue.

Comment [mj35]: Why is this a problem?

(My text was unclear. I think it’s better now.)

Comment [mj36]: I don‟t know how

feasible it would be, but you might also think

of a way to set aside 15 minutes of class time

in which those who know how to use a

program are given a fairly advanced task to

work on independently, and those who are new

can work with you in a smaller tutorial. (I‟m

assuming you have computers in the

classroom; otherwise, this won‟t work.)

(That’s an excellent idea. There are plenty of

tutorials online. Letting students work on ones

appropriate to their skill level should make

that instructional time better for all the

students.)

Comment [mj37]: Great idea. To lessen

the workload on yourself, maybe you could

briefly talk with them about how they would

go about finding these opportunities (surely a

skill they‟ll need later!), and then offer either

extra credit, or create a small-stakes

assignment for which they earn points for

finding and sharing info about contests, and

separate points for working together on

revisions and entering (this would reward risk-

taking, but might not improve the dept‟s

reputation if borderline students are just

looking for extra credit – might have to think

of an alternative incentive for that part. I

suppose they could get points only if they

win…) (I like that idea. Thanks. And thanks

for your close reading and comments on my

portfolio. I really appreciate it.)

21

I should also probably have the students start the

portfolio assignment a few weeks earlier in the semester.

Some of the portfolios I received this semester looked a

bit rushed. It would be more beneficial to the students to

have them start this project earlier and to have benchmark

deadlines to meet along the way.