From a colleague (this is gold): “Ideas for Using AI in Class Planning As educators, we’re constantly thinking about how we can keep our students engaged with interesting and relevant assignments. But crafting really engaging ones that also mimic the complex, real-world problems students will face as professionals can be laborious. In this article, Harvard Publishing shares how generative AI can help you create assignments that are more relevant and powerful for your students—and more efficient to produce.

From a colleague (this is gold): “Ideas for Using AI in Class Planning As educators, we’re constantly thinking about how we can keep our students engaged with interesting and relevant assignments. But crafting really engaging ones that also mimic the complex, real-world problems students will face as professionals can be laborious. In this article, Harvard Publishing shares how generative AI can help you create assignments that are more relevant and powerful for your students—and more efficient to produce.

https://hbsp.harvard.edu/inspiring-minds/how-i-used-gen-ai-to-create-a-highly-engaging-assignment

Using AI to create role play scenarios for students I recently came across this article and wanted to share.

https://hbsp.harvard.edu/inspiring-minds/using-generative-ai-to-create-role-play-scenarios-for-students

About halfway through the article is the full text for a prompt that you can feed into a GPT 4 enabled AI assistant (Co-pilot probably works best for this as it’s available for free to anyone with typically a university email address) to train the AI to become a negotiation role play. I’m still thinking about how I could customize the prompt to create role play scenarios for my classes, but wanted to share with you all as it could be useful for all business students looking for additional negotiation practice.

Speaking of negotiation and role playing:

German Business & Culture + Global Essentials, April 25 – May 23, 2025 (Summer I Semester). BIG PICTURE: Students who participate will have an amazingly fun experience that they will cherish forever, but this is a STUDY ABROAD program, not a vacation in Germany, and that is exactly why is has been so successful. Students get a chance to add international understanding to their life experiences and their resume without having to commit to an entire semester abroad.

One more thing:

Every SCM major now has to take: Global Negotiation…The fastest growing class at WMU. https://lnkd.in/ekhu3YHA. There is discussion that we should perhaps make every major at WMU take this class.

Almost 1/2 of U.S. employees do not feel confident in their negotiation skills… > 40% don’t feel confident in their negotiation skills, while a 1/4 admit to never having negotiated at all in the workplace, per a LinkedIn survey.

The results revealed that men feel more confident about negotiating than women, with 37% of males feeling self-assured in their abilities, compared with just 26% of females.

Of the 8 countries examined, workers in the U.S. are the most anxious negotiators. My theory: lack of formal training & we throw them into these roles too soon.

The Institute of Supply Management identifies negotiation as the most important skill of SCM professionals & yet the weakest in terms of delivery. However, not at WMU. In fact, our supply chain majors (a Top 10 program) take the class with Sales majors (another Top 10 program)! Do you see the synergy?

If you do Dr. Eckert’s 3-4 week Germany study abroad trip (end of April)…Our case-based negotiation course is taught in conjunction with students from our partner universities in Germany (w/ students from all over the world). You will gain strong knowledge about the negotiation process through lectures & associated quizzes & then will apply the knowledge with LIVE student-to-student negotiation experiences.

Global Negotiation (MKGT 2750)
This course is designed to be a “learning laboratory” for developing negotiation skills. The course will focus on the negotiation process & how individuals can understand & thus shape that process to achieve more desired outcomes. Negotiation will be explored with a global orientation so that students can understand the impact of culture & business climate on the negotiation process. The course will use multiple cases w/ students negotiating these cases to reinforce the concepts they learn.

Final note: my students go into “buyer” roles very early on in their careers. However, the supplier sales rep on the other side of the table is not early in their career (they often have > 10-20 years, if not more, work experience). So, LEARN to negotiate!
https://lnkd.in/gwPfkdkK
https://lnkd.in/eRy48_mu