One of my favorite sources for class activities is Gamestorming. While targeted at business and leaders of businesses, many of the activities can be easily adapted for the classroom and committee work (see my review here). I’ve talked in previous posts about how to use user stories for personal planning, and Agile Faculty covers course and assignment design as well. In this post, I want to introduce your to another format from Gamestorming – the elevator pitch.

When we think about elevator pitches, we probably think of that under 30 second synopsis an entrepreneur or sales person uses to get in the door with a funder or buyer. The Gamestorming version of the format is clearly for a business, so let’s reimagine for a course. I sincerely dislike the student-as-customer concept, but that doesn’t mean we can’t frame our courses in interesting and persuasive ways for students.

Thinking about a course you are planning or redesigning for the new academic year, how might you complete the following pitch in a way that helps students understand the value of the course to you and to them in their education?