curriculummarketingAI tools

Teaching Marketing with AI Tools: A Syllabus that Mirrors Industry Trends

eedify

2026-02-13

10 min read

A modern 12-week marketing syllabus that teaches Gemini Guided Learning, AI-email strategies, and vertical video projects — built for LMS tracking and industry alignment.

Fix fragmented learning: a marketing syllabus that teaches tools students will actually use

Students and instructors face a familiar problem in 2026: marketing education still looks like a decade-old checklist while the industry runs on AI and short-form video. If your syllabus hands out theory and links to ten different platforms, learners leave confused and unprepared. This syllabus redesign flips that script: project-first, tool-aligned, and built for modern LMS workflows using Gemini Guided Learning, AI-assisted email workflows (including Gmail's Gemini-era features), and vertical video production platforms powering episodic content.

The most important update for 2026: skills + systems, not just concepts

Industry hiring and freelance demand in late 2025–early 2026 made something clear: teams want marketers who can ship campaigns using AI tools, not just argue about frameworks. That means teaching:

Actionable AI fluency — framing prompts, vetting outputs, and orchestrating multimodal AI (text + image + video).
Email craft for an AI inbox — designing for Gmail’s new AI features (Gemini-powered overviews and summaries) so messages remain relevant and deliverable.
Vertical video storytelling — episodic short-form production, distribution, and analytics that mirror platforms and emerging vertical streaming services.
LMS-first course architecture — modular, trackable, and compatible with xAPI/SCORM/LTI so you can measure learning outcomes and campaign impact.

Learning outcomes (what students should be able to do by week 12)

Design, run, and analyze an AI-assisted market research sprint using Gemini Guided Learning.
Create a segmented, Gmail-aware email campaign using AI personalization and evaluate deliverability and engagement.
Produce a three-episode vertical video campaign using AI video tools and platform-specific best practices.
Publish course deliverables inside an LMS, track xAPI statements for learner work, and present results with data-driven recommendations.

12-week syllabus: projects, tools, and assessments

Below is a week-by-week blueprint you can drop into any LMS. Each module lists objectives, tools, assignment prompts, and evaluation criteria.

Weeks 1–2: Foundations & tool onboarding

Objective: Align students on marketing goals, introduce Gemini Guided Learning, AI-email basics, and vertical video platforms.

Tools: Gemini Guided Learning, Gmail (Gemini features), LMS sandbox, TikTok/Instagram Reels basics.
Activities: Guided Gemini modules on buyer personas; short labs creating prompts and validating outputs.
Deliverable: One-page buyer persona generated with Gemini, annotated with source prompts and validation steps.
Assessment: Rubric — clarity (30%), research fidelity (30%), prompt design (20%), LMS submission/metadata (20%).

Weeks 3–4: AI-driven market research sprint (Project 1)

Objective: Teach evidence-based insights using AI for rapid research.

Tools: Gemini Guided Learning, shared dataset in LMS, web-scrape (optional) and citation checklist.
Assignment: 48–72 hour sprint to produce a competitive landscape and 3 prioritized opportunity hypotheses.
Deliverables: 6-slide research brief + annotated prompts + xAPI statements to capture reading/research time.
Assessment: Use a rubric that scores hypothesis quality (40%), evidence (30%), reproducibility of prompts (20%), and presentation (10%).

Weeks 5–6: AI-email campaigns in the Gemini era (Project 2)

Objective: Build emails that perform inside Gmail’s increasingly AI-driven inbox while meeting deliverability and privacy standards.

Context: In January 2026 Google rolled Gmail AI features built on Gemini 3—overview summaries and smart composition are changing how recipients consume messages. Marketers must design for summarization and AI filtering.
Tools: Gmail (test inboxes), an email platform with AI features (e.g., Klaviyo, Mailchimp or equivalent), ESP testing tools, and warm-up infrastructure.
Assignment: Create a 3-email nurture flow for the persona from Project 1. Produce subject lines and preheaders optimized for AI summaries, and produce both long and AI-summary friendly versions of each email body.
Deliverables: Exportable campaign (HTML + plain text), test results (spam/summarization), and a 1-page strategy on how AI in inboxes informed messaging choices — include a short note on protecting email conversion from unwanted placements and filters.
Assessment metrics: deliverability tests (20%), open/click model design (20%), personalization quality (30%), AI-readiness writeup (30%).

Weeks 7–9: Vertical video production and episodic storytelling (Project 3)

Objective: Produce short-form, mobile-first video optimized for platform algorithmic discovery and vertical streaming platforms.

Industry context: Investors and startups are doubling down on vertical streaming and AI-driven vertical video tools. Companies like Holywater and Higgsfield attracted major funding in early 2026, signaling sustained demand for serial short-form content and AI-assisted creation.
Tools: TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts; AI video tools (Higgsfield-style generators, Runway, CapCut, or platform-native editors); sound libraries and captioning tools.
Assignment: Create a three-episode vertical series (3 x 30–60s) tied to the campaign persona. Include a release schedule, cross-post strategy, and a short paid-test plan (budget, KPI targets).
Deliverables: Three vertical videos, a distribution plan, and an analytics dashboard mockup capturing watch time, completion rate, rewatch, and conversion.
Assessment: creative concept (25%), editing and vertical optimization (25%), data plan (25%), platform-fit & publishing cadence (25%).

Weeks 10–11: Integration and measurement

Objective: Combine email and vertical video into a unified campaign. Run A/B tests and measure outcomes in an LMS-backed analytics view.

Activities: Map funnel from discovery to conversion, instrument tracking, simulate budget allocation, and run split tests in sandbox environments.
Tools: Analytics (GA4/alternative privacy-compliant analytics), LMS xAPI statements, UTM strategy, and ESP analytics.
Deliverable: Campaign performance report with lessons learned and next-step recommendations.
Grading: Data integrity & instrumentation (30%), insights quality (40%), next-step plan (30%).

Week 12: Capstone presentation & peer review

Objective: Present integrated campaign results and participate in structured peer feedback.

Deliverable: 10-minute pitch, 5-page supporting dossier, and peer-review feedback forms collected via LMS.
Assessment: Instructor (60%) + peer review (20%) + self-reflection (20%).

LMS best practices for delivering this syllabus

Design courses to be modular, trackable, and interoperable. Here’s how to do that:

Use xAPI for activity tracking — capture when a learner submits a prompt, watches a vertical video, or runs an ESP test. xAPI statements power portfolio analytics and employer-ready transcripts.
Prefer LTI links for external AI tools and video platforms — this keeps SSO and grade passback standardized.
Wrap assignments in SCORM or HTML5 packages when you need offline or locked content, but keep most materials as embeddable pages to support rapid iteration.
Enable versioning and asset libraries in the LMS so students can reuse and iterate on AI-generated assets ethically and transparently. Consider integrations that export public portfolio pages and archival workflows like From Daily Pixels to Gallery Walls for verified artifacts.

Prompt hygiene, academic integrity, and fairness

AI raises new academic and ethical questions. Make your policy explicit and teach students good habits:

Require submission of core prompts and a short log of how outputs were validated or edited.
Teach attribution: when AI outputs are used as sources, students should mark them and add checks from primary sources.
Use randomized or scaffolded prompts for assessments to discourage rote copying of AI outputs.
Provide a transparent rubric for AI-assisted work so students understand where human judgment is graded.

Analytics and learning outcomes: what to measure

Blend marketing KPIs with learning metrics so you can prove education-to-employment outcomes:

Learning engagement: xAPI statements captured per module, time-on-task, and revision rate.
Marketing KPIs: email deliverability & open/click rates, vertical video completion and CTR, landing page conversions.
Employer signals: portfolio submissions, interviews secured, freelance gigs tied to capstone projects.

Assessment rubrics: an example for the vertical video project

Use clear, weighted rubrics in the LMS so grades reflect industry standards:

Concept & Narrative (25%) — story clarity, persona fit, episodic hook.
Platform Optimization (20%) — captions, aspect ratio, thumbnail, timing for algorithmic discovery.
Production Quality (20%) — framing, pacing, audio, and AI-generated elements properly checked; consult field guides to location audio and compact rigs.
Distribution Strategy (20%) — publishing cadence, cross-post plan, initial paid test design.
Measurement Plan (15%) — KPIs, instrumentation, and realistic target setting.

Practical assignment templates (ready to copy into an LMS)

Here are three short templates you can paste into a module:

1) Prompt Design Lab

Task: Craft three prompts for Gemini Guided Learning to create buyer persona drafts. Submit the prompts, outputs, and a 300-word critique explaining why outputs need edits.

2) Gmail-Ready Email

Task: Build a two-email sequence optimized for Gmail’s AI Overviews. Provide two versions per email: full composition and condensed AI-summary version. Run deliverability checks and attach results.

3) Vertical Episode Release Plan

Task: Upload three vertical videos, schedule posts across two platforms, and present a 1-week paid-test plan with budget and expected KPIs.

Advanced strategies for instructors (beyond basics)

Use Gemini Guided Learning as an adaptive tutor: assign different scaffolded activities per learner based on initial skill diagnostics.
Automate formative feedback with instructor-defined templates and AI summarization — students get quick, consistent feedback before human grading.
Build cross-course artifacts: combine marketing projects with data analytics or ethics courses for interdisciplinary capstones.
Create employer-facing showcases by enabling public portfolio pages that pull xAPI-verified artifacts from the LMS; consider export and archival workflows like From Daily Pixels to Gallery Walls to prepare artifacts for employer review.

What industry shifts (late 2025–early 2026) mean for this syllabus

Recent developments show where to focus effort:

Gemini integration across products: With Gmail and other Google products entering the Gemini era, students must learn how inbox AI ingests and summarizes email content. That affects subject-line strategy, preheader design, and plain-text scaffolding. See practical notes on Gemini integrations and metadata automation in this guide: Automating Metadata Extraction with Gemini and Claude.
AI vertical video platforms scaling: Companies focused on mobile-first episodic content are securing funding and user growth, validating a market for serialized short-form campaigns. Use that trend to teach episodic storytelling and platform-specific analytics.
AI video tooling maturity: Tools that generate and edit video are maturing fast. Teach students to apply creative judgment on top of AI to avoid homogenized content and amplify originality; reference reformatting workflows for repurposing longer assets.

“AI didn’t replace storytelling — it made speed and scale a new table stake. The syllabus must teach craft and control.”

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

Over-automation: Don’t let students hand in unedited AI outputs — require human revision logs.
Tool lock-in: Teach transferable principles (audience, funnel, measurement) not just platform mechanics.
Poor instrumentation: If you can’t measure, you can’t improve. Embed xAPI from day one.
Ethics oversight: Add a grade-weighted ethics checkpoint for data privacy and AI bias review; consult privacy guidance like Security & Privacy for Career Builders.

Real-world classroom example (short case study)

In Fall 2025, a university class piloted a Gemini-centered research sprint. Students used Gemini Guided Learning to generate personas and then validated claims through primary sources. The class reported a 40% reduction in research time and produced campaign briefs that local agencies hired for freelance tests. The keys to success were explicit prompt logs, instructor checkpoints, and xAPI-based tracking that produced a verifiable skill transcript for students.

Resources and readings (2025–2026)

Industry reports on AI in marketing (monitor MarTech briefings, Jan 2026 Gmail/Gemini coverage).
Coverage of vertical video funding and platform growth (Forbes reporting on Holywater, early 2026).
Product announcements and case studies from AI video tool providers and ESPs — follow product blogs and changelogs for the latest features. Also see practical notes on low-latency location audio for better mobile-first production.

Future predictions: what to teach next year

Expect three near-term shifts:

Deeper inbox AI personalization—courses will need to include AI-to-AI testing where marketer prompts interact with recipient AI summarizers.
Vertical episodic IP as a measurable KPI—students will learn to design serial formats that drive subscriptions or micro-conversions.
Portfolio verification via interoperable learning records—employers will demand xAPI-verified artifacts and skill claims.

Actionable takeaways — implement this week

Update one existing assignment to require a prompt log and an AI-output validation paragraph.
Build a simple xAPI statement for one deliverable (e.g., "submitted-email-campaign") and track it in your LMS analytics.
Run a 48-hour lab where students create a persona using Gemini Guided Learning and present it in a 5-slide brief.

Call to action

If you’re ready to modernize your marketing course, download our editable 12-week syllabus template and LMS module pack. Want hands-on help? Book a 30-minute curriculum workshop with our team to align your program with hiring needs and embed xAPI analytics into your LMS.

Start today: implement one AI-aware assignment, instrument it with xAPI, and run a rapid feedback loop so your next cohort graduates with employer-ready skills.

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