Improving Student Learning in an Operations Management Course: An Integrated Group Project
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Authors
Dewey W Todd
Craig Hill
Stan Blankenship
Keith Miller
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Type
Journal Article, Academic Journal
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Abstract
This article describes a problem-based learning (PBL) approach to teaching core operations management concepts during an undergraduate course. The approach employs a semester-long, open-ended challenge in which each small student group creates a fictional company operating in an industry where there are real large-scale transnational companies, and develops a competitive profile for the company with respect to ten elements of a commonly-taught operations management framework. The results of the PBL-based project are compared to a baseline teaching method of lecture, practice problems, and examinations, and to a simplified case study in which students choose an existing large transnational company and research the company’s existing profile throughout the term or semester concerning the ten operations-management decisioning concepts.