As you wrap up one semester and look forward to a much-deserved winter holiday, it’s also time to think ahead to the next term. Here are just a few thoughts that summarize some of the blogs we have posted this semester:
1. Try to build some videos into the class schedule. They make a nice 10 minutes break and can lead to lively discussions. Jay and I have created 31 videos with short cases. They range from ambulance, boat, and potato chip manufacturers, to Hard Rock, Olive Garden, and Arnold Palmer Hospital.
2. Take MyOMLab for a test run if you haven’t used it as a testing/homework/assessment tool yet. We promise it will save you 10 hours a week in grading time, while raising the average GPA of students in your class almost a whole point. Just email Anne Fahlgren at anne.fahlgren@pearson.com for a personal on-line tour. An earlier blog has more MyOMLab details as well.
3. If you are teaching a very large OM class, check out Phillip Flamm’s Guest Post on how he handles his classes at Texas Tech. Its useful and entertaining!
4. If you would like to try a few in-class exercises, scroll through some of the Teaching Tips we have posted. My favorite is a 10 minute quality control “game” which makes a good point about inspection vs. sampling.
5. As you probably know, we provide 2 great software packages for solving homework problems–Excel OM and POM for Windows–free to students. I have found that students value these programs even long after they graduate. A Guest Post by Howard Weiss, who developed both packages, may be helpful.
6. Try out a guest speaker or two. Students seem to respond very positively to “experts”.
7. Finally, we encourage you to bring current news items about OM into your class. To help, we will be posting 3-4 OM in the News blogs every week.