Tag: Dr. Matt Drake

Guest Post: Teaching Cases in Your Undergraduate OM Class

Matthew_Drake-1Today’s Guest Post comes from Dr. Matt Drake, who is Associate Professor at the Duquesne U. School of Business. 

Teaching cases have been a mainstay in the MBA classroom for decades. Cases possess several pedagogical benefits over the traditional lecture method: They do a good job simulating a complex decision environment, require students to separate relevant from irrelevant information, and require students to synthesize different concepts and analytical techniques to develop recommendations.

While case usage is ubiquitous for MBAs, they are somewhat less commonly employed in undergraduate classrooms. This is at least partially due to the fact that many OM undergraduate courses are designed to simply introduce concepts and techniques rather than to give the students much of a chance to apply them. That does not, however, mean that cases cannot be used effectively in any form at the undergraduate level. Your Heizer/Render OM text has over 80 1-2 page cases that are entirely appropriate for undergrads.

I have successfully introduced cases into my undergraduate courses in each of the following 3 ways:

Discussion only. Some cases do not require any sophisticated analysis and just ask students to consider the situation and generate and evaluate possible strategies. These are prime candidates to be used solely as a basis of class discussion.

Instructor presents model. Many cases require a substantial amount of modeling and analysis, but instructors may not want to allocate the class time that students need to complete the entire case analysis. In my class I ask them to summarize the decision scenario, and I lead them through the required decision analysis.

Students conduct full analysis. Some cases are so rich that I find it beneficial to have the students complete the entire case analysis as they would if they were MBAs. I assign these cases as out-of-class group homework that the students complete over 2 weeks or so. I spend anywhere from 20-60 minutes in class discussing some of the additional issues.

If an instructor is new to using cases in the classroom, I recommend that he or she start slow and introduce 1-2 cases at a time. It is not necessary to redesign a course completely.

Matt is editing a special issue of INFORMS Transactions on Education about innovative ways to use cases. He invites submissions to: http://pubsonline.informs.org/pb-assets/ITED%20Call%20for%20Papers%20-%20Cases%20-%20Final.pdf

Guest Post: Designing the Effective OM Classroom

Matthew_Drake-1Today’s guest Post comes from Prof. Matt Drake, who is the Witt Faculty Fellow in SCM at Duquesne University’s Palumbo-Donahue School of Business.

Most of us have heard the common refrain that a student “has never been good at math.” But I have found that the vast majority of my students possess the analytical capabilities that my courses require. Some just need to gain the confidence in these abilities.  My courses are largely still lecture-based on the surface when I present new material. However, I do try to turn the class into active problem-solving sessions wherever possible to keep the students engaged.

When I present example problems, I sometimes get feedback that I go too quickly for some of them to keep up with me. As a compromise, I post the Excel files that I build during class on our course website so that students can download the files and compare their notes to mine.

I also try to use at least a few cases in each course. In my experience, students enjoy and appreciate considering the real-world decision scenarios that cases offer. I have 3 additional thoughts for designing effective OM courses:

  • Be understanding and flexible with deadlines and attendance, especially with part-time students. I always accept late assignments with a point deduction to be fair to other students.
  • Don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know.” No one person can be an expert in everything. If students ask questions to which I do not know the answer, I tell them that I do not have an answer off the top of my head. I then try to follow-up after I have had the chance to research the issue. Students seem to appreciate this honesty.
  • Students appreciate rapid feedback to their questions and to their work on assignments. I try to return all graded assignments within a week, and I reply to emails as soon as I can.