Faculty Focus – The OM Blog by Heizer, Render, & Munson

Teaching Tip: Group Projects in Your Online OM Course

As you introduce the group project to the students in your new online course, you can hear their screams through your PC! Why? Why? There are several reasons you did so: Students will have an opportunity to develop team skills, improve communication skills, and leverage their own personal interests and experiences to contribute.

But group projects may also cause both students and instructors additional work due to the issues that may arise during the course of the project. Issues often involve questions and concerns around grading, equal distribution of work, communication pitfalls, and managing expectations. Here are 5 guidelines for smoothly running the online group project that are recommended by Faculty Focus (April 20, 2015):

1. Define the Project – The project should be integrated into the course objectives and not be viewed as an extra assignment or busy work.

2. Establish Milestones – The project should include specific milestones during the course. For example, require an outline, a project scope, a requirements document, and other pertinent deliverables.

3. Use your Learning Management System (LMS) – You can offer private group discussion areas, chat areas, and other collaboration tools that will encourage both communication and participation. You can choose to monitor these as well if needed.

4. Simplify and Clarify Grading – You need to establish clear grading expectations for the group project. You may choose to grade each participant separately or, preferably, provide one grade for each project deliverable and apply that grade to all participants.

5. Provide Encouragement – Encourage and communicate the specific details of the project, and encourage each member of the group to utilize his/her strengths. Ask each group to submit an outline or summary for approval as well.

Teaching Tip: On-Line Courses in Operations–Some Basic Questions

“The debate about whether online courses are a good idea continues,” writes Faculty Focus (March 15, 2015). Who’s right or wrong is overshadowed by what the flexibility and convenience of online education has offered institutions and students. Those features opened the door, and online learning has come inside and is making itself at home in most of our colleges. Online learning and face-to-face instruction are routinely compared. Face-to-face instruction has features that online learning can’t have, but then online learning has advantages not possible in face-to-face instruction. Here are 3 basic questions worth considering:

What courses should be offered in the online format? Whatever the students want and will take online has become the default answer. Operations Management does seem to be working well at many large (and small) colleges. MyOMLab is perfectly suited to on-line study as it has numerous self-help ways of tackling homework problems. Videos and readings are built into the software, as well as assessment tools that let students advance when they are prepared.

Who should be teaching online courses? What instructional strengths and weaknesses make a faculty a good choice for online courses? First, faculty who realize the importance of instructional design, or who have access to professionals who do. Online courses need strong coherent structures. They must stand on their own more than face-to-face courses. Course materials matter more in an online environment. Online teachers should have the ability to convey their presence and create a sense of community without being physically present. And good written communication skills are more important than oral ones in online environments.

Who should be taking online courses? The most successful online learners are typically adults who are self-directed learners. That makes online courses a much riskier proposition for beginning students who don’t have clear educational goals and possess marginal abilities as learners. We can’t prevent students from taking online courses, but we need to tell them what skills they need to succeed in those courses.

Teaching Tip: The Importance of Office Hours

Why is it that so many students don’t take advantage of this opportunity to interact with you? In a recent survey (Faculty Focus, Jan.21, 2015), 66% of students reported that they had not attended office hours for the course in question. The remaining 1/3 had been to the instructor’s office once. Only 8% reported attending office hours more than once a month.

The researchers claim that factors influencing student decisions to use office hours are largely beyond your control (for example, course level, class size, whether the course is required). But instructors set their own office hours. Obviously, on any given day they have other commitments, but still there are discretionary time blocks. And true, instructors usually don’t get to pick their office locations, but that doesn’t mean that’s where the meeting has to take place. Lastly, faculty members most certainly control the kind of feedback offered during office hours.

Perhaps we underestimate the fear factor. Most of us have a hard time imagining how we could provoke fear in a student, but we do. First, we have deep subject matter expertise, and that alone can be intimidating. In addition, we evaluate their work, which they often see as connected to their character. Plus, it’s embarrassing to have to ask for help, especially when the person you’re asking talks about how it’s easy and obvious. And what if the answer leaves you more confused, not less?

The researchers do recommend that faculty “educate” students as to the benefits of office hours. What about topical office hours? Say there’s something a lot of students are struggling with, schedule some office hour time when you’ll work on that topic with individuals, pairs, or small groups. The study also recommends soliciting feedback from students as to the “convenient” scheduling of office hours. Identify 3 or 4 possible times that work with your schedule and see which students prefer. Office hours can occasionally or regularly be convened in other locations.

Although we hold office hours as a way of supporting students, they benefit us as well. That time together helps strengthen our connections with students.

Teaching Tip: Using Guest Lecturers in Your OM Class

When I was teaching at Rollins College, one of my favorite classroom experiences was bringing in guest lecturers. Philip Crosby, the famous quality guy, lived in Winter Park and showed up every semester for 15 years. Alan Nagle, former CEO of Tupperware, was a regular, as were a number of VPs from Darden, Frito Lay, and Wheeled Coach. Now that I am semi-retired, I give 3-4 guest lectures per semester in other profs’ classes, at schools all over Florida and as far away as Mexico. It is really fun, and I remember the key points in having successful guest speakers: (1) Keep it interesting; (2) Keep it short; (3) Keep it interactive; and (4) Feed them! I will never forget the visits from Tom Rao, at Frito-Lay, who always brought a case of chips to each class. Students would just munch away, totally mesmerized with the free snacks.

So as you face the perpetual challenge of keeping each class session fresh and interactive, I suggest you consider this old idea. Guest lecturers have benefits for your learners and for you. Seeing a new face in front of the room can liven up the class; but there are also deeper pedagogical reasons for using guest lecturers, notes Faculty Focus (Nov.3, 2014). Here are a few to consider. None of us is an expert on everything, so bringing in speakers with proven expertise in a topic provides added credibility to our content. Research has shown that in a course with profound practical applications, such as OM, voices from the field carry as much credibility as we profs provide. Having a guest lecturer also opens your lesson design to new options. For example, you and your guest can work together to field questions or even debate issues. Let students apply their critical thinking to compare points of view.

Guest lecturers, of course, should be treated very well, especially if you want their help in future courses. Provide as much lead-time as possible so they can prepare and so you can share their materials with your students. Be very clear with guests about the content you want covered, the time (no more than 45 minutes!) and technology available, and the class size and composition. Letters of thanks are always a good idea (with a copy to your Dean or Department Chair).