Tag: teaching OM online

Teaching Tip: Giving Your OM Students an Individualized Experience in Online Learning

As universities across the country begin to make the difficult decision to continue with online learning in the fall semester, faculty will again be asked to adapt their classes to an online format, writes Faculty Focus  (July 27, 2020). Here are some ideas for individualized instruction that you may want to introduce into your online OM course to increase student engagement.

  1.  Making Content Manageable. In an individualized instruction model, students have the freedom to work through course material at their own pace while being provided a safety net of support from course staff to shepherd them through the course. For example, divide the content into 10 units which are each assessed about one week apart. Breaking the material down into these manageable chunks is important in keeping students from becoming overwhelmed with the content. For each unit, provide students with a list of concepts and objectives you expect them to master by the end of their study on the unit. They can take advantage of text readings, online supplemental materials, your mini-lecture videos, and tutoring sessions.
  2. Flexibility. One of the most important aspects of any individualized instruction model is scheduling. Students should adhere to a “deadline schedule” to ensure they continue progressing through the course, and have a “deadline” by which they need to complete each unit. You can, of course, provide flexibility on deadlines.
  3. Interacting with Course Staff. Students seem to prefer scheduling individual (or small group) meetings with course staff over virtual office hours or weekly review sessions. While course content can be disseminated via recordings of your lectures, viewing of these lectures leave students with “Zoom fatigue.”  Small group interactions succeed in keeping students engaged and  learning.
  4. A Point Person for Every Student. Assigning every student to a course staff member as their point-of-contact means students develop relationships with someone who provides regular contact via 1-on-1 tutoring and guidance through the assessment process.
  5. Building Community. From day one have students assign themselves to small group discussion sessions that meet during the first 4 weeks of the class. In these sessions, students get to know each other, get to know course staff, and begin to familiarize themselves with the resources available to them for the course.

 

Guest Post: Research on Student Perceptions of Online vs. Face-to-Face

Dr. Lynn A. Fish, who is Professor of Management at Canisius College, provides today’s Guest Post

Since 2012, Dr. Coral Snodgrass and I have been researching student perceptions of online versus face-to-face (FTF) education at Canisius College. Our most recent research focused on whether changes in business student perceptions had occurred. Our survey includes questions on individual factors (motivation, discipline, self-directed, independence, schedule flexibility, time investment, cost investment, happiness and appropriateness of online education), and program factors (difficulty, student-to-student interaction, student-to-instructor interaction, cheating and program preference). If administrators, who perceive FTF and online education as equivalent, are correct, then students should be indifferent to all education factors.

Our 2012 research indicated that business students preferred FTF over online education on most factors. And as of 2018, business students still generally preferred FTF. (See our article in The BRC Academy Journal of Education, 8, no. 1, 2020). However, changes occurred for the online student population from the original study with respect to their views on self-directed, time investment, and appropriateness of online. With respect to the FTF student population, changes in perspectives from the original study occurred for self-directed, preference and student-to-instructor interaction.

As noted in our prior studies, the context of the study (private versus public, large versus small, and program of study) may be a critical factor to consider in understanding student activity preferences. This study occurred at an institution usually taught through FTF courses to small classes (average 18-20 students). Online education at the institution occurs through decisions entirely made by the individual instructor, as no instructional designers are available.

Other institutions may deliver online and FTF education through other methods, such as using instructional designers or digitally-enhanced courses, and therefore students may perceive online and FTF education differently than here. Other studies demonstrate that research into student perceptions are ‘mixed’ as the results vary on each factor studied. There is no clear answer as to what students’ perceive and appears to vary between institutions.

Guest Post: What This Danish Prof Learned Teaching OM Online

Dr. Steven Harrod is Associate Professor in the DTU Diplom Department at the Technical University of Denmark.

On March 12, 2020, all education at the Technical University of Denmark made an emergency conversion to online services. I was fairly lucky. I had a home office, and a high quality webcam. Many of my colleagues did not. One colleague used his white refrigerator as a whiteboard!

Ergonomics are a real problem, and it is really hard to keep eye contact when sitting close to multiple monitors with a webcam placed above. I would strongly recommend using a tripod-mounted camera, a gyroscopic mouse, and giving lectures from a standing position. Absolute luxury would be a green screen effect, weatherman style, where I would walk in front of the slides.

Online lectures are tiring, both for you and your students. It is hard to focus on a laptop screen for long periods, especially when the screen is cluttered with faces, chat window, and a shared presentation. It is absolutely critical that you plan a 15 minute coffee break within every hour.

Strongly consider replacing some of your live lectures with pre-recorded content. I estimate 30 minutes of scripted lesson is equal to an hour or more of live lecture. Use a quality video editing software (I recommend Camtasia). Budget about 1 hour of editing for every 10 minutes of produced video. YouTube is a great distribution channel.

You may feel that your students are not participating in the online lectures. Don’t panic! Encourage the use of chat for student questions and feedback, which many students will find more accessible.

Is this the future of education? I don’t think so. Who wants to pay tuition to watch 6 hours of Discovery Channel every day? However, when used as part of a planned and balanced mix of teaching methods, online education offers flexibility and a solution to unavoidable constraints. Next time I have to be away at a conference, I will just plug my laptop into the hotel flat screen, pull out my air mouse, and class will be in session!

 

Guest Post: Taking OM Online at Canisius College

Our Guest Post today comes from Dr. Lynn A. Fish, who is Professor of Management at Canisius College

The second week of March 2020 was a transitional week for my undergraduate Operations Management class at Canisius College, a private, Jesuit Catholic University in Buffalo, NY. I met face-to-face with my class on Thursday for the last time. The class used the Heizer/Render/Munson Operations Management textbook and Pearson’s MyOMlab for homework. I informed the class that if we needed to transition online, I would keep the ‘class as close to what they were accustomed to as possible and distributed the remaining handouts for the semester. Within days, the President of Canisius College announced that we would be going online immediately.

I kept my word as the class format remained as close to what the students had prior to the transition as possible. The class lectures were made into short videos and posted to our Desire2Learn platform. I reminded students that they needed to: (1) read the textbook, (2) use the class notes that I provided them along with the corresponding videos, (3) complete the corresponding MyOMlab homework that was assigned, and (4) study for the regular quizzes and exams.

The textbook and MyOMlab sites provided a stable framework for the students. I’ve always found that this is a sound undergraduate text which provides my students with current information.

My end-of-the-semester survey revealed that students had very few issues with using the MyOMLab site and rated the overall experience as “very good”. As an instructor, the randomization of the problems on MyOMlab enabled students to complete the same problems, but with different numbers. This feature allayed some of my fears regarding cheating on online quizzes and exams as I incorporated MyOMlab problems into these instead of stagnant problems on Desire2Learn. When final student grades were calculated, I was relieved to see that my students passed the course (65% average).