Improving Student Learning in an Operations Management Course: An Integrated Group Project
Dewey W. Todd
Sorrell College of Business, Troy University, USA
Craig A. Hill
The College of Business, Clayton State University, USA
Stan Blankenship
Sorrell College of Business, Troy University, USA
Keith Miller
The College of Business, Clayton State University, USA
Volume 16: 2022, pp. 95-124; 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.
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