Operations Reality Show: An Experiential Service Learning and Storytelling Project

摘要

Service learning (SL) presents perhaps the most effective teaching tool for contemporarymanagement curriculum (Papamarcos, 2005). At its core, SL is about creating opportunities forstudents to apply theories they learn in the classroom to real-world problems and real-world needs.Through the involvement of business communities, SL and the associated educational experienceprovide a partial solution to the problem of narrowness in business education and provide studentswith valuable academic, practical, and introspective knowledge (Godfrey, Illes, & Berry, 2005;Papamarcos, 2005). The project described herein extends student learning beyond classroom contextby complementing traditional educational tertiary instructional techniques with an experiential SLapproach. Specifically, teams from my classes worked with local communities to analyze theirbusiness processes and to illustrate specific operations management concepts with the aid ofinnovative technologies. For most of the students, the project experience was enjoyable and helpedthem to improve their understanding of course materials. For me, the experience was an extremelyrewarding challenge. This article summarizes the scope and steps for this project, shares practicaltips and project examples, and concludes with a discussion on the effectiveness of the project.