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INFORMS Education Forum

Newsletter #20, August, 2002

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  INFORMS Education Forum: http://www.informs.org/inform-ed/

 

 

IN THIS ISSUE

 

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In this issue, we have a series of updates from several of the INFORMed officers.

President

Education Column Editor

VP- Publications

Treasurer

 

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From the President's Desk

 

Greetings fellow INFORM-ED members! It has been quite some time since our organization published a newsletter, so we have much to tell. We now hope to publish this newsletter three times annually (in January, April, and September). As appropriate, each officer will provide a short report on their progress with various projects in the newsletter. Please also feel free to use this newsletter as a forum for communicating with our members about various pedagogically oriented conferences, projects, and initiatives.

 

In other news…

 

-We have a new set of officers (well, some new and some not-so-new). Our current officers, elected at the 2001 INFORMS Conference in Miami Beach, are

 

President: Jim Cochran (JCochran@cab.latech.edu)

Treasurer/Secretary: John Lawrence (jlawrence@fullerton.edu)

Vice President -- Programs: Janet Wagner (Janet.Wagner@umb.edu)

Vice President -- Projects: Pinar Keskinocak (pinar@isye.gatech.edu)

Vice President -- Publications: Chris Zappe (zappe@bucknell.edu)

Vice President -- External Relations: Ken Doerr (khdoerr@nps.navy.mil)

 

The terms for these officers expire at the 2003 INFORMS Conference in Atlanta, at which time elections will be held. We also have a new set of editors. They are

 

"Issues in Education" Column in OR/MS Today: Bob Nydick (robert.nydick@villanova.edu)

INFORM-ED Website: John Kros (krosj@mail.ecu.edu)

INFORM-ED Newsletter: Mike Racer (mRacer@mocha.memphis.edu)

 

Our thanks go out to Ron Wright (who completed a two year term as Vice President &endash; Publications in 2001) and Salwa Ammar (who edited the "Issues in

Education" Column in OR/MS Today from 1999-2001). Special thanks go to Past President Tom Grossman, who completed his second two-year term as President in 2001 (and served as VP-Programs 1995-1997 and Newsletter Editor 1997-1999).

 

- The Public Awareness Committee of INFORMS plans to reach out and introduce thousands of high school math teachers a year to the history and concepts of Operations Research through a plan proposed by Kenneth Chelst and Tom Edwards. For the past 10 years, PAC has held one-day workshops for high school math teachers at INFORMS conferences, attracting between 20 and 50 teachers at each session. In addition, the PAC, with funding from the National Security Agency, has developed 10 operations research instructional modules that can be brought directly into high school classrooms. Under the new proposal, INFORMS members will be recruited and trained to present workshops at state and local math teachers conferences. Ken and Tom estimate that this strategy could boost the PAC1s outreach efforts by a factor of 10 or more. As outlined in their proposal, the local and state workshops presented by INFORMS volunteers will focus on:

 

1. The history and concepts of operations research;

2. Industries and companies that use OR, and the types of OR problems they encounter; and

3. The volunteer1s own personal interest and experience in OR.

 

Workshop leaders will also be provided with instructional modules and OR videos to distribute to attendees. The goal is to hold 100 workshops around the country and reach between 2,000 and 4,000 high school math teachers a year by the third year of the program. To recruit and guide the first crop of volunteers, the PAC plans to conduct (subject to final approval) a two-hour information and training session for potential INFORMS volunteers on Sunday, Nov. 17 during the INFORMS National Meeting in San Jose, Calif. The afternoon session will cover:

1. A description of the current high school math environment, emphasizing connecting mathematics to other disciplines and to the real world via applications;

2. A process for making contact with local match conference coordinators; and

3. An overview of all 10 modules, and a demonstration of two of them (queuing and product mix-LP).

 

This is a very worthwhile initiative, and INFORM-ED is providing its full support. Many of our officers have already volunteered to participate in the Information and training Session in San Jose. Please contact me at jcochran@cab.latech.edu if you would like to participate.

 

- Currently our mailing list for this newsletter does not conform with INFORMS' list of dues-paying INFORM-ED members. We are currently updating our mailing list to rectify this situation. However, we do understand that there has been some confusion over the implementation of INFORM-ED membership fees (we only began collecting dues two years ago) and will continue to use the current newsletter mailing list until 2003. If you wish to continue receiving this newsletter at that point, make sure to indicate that you are a member of INFORM-ED on your INFORMS membership renewal form you will receive this fall. This will automatically add the annual INFORM-ED dues for 2003 (a bargain at $10.00) to your INFORMS membership renewal.

 

- Finally, INFORM-ED encourages its members to become involved in our various initiatives (or to propose new initiatives). As you read the reports provided by our officers, think about how you could contribute and contact the officer on whose project/initiative you would like to work. If you have an idea for some new pedagogically oriented project or initiative, contact me at JCochran@cab.latech.edu or (318) 257-3445 and discuss your idea with me. I look forward to hearing from you.

 

From Issues in Education Editor

 

Passion and Fun in the Classroom!

 

When I started my term as editor of the "Issues in Education" column, I read all of the previous columns starting with the first one written by Erhan Erkut (1996). In this column and in other issues of OR/MS Today, I found a recurring theme when I noticed several examples of faculty displaying passion and having fun in the classroom. For example, Robert Bosch teaches mathematical programming by having students study a diet problem using actual menu items at a McDonalds (1993). Norman Pendegraft (February 1997) uses Lego's to teach the economics of linear programming. Henk ten Wolde (August 2000) developed a simulation game using Lego's, called Legostiek Management, that helps the student to learn the building blocks of logistics. Jim Cochran (April 2001) explains how he uses the format from Who Wants to be a Millionaire to reinforce the topics covered in class. Arvid Johnson (February and April 2002) developed a simulation to help students understand the impact of variability in a process flow. All of these examples remind me of an experience that I had a few years ago

when I had my car detailed. When I returned to the carwash, a young man led me to my car that looked like it just came from the showroom. He took at least ten minutes to carefully explain what he did to my car. He used a special attachment to his vacuum that cleaned in small crevices where the dirt could not be seen. He made sure that there was no wax residue left anywhere on the car. He hand-cleaned all of the controls on my dash and shampooed the carpet in my trunk. He even found 70 cents that I never knew I lost. As I watched this unfold, I could sense the passion, excitement, enthusiasm, and even fun that this young man possessed for a task as seemingly boring as detailing my car. He was proud of his work and I learned something very important that day. Here are a few other examples that I have used in class to attempt to capture the same passion displayed by my car detailer.

 

Whenever I teach Operations Management, I use one of my hobbies to explain its definition &endash; MAGIC! I show three dirty handkerchiefs and a box of

laundry detergent. I explain that we can pretend that the box is a washing machine. I next place the dirty handkerchiefs inside the top of the box, shake the box from side to side, turn the box around several times to simulate a washing machine, and stop when the box is upside down. When I remove the handkerchiefs they are clean. At this point there is embarrassing silence as the students believe that I had the clean handkerchiefs in the bottom of the box the whole time and left the dirty ones inside the top of the box. I explain that I never told the class that I was a good magician! When I tear open the box to show that it is completely empty, the students do not understand how that happened. However, they begin to understand (andmaybe more importantly remember) that the definition of Operations

Management is to obtain resources (dirty clothes, washing machine, detergent, etc.) and transform them into goods or services (clean clothes).

 

Many undergraduate students indicated that they did not understand howpairwise comparisons were actually done when using the Analytic Hierarchy

Process. The example that we use in class deals with a company who must choose a chocolate chip cookie recipe. We turned this example into a class exercise where actual chocolate chip cookies are used for comparison purposes. When dealing with taste, for example, a group of students can sample the various cookies and then discuss, argue, and eventually reach a consensus for the necessary comparison. After introducing chocolate chip cookies, we never heard any comments about the complexities of performing the pairwise comparisons.

 

All of the examples mentioned here illustrate that you can have fun in the classroom by being creative and having passion. This should lead to an environment where students are more likely to learn, understand, remember, and implement what is being taught. As editor of "Issues in Education," I will attempt to have individuals write about their successful examples of experiential learning that display passion and have fun in the classroom!

 

 

From the VP - Publications

 

INFORMS 3rd Annual Case Competition

 

INFORM-ED is pleased to continue its co-sponsorship of the Annual Peer-Reviewed Case Competition. This year's competition, as in the past two years, is jointly sponsored by INFORMS Education Committee, INFORMS Case and Teaching Materials Initiative, and INFORM-ED. It is designed to encourage the creation dissemination, and use of new, unpublished cases in operations research and the management sciences. All submissions and supporting

documentation are due to the coordinator of the competition, Professor Chris Zappe of Bucknell University, by August 15. All cases will be blind reviewed in August and September by a panel of judges familiar with the case method. This year's group of judges includes the winner of last year's Case Competition, Professor Don Kleinmuntz of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

 

Up to four finalists will be selected and notified by the coordinator no later than the end of September. Finalists will give thirty-minute presentations of their entries at a special open session of the 2002 INFORMS Annual Meeting in San Jose, California. Note that this session is tentatively scheduled for the afternoon of Monday, November 18. The panel of judges will select the winning entry from the finalists based on these presentations. The winner will be announced at the INFORM-ED Business meeting at the 2002 INFORMS Conference.

 

From the Treasurer

 

As of June, 2002 our revenue for the years from dues was $910 increasing our balance to $1,531.86.

 

Our dues structure is $10 for INFORMS members; $15 for non-members -- although I am not aware of any non-INFORMS members.

 

Some of the places where our money goes includes:

o Prizes for competitions

o Subsidizng Ph.D. students at teaching events

o Commissioned cases

o Food at business meetings (at INFORMS conferences)

o Awards

 

From the Newsletter Editor

First, I apologize for not having gotten out a newsletter lately. Second, if you have any information that you would like to pass on to the INFORMed membership, please let me know. Some thoughts for you:

· innovative classroom approaches

· articles of interest that you have read

· research interests

· collaboration opportunities

· etc.

 

Finally, I would like to consider sprucing up the newsletter. Since better formatting is available in Microsoft Word, I would like to switch to sending out the newsletter as an attachment. If there is anyone who sees a flaw in this, please let me know.

 

I hope you all have a great year!

 

Mike Racer, Newsletter Editor

 

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