World of Edcraft: Teaching Introduction to Operations Management at MIT

Abstract

In this article, I describe my experience in teaching a synchronous online course, Introduction to Operations Management, at the MIT Sloan School of Management. The challenges and opportunities of this format are unique, and I summarize my approaches to addressing them in the context of a home studio I built for this purpose. I provide a detailed review of my setup—including a complete listing of my hardware and software—and then discuss how I use that setup in a radically redesigned online version of a course I taught for many years in person.

Keywords: online teaching; distance learning; live streaming; MOOC; gamefication; operations management

JEL Classification: G11, G24, G31, G32, I10, I11, A23