First-hand experience and up-to-date information are essential for understanding today’s fast-paced manufacturing processes. However, students struggle to envision real-life factories, supply chains and services on the basis of black-and-white text books only.
For a more exciting learning experience, Dr Janet Smart, Lecturer in Operations Management at the Saïd Business School, provided pre-lecture watch-lists by drawing on online video content. Her playlists turned out to be valuable resources for students, stimulating critical thinking and greater engagement during preparation, lectures and revision. On top of that, she introduced a short film competition which prompted students to create their own clips on mobile devices. By making these videos, the students were able to get a better grasp of actual manufacturing processes.
The students benefitted significantly from this combination of active and passive video learning and praised the course as enjoyable, varied and application-oriented. In the future, Dr Smart’s comprehensive, video-based teaching model can easily be adapted to other disciplines.
The films opened a window on actuality of the processes in a way that articles and textbooks never can.
– Dr Janet Smart, Saïd Business School
Making a short film helped me to solidify my knowledge of the course as well as challenge the theory by interviewing people in the real world.
– Student, Operations Management
