Many educators within INFORMS are aware that the management science content of the business school curriculum generally declined during the 1990s. Fewer of us may know, however, that management science is thriving at a few schools, like Villanova, Indiana and the University of Western Ontario, with strong core courses and overenrolled electives. How can it be that management science is considered the best course in the curriculum at some schools while it is being downgraded or eliminated at others? One major reason, surely, is that the quality and relevance of teaching differs dramatically from school to school. The challenge for many educators within INFORMS is to communicate the power and excitement of our subject to a student population that has many competing interests. After a successful inauguration in 2004, INFORMS is reprising a program to support educators who wish to make their course the best in the school.

So if you are eager to:

• make dramatic improvements in your teaching;
  
  
• increase the demand for your courses;
  
  
• learn the latest approaches to teaching optimization, simulation and spreadsheet modeling;
  
  
• improve your case teaching skills, introduce projects into your courses, or teach strategic management science to business students;
  
  
• understand and apply to your teaching the latest research on the brain and cognition;
  
  
• interact with some of the most innovative and successful teachers of management science; and
  
  
• form learning communities with other teachers

you will want to attend the second annual INFORMS Summer Workshop on Teaching Management Science to be held July 28-31 in the Harrison Conference Center at Lake Bluff, Ill. (For more information, go to the workshop Web site at www.informs.org/Edu/TMSWorkshop/.)

Last year's inaugural workshop proved popular and useful. The results show in participants' survey responses. We offered an opportunity to evaluate the workshop as a whole using a five-point scale. Zealous respondents pushed the average rating to an unanticipated 5.02. Among the comments were:

• "Sessions were unbelievably enriching and stimulating! I have now almost a two-page list of action items!"
  
  
• "The combination of theory (brain) and application (active learning) gave us the reasons for and examples of..."
  
  
• "The beautiful facilities in a retreat atmosphere allowed us to get a lot accomplished in a short time."
  
  
• "Wonderful workshop. Learned a lot. I'm very new in my job. This is an excellent place to start."

The 2005 Workshop will bring together a small group of participants (60-80) and a faculty of experts in teaching management science. It will be held in a retreat setting so participants and faculty can interact with maximum effectiveness. It is designed to help all teachers, from novice to experienced, improve their teaching through exposure to basic concepts from learning theory and the latest innovations in teaching management science.

The overall objectives of the workshop are to improve teaching effectiveness by providing a practical background in learning theory, communicating effective strategies for teaching management science, and creating an ongoing learning community for monitoring and sharing pedagogical experiments. Participants will learn new methods for teaching specific topics in management science, learn new ways to approach teaching business and engineering students, develop new perspectives on learning theory as it applies to teaching, and develop new contacts within the management science teaching community for future collaborations.

This workshop is designed to serve both new and experienced teachers of management science. New or prospective teachers will benefit from interacting with experienced teachers. Experienced teachers will benefit from learning about new teaching approaches being tested and refined in the most innovative programs. Teachers with limited practical experience will benefit from sessions on case teaching, as well as from learning how to integrate management science with the business and engineering curricula. Teachers who are contemplating the switch to spreadsheets or to teaching end-user modeling will learn from innovators in those areas.

Participants in the workshop can expect an intense and focused experience. Over the three-plus days of the workshop, participants will be able to focus their attention on acquiring ideas and skills for improving their teaching, and they will be encouraged to develop specific plans for implementing these new ideas in their courses. Participants will meet frequently in small groups to discuss what they have learned, how it applies to their teaching situation, and how they might implement new methods in their courses. We will also use the Web to form virtual communities after the workshop, to help participants keep in touch with each other and to share the results of their pedagogical experiments. The teaching faculty will be available throughout the workshop for individual consultations.

The workshop will be built around a small number of plenary sessions that will introduce fundamental and broadly useful topics such as:

• applying the latest findings from brain science and cognition;
  
  
• using active learning techniques to engage students in problem solving;
  
  
• solving the student assessment conundrum;
  
  
• using learning objectives to define and communicate the purpose of your course;
  
  
• teaching strategic management science; and
  
  
• using cases to teach students how to apply management science.

In addition to plenary sessions, we will have several sets of parallel sessions on topics such as:

• teaching end-user modeling;
  
  
• Web-based learning;
  
  
• integrating management science into the curriculum;
  
  
• student learning needs and styles;
  
  
• teaching with spreadsheets;
  
  
• teaching optimization;
  
  
• teaching problem formulation;
  
  
• teaching simulation;
  
  
• teaching statistics within management science;
  
  
• teaching with projects;
  
  
• teaching the process of problem solving;
  
  
• modeling for insight; and
  
  
• teaching VBA.

The academic director of the workshop is Stephen G. Powell, a professor at the Tuck School of Business and one of the originators of a series of teaching workshops held from 1998 to 2000 at Dartmouth College, the University of Western Ontario and Indiana University. Powell is responsible for the program and the selection of presenters. He will be assisted by an advisory board of experienced educators. Barry List and Terry Cryan of the INFORMS staff are responsible for workshop logistics, including site selection, advertising and registration.

If you have questions or suggestions for the workshop program, contact Stephen Powell at sgp@dartmouth.edu. If you have questions or suggestions about other aspects of the workshop, contact Barry List at barry.list@informs.org.

We hope to see you there!






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