Page 21 - Ideas

These were well received. Spurred on by these early
successes, Michelle went on to attempt innovative tools
of greater complexity and scale.

One of these culminated in the conceptualisation and
development of the Interacting Learning for Operation
Analytics Topics (ILOAT) for use in the Operation
Analytics course. The tool covers two topics, Capacity
Planning and Workforce Scheduling, which are
traditionally considered to be “uninteresting and dry” in
terms of content. For the topic of capacity planning, the
online learning courseware requires students to make
decisions about whether they should build a new hospital

or add beds to expand the capacity of existing hospitals.
They are given information such as the current capacity of The journey to develop the ILOAT into its current version
hospitals, the type of population served, and the length was not without its challenges and problems. Data on
of hospital stays, among other things. Michelle chose this Singapore healthcare system had to be painstakingly
scenario for good reasons. “While students may not be collected by a Research Assistant. The initial version was
familiar with other industries, they should be very familiar also plagued with software bugs, as it was rushed out on
with healthcare,” she explained, “so it will be easier to a tight schedule. Initially, students had difficulty playing
understand and will assist in the learning of the topic.” the game, as there were bugs at certain steps that
The system within the ILOAT is able to capture students’ required immediate rectification. Another problem was
answers, providing Michelle with information on how the lack of timely information provided to the students at
many attempts her students made and how they arrived each step of the game. As a result, students were unable
at their decisions pertaining to managing hospital to plan their study time effectively while using the game
capacity. This enables her to discuss the results and to learn. The first version was also produced without any
reasoning process during class time, which reinforces audio instructions, leading some students who were
students’ learning. expecting audio guidance, to suspect that there might be
problems with their own computers.