Implementation of a plan-do-check-act pedagogy in industrial engineering education

Abstract

This paper explores the impact of introducing a learning-through-application-based teaching method to science andengineering instruction in higher education. The growing gap between traditional teaching approaches and the needs oftoday’s college graduates is addressed by introducing a learning pedagogy based on Deming’s Plan-Do-Check-Act(PDCA) cycle. A semester of experimentation with a class of thirty-one students shows that 94% of students experienced asignificant increase in learning and 90% have increased confidence in application. Results suggest that, compared totraditional teaching approaches, the proposed method could be a more effective way of teaching science and engineering.