Teaching the Introductory MIS Course: An MIs Approach

The introductory Management Information Systems (MIS) course plays a very important role in attracting and retaining students in the MIS program. Accordingly, MIS educators have been paying an increasing attention to the question how to teach this course effectively, especially faced with declining enrollments in the MIS discipline. However, an easy-to-use guideline is still lacking. Although some conceptual frameworks for teaching the introductory MIS course are designed, they lack actual implementation and/or empirical examinations. Based on a review of previous literature and various learning theories, this study develops an MIs approach to teaching MIS courses. Then, this study explains how to implement it using a specific case, and further examines the effectiveness of this new teaching approach based on students’ responses. Overall, this study describes a useful starting point for MIS programs to curb the declining enrollments. Both administrators and MIS instructors may benefit from this approach.