Teaching e-commerce through the use of real-time interactive laboratory experiments

During the last few years pedagogical philosophy has been trying to incorporate lessons from active learning theory. While most practitioners agree that active learning is useful they still lack a diverse set of tools to incorporate it in the classroom. This article describes a methodology for including real-time laboratory experiments in the regular curriculum. The discussion uses as an example an actual class, which was taught to MIS seniors during the Spring 2003 semester. The course contains a learning module composed of nine web-based interactive experiments. During the experimental sessions students have to demonstrate their understanding of the material in the lectures. Experimental results can be incorporated as part of the student grade. Judging by students' performance and opinions about the class, the authors conclude that this teaching methodology was successful. Some suggestions for further refinement of the class are also offered.