Original Discipline: Business / Supply Chain Management
The Student Struggle
Students often rush to solve problems before fully understanding them. When presented with an unfamiliar situation, they may identify the first plausible explanation and immediately recommend a solution without considering what information is missing.
They may also struggle to generate meaningful questions that move an investigation forward, distinguish assumptions from evidence, or recognize when their initial explanation needs to be reconsidered.
Intended Learning Outcome
Students will be able to develop relevant investigative questions, identify information needed to understand an operational problem, evaluate possible explanations, and refine their understanding as new evidence becomes available.
Thinking Students Practice
Primary Capacity: Curiosity
Students generate questions, explore possible explanations, and pursue information that could change their understanding of a problem. They practice moving beyond the first plausible answer.
Secondary Capacity: Sensemaking
Students connect information from different parts of a business operation to understand how problems may be related.
Secondary Capacity: Judgment
Students determine which questions and evidence are most important before making recommendations.
The Learning Activity
Students investigate an unexplained operational problem at a fictional mobile vehicle detailing company.
Rather than receiving all the relevant information immediately, students begin with a limited description of the company's challenges.
Their initial task is to develop questions, identify assumptions, and determine what additional information would help them understand the problem.
As the activity progresses, the instructor introduces further details about the company's operations. Students revisit their initial explanations, identify new questions, and refine their understanding.
Only after investigating the situation do students recommend possible improvements.
The emphasis is on the quality of the questions students ask and their willingness to revise their understanding rather than how quickly they arrive at a solution.
Try This With Your Students
Why Is Apex Struggling?
The Scenario
Apex Mobile Fleet Detailing provides overnight cleaning services for commercial vehicle fleets.
Its customers operate delivery trucks and vans during the day, so Apex sends mobile cleaning teams to service vehicles while they are parked overnight.
The company promises environmentally friendly cleaning services without interrupting customers' daily operations.
Business has been growing, and more fleet operators are requesting Apex's services.
However, something unexpected is happening.
Despite increasing demand, Apex has begun experiencing inconsistent service reliability. Some customers report that vehicles are not ready when expected, while others have experienced canceled appointments.
Company leadership wants to understand what is going wrong.
You have been asked to investigate the situation.
Your Challenge
Step 1: Begin With Questions
Before recommending any solutions, identify at least five questions you would ask to better understand the situation.
Consider:
What information is missing?
What possible explanations should be investigated?
Which assumptions might you be making?
What evidence would help distinguish among possible causes?
As a group, select the three questions you believe are most important to investigate first.
Explain why you prioritized them.
Step 2: Examine New Information
Your instructor now provides additional details about Apex's operations.
Apex uses customized vans equipped with onboard water tanks, solar-powered pressure washers, and environmentally friendly cleaning products.
Its cleaning chemicals come from a single regional supplier that produces specialized biodegradable soaps.
Technicians travel between fleet locations overnight, with an AI routing application scheduling visits to as many as six depots between midnight and 6:00 a.m.
Consider how this information changes your understanding.
Which of your original questions can you now answer?
What new questions arise?
Which possible explanations seem more or less likely?
What information would you investigate next?
Step 3: Investigate Possible Causes
Work with your group to identify several possible explanations for Apex's service problems.
For example, could the difficulties involve:
Delays in obtaining cleaning supplies?
Equipment reliability or maintenance?
Unrealistic scheduling expectations?
Employee availability?
Travel time between customer locations?
Do not assume that any one explanation is correct.
Identify what evidence would be needed to evaluate each possibility.
Step 4: Refine Your Questions
Review the questions you developed at the beginning.
Which questions proved most useful?
Were any based on assumptions that turned out to be questionable?
Identify two new questions you would ask after learning more about the company.
Explain how your understanding of the problem has changed.
Step 5: Consider Possible Improvements
Based on the available information, identify one or two possible improvements Apex should investigate.
Explain why those changes might help, what uncertainties remain, and what additional evidence you would want before recommending implementation.
Share Your Thinking
Prepare a short investigation summary that includes:
Your three highest-priority initial questions.
The possible explanations you considered.
How new information changed your understanding.
Two questions that emerged during your investigation.
A tentative recommendation and the additional evidence needed to evaluate it.
Remember: The purpose of this activity is not to solve the problem as quickly as possible. It is to investigate thoughtfully, ask meaningful questions, and remain open to explanations you may not have considered initially.
Making Student Thinking Visible
Students document their initial questions, identify the information they believe is missing, and explain why particular questions are worth investigating.
As new information becomes available, they revisit their assumptions and refine their explanations.
The instructor evaluates whether students move beyond obvious or superficial questions and develop inquiries that could meaningfully advance their understanding.
Evidence of curiosity appears in students' willingness to investigate alternative explanations, pursue unexpected information, and generate new questions as their understanding develops.
The final recommendation is less important than the investigation that led to it.
Adapt This Scenario
The underlying instructional approach begins with an unexplained situation and requires students to develop investigative questions before receiving additional information.
Healthcare: Students encounter a fictional patient-care situation with incomplete information and identify what questions or observations are needed before considering possible explanations.
Information Technology: Students investigate an intermittent system failure, asking diagnostic questions before selecting troubleshooting steps.
Environmental Science: Students encounter an unexpected change in an environmental measurement and investigate possible causes before reaching conclusions.
Psychology: Students explore an unexpected behavioral observation and develop questions that could help distinguish among competing explanations.
Education: Students examine a situation in which student performance has declined and investigate possible contributing factors before recommending instructional changes.
Across disciplines, students practice treating an unfamiliar problem as an opportunity for inquiry rather than rushing toward an immediate answer.
Original AI Prompt and Faculty Revisions
The original faculty prompt asked an AI system to generate five supply chain scenarios for students in grades 10–12.
Each scenario needed to describe a business with a distinct value proposition and challenge students to identify supply chain components, anticipate risks, and recommend improvements supported by reasoning.
Apex Mobile Fleet Detailing was one of the five fictional businesses generated.
The original scenario described a company providing environmentally friendly overnight vehicle cleaning services for commercial fleets.
Its operations depended on customized mobile equipment, specialized cleaning supplies from a single regional supplier, nighttime technicians, and an AI-powered routing application.
The original student questions focused on identifying supply chain components, evaluating whether operations supported the company's promise of zero customer downtime, anticipating operational risks, and recommending improvements as the company expanded.
This library version substantially adapts that original activity to emphasize curiosity.
The unexplained service difficulties, staged release of information, question-generation process, and revision of initial explanations are additions developed for this library.
These changes shift the activity from primarily evaluating operational risks to practicing inquiry and investigation.
The original contribution does not document subsequent faculty revisions or classroom implementation.