Hello,
I'm happy to have found this forum! I have used PBL and small portions of
TBL for a few years in teaching occupational therapy (OT) curricula. This
semester will be my first foray into committing to the full TBL framework. I
am excited, as I am committed to engaging my students and furthering their
clinical reasoning/critical thinking skills-- but I also have a fair amount
of trepidation about the amount of work required and the fact that no one in
my dept. utilizes TBL (so I am on my own). Any feedback and mentoring would
be most welcome.
The course is Educational Principles and Practices in OT. It meets for 150
min once/week for 16 weeks. I'll be teaching one section of grad students
and one of undergrads (20-25 per class). I have read the TBL for health
professionals and TBL for social sciences/humanities texts, as well as a
number of articles by Michaelsen, Sweet, Parmalee, etc. I've also been using
an adapted RAP (with the "scratcher" answer cards) for a several semesters
with great results. In preparation for this class, I formulated course
learning goals with a "backwards" approach-- which was very helpful and
illuminating. I've also somewhat reworked my units to reflect the TBL approach.
I had my first class a couple of days ago, and am a bit unclear on a couple
of things--
1. Time management for the day-- I need to fit IRAT, GRAT, content
clarification, and a learning activity into 2-1/2 hours. It's challenging.
I'll be using 10 question RATs, but am wondering about the flow of all that
in my once weekly class.
2. Do the RATs typically include a survey of all the required readings, or
can they focus on particular prioritized portions of content, and the
students then utilize the additional reading content during the activity time?
3. I'm wondering about sources for activity ideas. Also, do students
typically read the background info for the activity while in class, or is
the reading an out of class requirement? Or should the required reading for
the RAT comprise the total of info necessary for the activity? I used a
"take a position and defend it using research evidence" activity this week,
and next week I am thinking of an examination of assertions made in a
research article (concerning health literacy). Not sure if I'm on the "right
track"-- I've also used case studies as a foundation for activities in the
past. The big change this semester is that I am using the 4 "S" format for
the first time.
Thanks in advance for any replies or input. Looking forward to this new
adventure.
Melisa Kaye, MS, OTR/L
Dominican University of California
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