Hi Henriikka
My classes have been as large as 120 students and these are health
sciences students.
We have been using Blackboard-WebCT to handle the individual RAT -
students do their own individual test on their computers, during the
week before coming to class. This has turned out to be a very effective
approach, which the students also like and they are diligent about
getting the tests done. I know they aren't cheating because I can see
the distribution of grades on each quiz (and the technology also shows
me who wrote the test and when).
Further to Michael Sweet's suggestion, we have also used TurningPoint
clickers for the GRAT and that has been both fun and engaging for groups
(and the software allows me to record all kinds of data about the group
responses). I use the GRAT for competition as well. The GRAT also counts
for points per right answer and I give out a prize at the end of
semester for the group that accumulates the most points over the whole
semester.
Hang in there. TBL really does work! Technology can help!
Best regards
Gary
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------
Gary Kapelus MBA, DSP
Professor and Coordinator, Interprofessional Health Studies
Centre for Health Sciences
George Brown College of Applied Arts and Technology
200 King St. E.
Toronto, ON M5T 2T9
Tel: (416) 415-5000 Ext 3508
Cell: (416) 450-8083
http://www.georgebrown.ca/healthsciences/ipe.aspx
-----Original Message-----
From: Team-Based Learning [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Sweet, Michael S
Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2010 10:54 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: How to make large 1st year TBL classes work?
Henriikka,
Oy. You have got quite a challenging instructional ecology there.
I am a firm believer in adapting TBL to fit the context, so I am going
to recommend something I usually don't: straight-up, inter-team
competition.
If you set up some form of competition among teams, teams will be
motivated to huddle covetously over their IF-ATs and be sure other teams
don't see them.
You'd have to play with the idea to find a model that fits you--some
kind of curve on the tRATs, I am thinking. (Be sure NOT to make the
individual tests competitive, though!)
The only reason I feel OK recommending competition among teams here is
this:
1) You have tried lots of other things
2) It's a Business class, so competition is a familiar (and possibly
enjoyable) context for your students in ways it might not be for others.
If you give up on the IF-ATs, consider trying clickers before giving up
on TBL entirely.
Anyone else got ideas for Henriikka?
-M
________________________________________
From: Team-Based Learning [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Henriikka Clarkeburn [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 9:59 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: How to make large 1st year TBL classes work?
Hi,
We have been running TBL successfully in many classes in our Business
school, at both under and post-graduate level. The one area where we are
still looking for a real success story is our first year cohort.
To give you a bit of background:
1. Our courses have enrolments of 1200+ and run in several parallel
streams with up to 50 separate tutorials a week.
2. Up to 70% of our students are non-native English speakers and many
of them come from cultures where challenging knowledge and authority are
traditionally not encouraged.
3. We teach in steep tiered lecture theatres seating up to 400
students, which are usually overbooked, so there are no spare seats and
the rows are very long.
As a result of this we lack a shared educational culture and a sense of
community in the first year (these things improve in the later years!).
We have found both distributing material in the class a time-consuming
challenge and cheating has been common enough to undermine the entire
process. For example, students have no difficulty seeing IFATs on the
rows in front of them and have used phones to text each other correct
answers. We have tried using different IFATs on different rows, which
resulted in an administrative workload and chaos in class if even one
student group was sitting in the wrong row. Taking the RAP into the
tutorials/online led to questions leaking from tutorial to tutorial no
matter how many ways we tried to fix that by changing question orders,
requiring question sheets to be returned, alternating forms etc.
So we are basically at the point of having to abandon TBL in our large
first year classes before we burn out our staff and give TBL a bad name
as a pedagogy that does not work. Any suggestions on how to make it work
under these conditions, as we do believe in the value TBL would offer
our students?
Best Wishes,
Henriikka
------------------------------------------
Henriikka Clarkeburn | Lecturer
Office of Learning and Teaching | Faculty of Economics and Business
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