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Team-Based Learning <[log in to unmask]>
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"J.Aires de Sousa" <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:35:26 +0100
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"J.Aires de Sousa" <[log in to unmask]>
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Dear TBLers

We are implementing TBL in various Chemistry undergraduate courses. A 
key issue here is the integration of lab works. We understand lab 
sessions can be great application activities. At the same time, the 
process urges to re-frame the real goal of lab sessions (demonstration 
of "natural laws", learning activities, training of lab skills,...?). 
And the organization of sessions must be completely reshaped.

In one case, we adapted our traditional lab works to TBL applications, 
using essentially the same material and reagents. For example, one 
session was about acid-basis titrations of solutions. Before, the 
students used to follow a recipe. Now, they don't know the concentration 
of one solution, and teams have to find it using the titrations. The 
evaluation of the team is based on the result -- how close it is to the 
real concentration.

A problem we face on reshaping lab sessions as TBL applications is about 
creating lab activities for teams of 6-8 students. Students 
traditionally work in groups of 2-3, because no more than that can 
perform the same task simultaneously! To overcome it, we could divide 
tasks by team members, but that would loose the "team driving force" of 
TBL... At the same time we want that all students are trained on all 
techniques... In the above-mentioned case, each team was divided in two: 
each sub-team had to validate the results of the other, and the whole 
team had to arrive at a final team answer for the concentration.

In some courses (e.g., organic synthesis) we very much emphasize the 
training of individual lab skills. A proposal for TBLing lab sessions is 
that each student (or pair of students) is assigned the task of 
performing the synthesis of the same product, and teams have to deliver 
the maximum possible amount of bulk product (resulting from the 
individual contributions). The team will be evaluated on the basis of 
the amount and purity of the product they deliver. In this way, team 
members would be encouraged to cooperate to achieve the maximum possible 
yield and purity. During the process, and at the end, the whole team 
would have to make decisions about which contributed products are 
excluded if their purity is not good enough.

I'd be grateful if you could comment on these issues, come up with new 
ideas for TBLing lab sessions, and send me examples of implementing lab 
works as TBL activities.

Joao

-- 
Joao Aires de Sousa
Departamento de Quimica, Faculdade de Ciencias e Tecnologia,
Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
Tel: (+351) 21 2948300 x10907   Fax: (+351) 21 2948550
Email: [log in to unmask]

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