MAILING LISTS

Paula,

I had similar issues initially with some teams finishing way ahead of the
others. I moved away from the flag system in my course (module in the UK)
towards a defined period of time that I expected the application exercise
to take and stating this on the screen/handout. Like Larry, I also keep
pushing them to keep them on task and reminding them every few minutes how
long they have left. I¹ve also broken larger applications into smaller
components in an evolving case/problem to keep them on track and maintain
the energy in the room.

To prevent social loafing, I echo Jim¹s comment that the application
exercise should be sufficiently messy and ill-structured that the team
have to spend time discussing it and working out how to solve it and also
be sufficiently authentic that they want to solve it because they see it
as important to their future learning/future careers. This helps their
motivation.

I recently spent some time interviewing TBL teams for my EdD research
programme and they told me that they like time limits in applications as
it keeps them on task. Otherwise (they told me) they spend the first 5
minutes or so talking about other things (Extract from the student focus
group - "One of the things that¹s really help keep things moving is that
some of the professors will put time limits on applications and that¹s
been more helpful to get the class moving alongŠ.So I think that has been
the best way to combat those kind of things ­ give a quick time limit.²)

Just to enter the debate on team size these students also told me that 5
or 6 is the optimal number with 7 being "way too many". These were
students who had experienced 3 years of a predominantly TBL program
switching teams each semester. More of these students stated that they
preferred 5 in a team believing that 6 could slow them down. But if 1
person was missing e.g. due to illness and they found that they were down
to 4, then they felt the team didn¹t function as well.

Quotes from the focus group below:

"I¹ve been on 3 six-person teams and 3 five-person teams and it¹s not such
much the people on the teams, it¹s that I feel like the work was done
quicker and more efficiently in the 5
person team.²

"But then that 5 person team is just perfect because one day when there
are only 4 of you then you don¹t function as well as you do with that
fifth person. But I think 6 is one too many!"


Best wishes

Simon

PS. There¹s a few links below that define and discuss ill-defined problems
if you¹re interested

http://www.cotf.edu/vdc/entries/ILLPS.html



http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/carl_ltc/quantitative_writing/wellversusill


http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Ill-Structured_Problems


------------------------------------------------------------------------
Simon Tweddell BPharm MRPharmS FHEA
Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice
Curriculum Development Fellow
Centre for Educational Development
University of Bradford
Bradford 
United Kingdom
BD7 1DP
Tel. +44 (0)1274 235241
Email. [log in to unmask]
Twitter: @simontweddell
Skype: simon.tweddell

Accredited Consultant-Trainer in Team-based Learning





On 19/09/2014 16:56, "Nichols, A Paula" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Getting ready to start year 4 with TBL for first year medical students in
>a class of 150. I have been reviewing comments from previous years in
>order to improve the delivery. The biggest negative comment is that it
>takes too long and a lot of time is spent listening to answers from
>questions that students already know during the application. Most
>students state that they like to TBL format in general but think that a
>lot of time is spent in the application waiting around.  I use the flag
>system and have also used clickers to speed up the process but still find
>myself spending time answering questions from students that may not have
>grasped some basic concepts. So the bottom third of the class benefit
>greatly but the top third get bored. The biggest comment is that students
>want the application in small groups so they can move through the
>material quickly rather than large group.  Does anyone have suggestion
>about how to navigate these type of questions?
>
>Paula Monaghan-Nichols
>University of Pittsburgh