Hi Harry,
Thanks for your two cents. I agree; students in a traditional university usually
need the Hawthorne Effect to keep them focused, especially when they are
learning fundamental concepts and being reconditioned for interdependent
processes.
The approach might be different when developing mature working professionals
or advanced students who have developed the capacity for autonomous work.
In adult development environments, managers and teachers might attempt to
coach employees and learners towards independence in performance and
learning. Applied to learning teams or work teams, the boss or manager
attempts to facilitate the team toward interdependence without constant
hovering. The organization (boss, teacher) builds the framework, establishes
expectations, provides the resources, defines projects, and sets deadlines. The
sponsoring manager (or faculty) might even get involved with helping the team
establish its internal processes and identify its external resources. But,
depending on the kind of team, the project, and the people on the team, the
manager may need to back off and let the team implement the project on it's
own. Otherwise, the manager can hinder the team process more than help it.
One way to consider this is through the lens of Vygotsky's scaffolding
approach, through which a mentor carefully guides a learner through the
basics, then backs off so the learner can develop autonomy in the new skill;
then steps back in to guide the learner through more advanced levels, then
backs off, etc.
In other words, the manager or teacher scaffolds the employee or learner to
independence and the team to interdependence. This might require different
approaches during the course of a semester, including lectures to lay the
foundation, TBL to condition learners to interdependent processes, then more
delegated methods as the students demonstrate the capacity to work
autonomously. Perhaps the student at a traditional school will never develop
the capacity for autonomous work; but, facilitating autonomy is something that
is fundamental to adult development practice. Regardless of the level of
autonomy or self direction the student is able to obtain, the teacher still must
monitor, evaluate, and offer corrective feedback as necessary.
Regards,
Brent
On Fri, 9 Dec 2011 12:04:00 -0700, Meeuwsen, Harry <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>Adding to what Jim wrote. Sending students off to do projects outside of the
class session is also a recipe for disaster unless they take the initiative and are
excited about doing even more than was asked of them during the session.
>My two cents.
>Harry
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Team-Based Learning [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Jim Sibley
>Sent: Friday, December 09, 2011 11:07 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Research concept: Assessing team learning with remedial
learners at a Japanese university
>
>Hi
>
>I would like to point out that small group learning is
very...very...very....different than TBL
>
>Model's (like the University of Phoenix Model) that have GROUPS of students
work on product based assignments often won't have much in common with
TBL.
>
>The Achilles heal of product based assignments is social loafing...if I want
51% and you want 90%....this is going to create unresolvable problems...we
often don't have peer evaluation systems that let us give zero to the team
mate that never shows up and never contributes. One of my friend completed
an online masters and had one course where one team mate never showed up
and never contributed....and was given zero on the peer evaluations by the
other team mates....but the peer evaluation only counted for 10% of course
grade....so the non-performer got a passing course grade for NO work. Many
cooperative/collaboartive techniques (Johnson and Johnson type) have crazy
complicated individual accountability measures in the GROUP product to try to
fix this.
>
>TBL doesn't need this since it has TEAMS do something that TEAMS are good
at....make decisions....
>
>Any time you encounter group dysfunction....the first place to look is at the
task....what I have asked the group to do?....many kinds of tasks (like large
products) often lead to dysfunction.
>
>TBL has a very specific way of ensuring that students are ready to wrestle
with the problem (readiness assurance) and gives students significant problems
to wrestle with and getting immediate and unambiguous feedback of their
thinking, their teams thinking, and other teams thinking.
>
>TBL is really focused on student TEAMS making decisions and getting very
immediate feedback on those decisions whether it is immediate feedback from
the IF-AT cards in the TEAM test or from other TEAMS during application
activity reporting.
>
>Their are a number of schools in Japan, Korea, Singapore and across the far
east that are using TBL quite successfully....the stereotype of the passive
Asian student has turned out to not be true in the TBL classroom.
>
>My two cents
>
>jim
>
>
>> From: Brent Duncan <[log in to unmask]>
>> Reply-To: Brent Duncan <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2011 18:56:52 -0800
>> To: "[log in to unmask]" <TEAMLEARNING-
[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Research concept: Assessing team learning with remedial
>> learners at a Japanese university
>>
>> Hello TBL folks,
>>
>> For your consideration and comment, I am posting a link to a concept
>> paper for a research project through which I will assess the viability
>> of a team learning model with remedial students at a local college in
>> Northeastern Japan.
>>
>> Those of you who are familiar with Japanese higher education know that
>> collaborative processes and higher education are mutually exclusive
>> concepts. Considering the Western perception of Japan as a
>> collaborative society, this seems to reflect a fundamental dissonance
>> between societal values and institutional practices. I had an
>> opportunity to discuss this dissonance during a workshop on
>> small-group learning processes I gave to the faculty of a Japanese
>> university in July
>> (http://www.gakushuu.org/humans/learning/team-based-learning-
>> resources). The concepts met with significant resistance; but,
>> triggered enough interest that the University asked me to conduct
>> research to test the viability of small-group learning on their campus
>> with student volunteers.
>>
>> I merged ideas from TBL and the University of Phoenix Learning Team
>> model to create a process that I think will be most effective for this
>> specific group and project. Since TBL folks contributed to my project,
>> you are welcome to gather ideas from here. I also would appreciate
>> hearing your thoughts, especially if you can offer suggestions for
>> improving the process.
>>
>> One thing I ask is that this document remains within this group;
>> please do not distribute this document without asking me.
>>
>> https://docs.google.com/open?
>> id=0B2M6UHnEAG6JNDYwMWE3ZGYtZjYzNC00YThlLWI5YWEtZDdhMDc5O
>> TIyYWE3
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Brent Duncan, Lead Faculty
>> University of Phoenix School of Business Asia Campus, Misawa Air Base,
>> Japan
|
