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Hello all!Happy to be on this list with all you other TBLers :) I am not
alone! ;)

I have a question/issue with my TBL implementation which I am hoping the
assembled wise brains here can help me out with...

I teach History courses online occasionally but mostly via video
conferencing to 3 remote sites around our 2-year college "service area" in
addition to students at the main site with me. After noting the intense "us
v. the world" bonding mentality of the remote video sites and trying to find
some way to turn that remote site 'separate and not equal" weakness of the
medium into a strength, I literally lucked into winning a copy of the TBL
book at a conference :) My video teaching life has been changed by this
technique with a much more learning and application centered classroom, but
more crucially for this medium, a much more interactive and inclusive class
experience for ALL sites. Each site is a team and all in-class activities
(or 95% of them at least) are team based application activities.

Only hitch in the giddyup I have is with the RAQs (Readiness Assessment
QUIZZES which based on recent dialog here I will be changing to a different
title next quarter!). My RAQs are only 4-5 questions long (in large part due
to the structure of the text chapters and density of material) yet I have
never had much luck with the challenge piece post quiz OR in getting
"educatative" dialog going about the questions vs. fishing for parsing
answer choices to win some points back. So much so that I have in recent
quarters, simply ditched the appeals process and instead, "harvest" data
from missed questions to then drive the following sessions' activities and
focus. This has been working good, with me emphasizing the following class
period that we are focusing and doing what we are as it is the areas the
RAQs spotlighted as weakest as a class. However, I am concerned that this
break with TBL orthodoxy is costing the class an opportunity or I am missing
out on some key dynamic for even better TBLing??

Thanks in advance for any advice or counsel as well as for all the excellent
dialog here :)
-Mike Renock-Welker,
History Adjunct Instructor & Distance Learning Instructional Designer
North Central State College
Mansfield, Ohio


"Remember, I'm pulling for you... we're all in this together. Keep your
stick on the ice." -Red Green