Bill & others,
I would like to respond to Bill's specific situation, because it has so
many of the common challenges of team-based learning.
The Assignment: I looked at the material on the website. Excellent
materials, and enough to lay the foundation for some real critical thinking.
However, using short-answer essay responses (even though you have
them write these out on the board simultaneously) is probably part of the
reason the students are not responding better. Too many questions at once,
too many moving parts.
Instead, I would suggest modifying these in the following way:
* Have the students read the material before class, and tell them to
read with certain issues in mind (but don't state your questions directly).
* Then, when they come to class, have them address each of the
questions separately, one at a time.
* But, convert several of the questions into multiple-choice,
decision-based questions. For example: Which of the following species
concepts was used in this case? (and then give them a choice of X, Y, or Z)
* If they are committed to one specific answer and other groups
disagree, this will usually generate some discussion between groups. They
want to be able to justify their answer (before you have indicated what you
think is the correct answer).
* After working through most of the questions this way, then you can
give them one of the more complex questions, e.g., Propose a biologically
reasonable scenario for the evolution of apple maggot flies. This is sort
of like a "culminating problem" where they start to put the pieces of a
bigger problem together.
* For this latter kind of question, have each group talk about the
question and then sketch out their answer on a piece of flip-chart
paper. Then have them post these on the wall, simultaneously. Have all
the groups review each other's posters. After they have had time to do
this, have each group put a BLUE post-it note on the one they think is best
(other than their own) (like a blue-ribbon, "1st Prize") and a YELLOW
post-it note on the one they have the biggest question about. This
stimulates some valuable critical analysis.
* For the debrief of this portion, have the groups (a) indicate why
they liked the ones they did and (b) respond to questions about their own
poster. => lots of good sharing of thinking, with lots of data in front of
them.
Student Reactions:
I too have often had students make the comments you report. I have to
remind myself that, for the students, this is a new and different ways of
learning. Students are not usually challenged to learn on their own (they
should be, in my view, but they aren't).
That level of change is almost always going to generate some
initial discomfort. The challenge for us as teachers is then to help them
through that phase until they have time to adjust and find out the value of
this way of learning.
My reaction: Talk these out with the whole class. You can be sure
that if some students voice these concerns, several other students have
them as well. So I want a chance to share my thinking with the whole
class on these concerns.
Some possible responses:
* "We are forced to learn on our own."
* Yes and no. Yes, you have to do the initial learning on your own
- just like you will have to do in life after college. But then look at
what happens: You get lots of help from the other members of your team and
eventually from the other teams, in figuring out what the correct answers
are. This doesn't always happen in life; enjoy it and take advantage of it
while you can.
* "When are you going to lecture? I don't learn anything from the
others on my team."
* When I (the teacher) lecture, I am only telling you what you can
learn on your own by reading. But when we work on problems - in class, in
teams, you learn what the information means and what you can do with it -
something that cannot happen well in a lecture.
* As for learning from others in their teams, you (the teacher) may
need to give them a little time (a few weeks) and then ask them to compare
the scores of the teams with their own individual scores. if you are doing
it right, the teams will outscore the best individuals, not necessarily on
a given test, but over the course of multiple tests. This says they are
learning from others.
* Note: If the teams are NOT outscoring the best individuals, the
teacher probably needs to make the test questions and the team problems
more challenging.
* "I don't know what to study for the test."
* Again, after college we will all be confronted with the need to
learn on our own - without the benefit of study guides. I will try to help
you with study guides. But one of the hallmarks of a well-educated college
student is that they have learned how to figure out what they need to
learn. Let's get started with that process now.
So, to answer your basic questions: yes, there are some things you can do
differently to help the discussion phase of this process, but this is a
widespread difficulty of early users. On the other hand, the initial
responses of your students are also very common. Help them think through
what is happening and ask them to give the process a little time, and then
see what they think about it.
Dee Fink
At 02:13 PM 2/9/2004, William Bromer wrote:
>Hi everyone,
>Like Karla, I also just started team based learning this semester and I
>seem to have a similar problem with teams not willing to defend their
>answers. For example, last week they completed a case study on
>speciation of maggot flies
>(http://www.sciencecases.org/maggot_fly/maggot_fly.asp) and each of
>the 6 teams wrote their short answers (without explanations) on the
>board at the same time. It seemed to me that if 4 of the teams came to
>the same answer then the other 2 teams felt they must be wrong. I even
>tried to indicate that I thought the minority answers were better but
>the teams seemed content and felt they had finished. I am wondering if
>this part of the team builiding process and it might just take some
>time. However, I still feel I could have done something differently.
>
>Some of my students are also making comments that may be common, but
>they do make me feel a little bit uneasy about the team-based learning.
>A few have said things like:
>I don't like that we are forced to learn this all on our own.
>When are you going to lecture, I don't learn anything from the others
>in my team.
>I don't have any notes and I don't know what to study for the test (
>even after I explained that their notes during team discussions were
>their notes for the class and they will have open book tests)
>
>Are these common or are they warning signs that I am not doing
>something right???
>
>Bill Bromer
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
L. Dee Fink, Director Phone: 405-325-2323
Instructional Development Program Email: [log in to unmask]
Hester Hall, Room 203 FAX: 405-325-7402
University of Oklahoma
Norman, OK 73019 IDP Website: www.ou.edu/idp
President-Elect of the POD Network [Professional and Organizational
Development] in Higher Education
Author of: Creating Significant Learning Experiences (Jossey-Bass, 2003)
Dee Fink's Website: www.ou.edu/idp/dfink.htm
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