Hi Dee
and Listserve members,
I
agree with the analysis by Dee and the approach Adrew takes.
I do
it a little different. I spend the first three class sessions explaining to them
why I chose to use this teaching strategy. Since I have been doing this for four
semesters now and other faculty in the department are using it as well the
students now have heard about it and expect it. On a side note, we are seeing
the benefits trickling up to the upper level courses (Mine is a sophomore leve
course). Students do not resist team work anymore, they are more task oriented
and focused during the class sessions, and they interact more readily and
actively with each other.
Back
to the issue. I did serveral things to help the students focus on team
work:
1)
During the first class session of the semester I let students complete a
background questionnaire to get a better sense of their experience with the
topic of the course and their GPA. I created groups based on sex, GPA, and
background. Absolutely NO self-selection. I have an extensive syllabus in which
I explain the rationale for team-based learning and critical thinking among
other things. I read the whole syllabus to them verbatim and the first practice
RAT is over the syllabus.
2) On
the website for the course I placed Tickets To Class the students print out,
complete, and bring to class in preparation for the next in-class assignment.
The first TTC was related to issues concerning teamwork. They had to
individually think about a Full Value Commitment (this is basically a contract
between team members concerning behaviors they expect of each other). They also
had to develop consequences that would be imposed on members if they did not
follow the "rules." During the subsequent class session, each team developed
their own FVC. I took all of them and compiled their statements into a class FVC
with consequences. The entire class then got to vote on which items to keep.
Following that vote every student signed a copy of the contract that was placed
in their team folder. During that session I presented the students
with several characterizations of possible disruptive
individuals and asked them the questions "how would you deal with this person if
s/he was in your group?" This may seem overkill, but it focuses students right
from the beginning on essential team-related issues.
3) I
developed a theme for the class and organized the content into 7 Units. Each
unit has either 1 or 2 RATs for a total of 11 RATs for the entire semester. I
placed Study Guides on the course website that help the students focus on the
most important concepts for each unit. At the end of the Study Guide if place
Study Concentration Questions. Students are allowed to print those questions out
and make handwritten notes. They can bring that piece of paper and use it for
the RATs. It boosted their performance and I have not heard any complaints about
not lectures before the RAT. You can say that is cheating, but I don't see it
that way. It helps them read the content more carefully and they are better
prepared for the team discussion during the team RAT.
4)
When there is no RAT for a session students bring their TTC to class. The
questions they answered on it are the lead-in and preparation for that session's
in-class assignment. If they do not bring their TTC they receive and absence and
loose the 5 points that go with the TTC. The assignments involve critical
thinking exercises related to the content using David Perkins' 5 questions: 1)
what's the purpose, 2) how is it organized; 3) what is an example; 4) how can we
explain it; 5) how do we know it works? The students are still struggling with
this. I practice this approach with them during the first two units. For four of
the other 5 units the work on synthesizing concepts and presenting their work on
a poster during the last session of the unit. They have a rubric
of standards based on Perkins 5 questions that they use to develop
their poster and to evaluate a randomly selected poster. I reserve the right to
give their grades however. All this is quite difficult and sometimes emotional
for them, but it certainly engages them. I never ask that they meet outside of
class, but guess what, they are doing it on their own.
Team-based Learning works, but you need to explain clearly and repeatedly
why you are making them do this. Dee's suggestion to carefully balance RATs and
tough but do-able assignments is also very important. Writing good assignments
is very difficult, but also very rewarding.
Group
dynamics do not develop automatically and I come back to their functioning as a
team several times during the semester using formative evaluations and surveys.
I will also step in as facilitator if a team is clearly having problems to help
them work it out.
Hope
this is somewhat helpful.
Harry
Meeuwsen
Members of the Team-Based
Learning (TBL) Listserv:
In the last few weeks, I have had a couple of
different phone calls or emails from teachers using TBL who are experiencing
various forms of resistance from students. It appeared that this might
be a widespread enough problem to warrant checking further into the situation
and sharing the question on this listserv.
What might be causing
this?
When I checked into the situations where
this was occurring, I sometimes found the following factors which seemed like
they might be contributing to the problem:
- Teacher had not spent much time at the beginning of the course,
explaining to students how the course was going to be different and
why the teacher was choosing to teach this way.
- Letting students pick their own team members.
- No (or not many) application exercises between Readiness Assessment
Tests.
- Giving application exercises to the groups/teams that required them to
meet outside of class.
- Being uncertain or equivocal about how peer assessment was going to
work.
Of these, the third item (too many RATs in relation to
application exercises) seemed especially important in causing students to be
non-cooperative. It is like we are telling students: "Work hard so
you can do well on this test/quiz, and I will reward you with...another
quiz." If the process is perceived this way, it isn't likely to generate
a lot of support and enthusiasm. Student interest and perceived value is
likely to come more from seeing themselves able to use the knowledge in
challenging application activities.
Your Experience?
I
suspect there may be value in letting everyone on this listserv share their
experiences and observations.
Does the analysis above correspond with
your experience, or not? What have been your experiences and
observations in terms of what seems to affect student attitudes (positive or
negative) toward TBL?
Dee Fink