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