Bob Herring (& others),

I am forwarding to the TBL listserv a question that Bob Herring posed to me. Both the question (see his email below) and my initial answer seem like something everyone might benefit from.

Basically you are asking what one does in the assessment phase of TBL that comes after the practice application phase.
        There are two options here, both of which are fine. Sometimes the professor can give a regular end-of-unit written exam. And this may be individual or a group exam. This is likely to be a mix of content ("understand and remember") kinds of questions along with application problems.
        The other option is to give the groups a "culminating exercise". This would be a project that they might work on for a class or two that is big enough to require knowledge of and an ability to apply the full range of concepts encountered in the unit (or in the whole course, up to that point in time).
        One example that Michaelsen has used in a course that combined management and computers, was a hypothetical daycare center. It was a "mom-and-pop" operation, grew, and needed a computer system of record keeping to replace the paper/pencil system. Question for the teams:

What hardware would you recommend?
What software would you recommend?
What procedures would you recommend?

After working on this for awhile, each team had to post a synopsis of their choices on a flip chart sheet and post it on the wall. The task promoted practical thinking : how would you solve this problem? Then all the teams reviewed all the sheets and had to select the ones they thought were best and that had the biggest question or concern for them. This promoted critical thinking.
        Another example comes from microbiology. After studying microbial physiology for several weeks, one professor gave each of the teams a new genus of bacteria to learn about and then asked them to plot the "likely path" of some component through the physiological processes. They too had to post their decisions and then review what other groups put up.
        Both examples require students to know, apply, and integrate lots of knowledge, concepts and principles, i.e., the "content" of the course. In that sense, these are good culminating exercises for assessment. Sometimes students have to write individual short papers, reflecting their individual understanding of the problem. Note that the professor needs to be able to grade/assess the group products. This means he/she needs to think about what criteria separates a good from a mediocre or poor solution to the problem and make those criteria clear to the students.

Does that help?
        Do other people have examples to share, of what you did in the assessment phase when you used TBL?

Dee Fink

Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2003 19:15:35 -0400
From: "Herring, Robert" <[log in to unmask]>
To: 'Dee Fink' <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
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Dee: You gave a workshop at Radford Univ. in VA at the beginning of January in 1995 or 1996; that's how I first learned about TBL. I've been wanting to try it, but the time was never right until now. I have a small evening section of Business Policy (only 7), so I'm working them as one team. The mix of students seemed too good to pass up this opportunity, although I realize that only one team is not optimal.

Also, I saw Larry at ABE last Sept., and OBTC in June, and got the TBL book on inter-lib loan; all that inspired me as well.

I do have one question. After the application phase comes the assessment phase; is a test per se normally used there? Or is there a page in the TBL book that I've overlooked.

I'm excited to begin this process.

Bob
Robert A. Herring III, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Management
School of Business and Economics
CB-19372
Winston-Salem State University
Winston-Salem NC 27110

Phone: 336-750-2288/2330
Fax: 336-750-2335
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
E-mail is subject to monitoring

-----Original Message-----
From: Dee Fink [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 10:55 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: TEAMLEARNING-L: [log in to unmask] joined the list

Robert,

Welcome to the Team-Based Learning (TBL) listserv!

We'd love to find out a little more about you.

How did you find out about the TBL website?
Are you already using team-based learning, or just learning about it? If the former, how did you find out about it?
Dee Fink

At 04:10 PM 08/28/2003 -0500, you wrote:

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