[log in to unmask]"> 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

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L. Dee Fink, Director                   Phone: 405-325-2323
Instructional Development Program       Email:  [log in to unmask]
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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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Department of Biology
University of Wisconsin-Stout
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