I no longer have a grade-setting exercise. I
decide the weights myself. I give team exams as well as RATs. The
team scores for RATs and exams are about one-third of the individual
scores, that is, TS=IS/3. A little bit more or less doesn't seem to
matter much.
I have had very strong reactions once or twice to
having any team component to final grades. This hasn't happened often, but
usually has strong feelings associated with it. The team scores have never
hurt anyone's grade, only helped.
My students are professionals who will usually be
employed in work environments where team activities and success are
central. Some of them have had some on-the-job training in group
processes. If necessary, I tell them team work is necessary on the
job.
Students who are more capable usually learn more by
helping everyone in their team learn. They seem to recognize
this. Not everyone will do so.
Most importantly, you will always have some unhappy
campers with TBL. There is no easy way to prevent this. Basically,
as a form of active learning, the end products of TBL are not as clearly defined
as traditional learning and the work demands are much
greater.
Any non-traditional learning format, such
as active learning methods, is going to make some people unhappy.
They want clear, precise norms for learning and anything else is so
unsatisfactory that it will bring out their worst possible criticism. If
you are prepared to make a credible conclusion that students learn more with TBL
then you have a powerful argument in favor of it. I suspect it has been
successful for me because it forces students to put in time on task much earlier
in the semester. I think many students dislike these work demands, which
are not consistent with their other academic
experience.
Regards,
David Smith
David W. Smith, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Associate Professor,
Biostatistics
Fellow, Institute for Health Policy
The University of Texas
School of Public Health
San Antonio Branch Campus
voice: (210)
562-5512
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
or
[log in to unmask]
From: Team Learning
Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kathryn
McKnight
Sent: Saturday, February 26, 2005 2:34 PM
To:
[log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Three
Issues
Dear All,
I'm writing to reiterate a desire for responses
to Lion's question on the grade distribution, rather than with any wisdom
to offer.
I do have a suggestion for the IRATs, which I think
others have posted before. I use a 5-minute limit
rule on the IRATs, too. Everyone has 5 minutes from the time that one full team
has completed the IRAT.
In terms of grade distribution: I am in my second semester of TBL and have not had good
experiences with the grade distribution in either one, though other aspects of
the strategy have been great. The first semester, the class finally came to a
decision on grades, but took much more time than I had planned for. I think that
one main stumbling block is that they do not understand how the peer evaluations
will distribute the grade. And this is after I have shown them a sample like the
one in the book, where two students have identical individual grades, but one
contributes much more to the team and thus earns a much higher total grade. I
have also made this example available to them online before the grade
discussion. Yet in both semesters one or two teams have argued vociferously and
long that the individual grade must be higher, because otherwise those who don't
do the work will benefit unfairly. This second time around, one older student
--who is also a teacher-- kept his team from coming to consensus, arguing
that in the real world it is the quality of the intellectual PRODUCT that is
rewarded. Again, I think he did not understand how peer evaluations would reward
the intellectual product of those who most contribute, but I think also he may
have been objecting to the fact that the team grade rewards other types of
useful team behavior that are not strictly intellectual product. In this class,
there was clearly no resolution in sight--with two other teams arguing for 60
& 70% of the grade to the team work, another for 50/50 and this one team
utterly divided. So I made the final decision.
Any help? I'm about ready to take that piece of
student autonomy away.
Kathy McKnight