Dear Colleagues

I have been implementing TBL since February in my classes at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in Cape Town, South Africa. We have come to the end of our first term and I want to ask how often one should or should not change the team composition.

Initially, I had thought of keeping the same team for the whole year, but now think that I should set up new teams for the next term as I think the teams may be slipping into comfort zones and attitudes might be setting. What is your practice?

I did an appreciative inquiry with the class on the TBL course at the end of the term and received an overwhelmingly positive response - the students like TBL! One of the questions was "What is working really well in this class?" The response - (1) working in culturally and language diverse teams where the emphasis is on peer teaching and (2) learning to work in a diverse team as a really useful life skill because they will be working in a culturally diverse society when they gradate. I am really pleased with this response because SA is still a very segregated society as a result of its apartheid legacy and I had selected the groups very carefully to be representative of culture, language, gender and educational backgrounds in an attempt to break down barriers and build up future workers who are culturally literate and tolerant. What has been so great is that in this process I have learnt so much!

Regards

Bernie Millar