My “elevator speech” on the difference
between PBL and TBL is that they include many of the same pieces, but are just “reversed.”
By this I mean that in PBL students are
given a complex problem FIRST and then have to go off on their own and figure
what material they need to master in order to solve it.
However in TBL, students are FIRST provided
a socio-intellectually powerful set of activities to help them master the
necessary material and THEN are giving complex problems upon which to apply to
apply that material. This is more consistent with the notion of instructional “scaffolding”.
Also, TBL is much more scalable to very
large classes than PBL (in the way that PBL is traditionally done with facilitators
for each group).
-M
From: Team-Based
Learning [mailto:
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 9:01
AM
To:
Subject: Re: TBL in the NY Times,
Five Questions
Hi Richard/Sandy
Another few differences between PBL and
TBL
1) PBL has an information literacy piece where students go off with
their learning issues, do independent research and come back to the group and
integrate what they find…..TBL does have this except with careful design
2) In PBL is facilitator only….never expert…..in TBL you can step into
the role of expert at appropriate times to aid student learning…..a lot of
faculty are uncomfortable completely shedding the role of expert that PBL requires
Jim
From: Team-Based
Learning [mailto:
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 10:55
PM
To:
Subject: Re: TBL in the NY Times,
Five Questions
Dear Richard,
I guess I can answer two of your questions to the TeamLearning
listserv, being the Associate Dean for Curriculum at the Duke-NUS Graduate
Medical School Singapore.
·
Does anyone know what evidence
supports Kamei's statement "Our first class did extraordinarily well using
this method" as quoted above by Kolesnikov-Jessop?
We are in our 2nd year of existence. We have 26 2nd
year students and 48 1st year students. Our results are quite
preliminary, thus not yet published, but are encouraging. As background,
we are delivering, essentially the traditional, often lecture based, Duke
Curriculum using TBL exclusively in the 1st year basic sciences
course; using some adapted versions of TBL in the 2nd year clinical
teaching; hoping that lessons learned will apply for our students as they
engage in their 3rd year research; and will be encouraging more TBL
for 4th year return to clinical activities. We will be
publishing as we move forward with this adventure, but are clearly not yet
ready for prime-time.
Essentially, we start with the course and content structure from Duke
and use their recorded lectures as the preparatory material. We have
developed over 70 TBL sessions to provide the students with an active learning
environment critically reviewing and discussing the principles set forth in the
basic science lectures. We have used similar assessments as Duke (both in
teacher made course exams and NBME Comprehensive Basic Science Exam (CBSE),
Clinical Subject Exams) so that we can at least bench mark our performance to
Duke Students. We also are measuring students’ attitudes on some
environmental issues using the Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure
(DREEM). We will be measuring our students on their performance on the
USMLE Step 1 and Step 2CK and would welcome any other thoughts on tools and
measures to use to explore the impact of this learning strategy.
So, the statement by Dr. Kamei is based on the fact that our first
group of 26 students performed similarly as the Duke Students on the faculty
developed assessments yet when they took the CBSE exam, as did Duke students,
at end of 1st year, without any study time (or encouragement even –
but asked to use it diagnostically to see where their gaps were), Our students’
mean was statistically higher in comparison to Duke Students (n=100).
Clearly there is lots of room for discussion on the validity of the comparison
and limitations (from Halo effect to non comparable samples), which is why we
are not yet ready to publish. We hope to be able to replicate the results
in July when our current 48 first year class takes the CBSE for first time; and
explore sustainability with the original group as they take CBSE for 2nd
time. We acknowledge that this is only a small component of assessing
impact and believe it is more than the knowledge that we will be influencing.
To our advantage, we have a natural control group at Duke who is not
(yet) using this methodology, and provides us with ample opportunity to make
interesting comparisons. Randomized Pre/Post is not exactly possible
here, but we still think we have a good opportunity for learning some great
things about this strategy.
·
What's the difference between TBL
and PBL?
I’m certain others can and have responded to this in more detail, but
from our perspective the major differences are:
·
Students in TBL are closely guided
ahead of time (with direction from faculty/material) on what they need to know
to solve the ‘problem’ they are given (or application in TBL terms) rather than
using discovery learning. I should note that it is not a statement of
“good” or “bad” about discovery learning – but just a different approach.
It was more efficient for us to tell the students what to prepare rather than
take the time to enable them to discover what they needed.
·
Students come prepared (on this
prep material) and are held accountable for that preparation in their grades
through individual assessments; however, it is followed by group assessments on
same material to further enhance learning. Just-in time learning- they
are primed to learn based on their own individual struggles.
·
All the teams are in the same
room, so there are fewer facilitators needed and the facilitation engages all
teams, so there is the same experience and similar closure on sessions for all students.
Which was critical for us as our faculty size is very limited compared to a
traditional medical school.
·
All the problems are done in class
so there are less group dynamic problems with someone doing part of the work
for the group and individuals riding only on the group work.
There are probably many others, but these are the four key ones that we
felt were important factors that influenced our decision to us this strategy
over PBL.
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