Along with general student reluctance to change, another aspect
that can occur is that students who have been successful in studying
individually and scoring on their assessments in a more traditional kind of class
may think they will face a setback in performance/grades by having to change methods.
I think faculty can impact these students by using the TBL suggestion
to collect the summary data during the course about each group’s RAT
scores compared to that group’s top achiever’s individual RAT scores.
Typically, and in my own experience as well, data will show the group
outperforms the top individual achiever in the group.
Sharing this information at the end shows those who had favored individual
efforts that they did benefit from the group. Sharing previous class
comparisons with a new class at the beginning can help the students who fear
doing worse see that they are more likely to do better.
Kathy Ross
Kathy Ross, Ph.D.
Director, Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment
Indiana University Kokomo
2300 South Washington
P. O. Box 9003
Kokomo, IN 46904-9003