Marla,
Kudos to you for diving in to the world of TBL, especially with an
established "safe" base and being an adjunct! I know how tenuous it can
especially be as a fellow adjunct, blazing new trails with TBL at a college
:p

Now, what to do about this class?? I would first maybe carve out some time
to revisit your 1st day orientation to TBL and the research/rationale behind
it - the highlights if you will. I would also encourage you to emphasize the
"What's in it for them" aspect. After the first RAT, hopefully there is some
tentative data indicating that the team scores are better than individual
scores? If so, break out those stats and illustrate what the numbers are
saying in helping students grades. I simply average their individual RATs
with the team RATs, and the average is the only number that goes in the
grade book for a given RAT. Hopefully, also, you are using a team folder
where they are recording this data for themselves. Urge some patience and to
give TBL a try and that one place they can see the benefits to their grade
is the team folder each week. Also, maybe a mini-lesson on the difference
between FORMATIVE "forward looking" assessments and traditional SUMMATIVE
backward looking assessments?

Next, make clear the connections between their RAT results and how you are
using that to "customizing" the next class session(s). Powerpoint has a tool
where you can insert a bar chart for a slide, and I use this to open the
class following a RAT and show how the class' performance on specific
questions will influence how much/little activities/time we devote to what.

Another way to hopefully defuse the RAT tension that I have done to what I
feel is some success, is to start out with an exercise to focus on their
initial questions. The weekend before a RAT, I have the students post in
Blackboard their "muddiest Points" form the readings. That Tuesday, we then
start class with a powerpoint slide that compiles the most common questions.
Then each team has to pick 1-2 muddy points and go into the text to come up
with an answer. After the teams report out, I will briefly respond to any
confusion/inaccuracies in the team responses. Then I give them 3-5 minutes
as a team to go through the RAT study guides I gave them last session before
the weekend. Then I administer the RATs. So it is not being didactic about
the content before the quiz, but focused on getting some initial questions
answered and then comparing notes on their study guide notes. Even still,
through 1 minute paper feedback at the end of class, I still find that I
need to keep reminding them about the FORMATIVE nature of the RATs.

One final idea is to do away with the team challenges after the RAT. This
probably highlights my short comings, but I have found the challenges create
an adversarial environment that leads to drawn out confrontations more often
than not. If teams invest the time in writing the challenge, more often than
not, they will be highly motivated to get something for their work, even if
it is just derailing/disrupting class time on a lost cause.

Keep at it... takes time to get it done and get it right.... and even then
there always new wrinkles :) But keep the faith in the reasons that
convinced you this was worth it to begin with!
-Mike Welker

History Adjunct
North Central State College
Mansfield, Ohio

"Remember, I'm pulling for you... we're all in this together. Keep your
stick on the ice." -Red Green



On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 10:34 AM, Marla <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hello-
> I am an adjunct psychology professor at a local university.  I have been
> teaching the same class for 6 years and just this semester decided to try
> TBL.  I thought it was going well until I asked for feedback from the class
> after their first RAT - it turned it to a 30 minute discussion where about 8
> students became very hostile towards me (saying that the questions were too
> hard, they understood the readings but shouldn't be held accountable to
> synthesize the material before we even talked about it in class, they wanted
> to re-visit the distribution of grades and when I said 'no' they said that
> was unfair, etc.).  One student is still arguing with me about one question
> that their team appealed which I denied (this is 1 point among many for the
> semester).  While I love the idea of TBL, I am tempted to resort to the
> boring-yet-familiar lecture.  These students' whining is really wearing on
> me and instead of enjoying teaching (it is a part-time job I do, and
> certainly NOT for the money) I am counting the days until the semester is
> over.
> Any advice, words of encouragement, etc. would be very much appreciated at
> this point!
> Thanks.
>
>