Dear Marla
I teach the cardiovascular pathophysiology to the second
year pharmacy students. I recently had my first exam and an assessment of TBL
in the class. The feedback I got from the students about IRAT/TRAT was actually
positive, and they thought having IRAT/TRAT at the beginning of every class was
very helpful to prepared them for the class applications. One suggestion I can
make is that the questions on IRAT should be fairly straight forward and just
assess them on understanding the basis of the big picture. Where they need to
apply critical thinking and synthesizing a thought seems to be more relevant to
applications and of course the exams.
I hope you continue with exploring the TBL, it is a very
powerful teaching /learning technique
Good Luck
Parto
Parto Khansari Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Pharmacology
California Northstate College of Pharmacy
10811 International Drive
Rancho Cordova, CA 95670
916-631-8108 Ext. 226
Fax: 916-631-8127
www.californiacollegeofpharmacy.org
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From: Team-Based Learning
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Marla
Sent: Friday, October 30, 2009 7:34 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: TBL a disaster - help appreciated
|
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. |