Kathy. I have a similar situation in my Pathophysiology course. I have a cohort of Nurse Anesthesia students, a smaller group of Cell and Molecular Biology undergraduates who know one another well and the remainder of the class from among 2-3 other programs. I have been creating the teams by considering the academic program as an asset and mixing them up. Some from each group of students end up in each group. Initially, cliques do form but they quickly disappear as the students realize the benefits of the different perspectives (clinical, cellular, etc.). Scott On 5/6/10 3:50 PM, "Ross, Kathy" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: We have a Team-Based Learning Special Interest Group (TBL-SIG) on our campus for faculty using or interested in using TBL. A question came up in a recent meeting that I would like to bring to this group for responses. A faculty member who uses TBL in one course would like to expand to using it in another course but has a concern over a possible issues with team formation and cohesiveness. About 60% of the students who enter that course are from one academic program while the rest come from a variety of programs. The chance is very high that the students who are in the same program know each other by that time. The concern is whether TBL advantages would be appreciably reduced because students from that program could easily form sub-groups or cliques within a team, and it could impact team cohesiveness. Diverse teams would certainly include multiple students from this group placed in each team. Has anyone had a similar experience and words of wisdom about how to form and develop group cohesiveness under this predictable condition? Thanks so much! Kathy Kathy Ross, Ph.D. Director, Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Indiana University Kokomo 2300 South Washington KO-083A P. O. Box 9003 Kokomo, IN 46904-9003 765-455-9392 [log in to unmask] -- Scott D. Zimmerman, PhD Biomedical Sciences Department Missouri State University Springfield, MO 65897 (417) 836-6123 Fax (417) 836-5588 Ei incumbit probation qui dicit, non qui negat The onus of proof lies on the proposition, not on the opposition.