I ran into this, and we made the
judgment call to put all the folks from the same cohort on their own team. (To
minimize cliques within other teams).
That team outperformed all the
other teams from the outset, and all semester long. While other teams were
just warming up socially, this team was screaming ahead. Not sure how fair
that was to the other teams.
The issue here is whether to
create cliques WITHIN or ACROSS teams. You’re going to have cliques. :-(
-M
From: Team-Based Learning
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ross, Kathy
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2010 3:51 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Question about TBL team formation
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