We agree with David on this. We keep our teams together for the
entire year because it then gives students an incentive to “work out
differences/conflicts” between themselves, rather than do the easy thing and
just try to ignore conflicts because they only have the work with their teammates
for a “few more days/weeks”. We also don’t allow them to switch out of
teams. We know that building teams takes some time and effort, so that
the peer evaluations aren’t as powerful if the students know they won’t be
working with that person again. Giving constructive feedback in this
setting is more meaningful because it means something to the person giving the
feedback. In addition, giving constructive feedback well in this setting
has implications for their own performance. And finally teams go
through a progression described by Tuckman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckman%27s_stages_of_group_development)
as “Forming”, “Norming” “Storming” and finally “Performing”. This
model (which we share with our students in our orientation) suggests that these
developmental stages are necessary before teams can get to a high performing
state. Students won’t have a chance to be in or even see a high
performance team if they are constantly shifting around. We suggest that
if you have the opportunity to keep students in their teams for longer periods
of time, you should strongly consider it.
Bob Kamei and Sandy Cook
Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School
From: Team-Based Learning
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Teachout
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2010 4:49 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Groups: keep them or change them?
If you kept the same teams, might there be a benefit of
further progression of a "team cohesiveness" effect?
Considering the initial groups "developed" into
teams over the course of the first semester, how much further might the
developmental process reach?
In most situations, teams
dissolve as a function of the 14- or 15-week semester. If TBL is truly a
prep for the type of 21st Century Skills that seems to be valued in today's
workplace (i.e., collaboration, etc.), why not take advantage of this rare
opportunity to see just how much teams might be able to accomplish beyond one
semester?
On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 4:13 PM, Brent MacLaine <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hello John Mark:
My instinct would be to decide on the basis of the curriculum. If the
second-semester course has different content, then it may require a different
set of "assets," and thus, your distribution among teams would be
different. If, however, the content requires the same assets as the
content in the first semester, then the considerations that you mention would
come into play.
If this were the case, and if you see more of less an equal weighting of
pro's and con's, then you could ask the students which option they would
prefer.
Regards
Brent MacLaine
Brent MacLaine, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair
Department of English
University of Prince Edward Island
550 University Avenue
Charlottetown PE Canada
C1A 4P3
Office: 902-566-0955
Fax: 902-566-0363
>>> "Jackson, John Mark" <[log in to unmask]> 20/10/2010 4:41 PM
>>>
I teach a two-semester sequence and all of our students take the same classes
at the same time in one section...so all the same students will be in my class
next semester.
Should I keep the same teams or change teams? I see benefits both ways: same
teams is good because they know and trust each other (assuming it’s a good
team)...changing teams means they have to go through the building again, which
I can see as both good and bad.
John Mark
---------------------------------
John Mark Jackson, OD, MS, FAAO
Southern College of Optometry
(901) 722-3314
Skype: jacksonsco
--
David J. Teachout
Chair, Symposium on Music Teacher
Education (www.smte.us)
Co-PI, UBEATS, NSF-funded BioMusic Formal
Education Project
Chair, Music Education Department
University of North Carolina at
Greensboro
School of Music, Theatre and Dance
P.O. Box 26170
Greensboro, NC 27402
(p) 336-334-4759
(f) 336-334-5497