Students who have done well in traditional classrooms, tend to have a hard time 
transitioning to TBL. When I first introduced TBL I started with only doing the 
challenge problems the first semester. Then I introduced team grading the second 
semester. The next year I introduced the iRAT/tRAT. This gradual approach 
allowed me to try out and tweak my approach. I also graded very leniently the 
first year. Once you get a feel for the process you can adapt it to your 
specific needs. 


Some adaptations I use are to provide students with a detailed outline that is 
partially filled in with the RAT info, then students fill in the additional 
details throughout the unit. This way they can clearly see exactly how much 
information they learned. I personally give them a unit test, but whether you do 
this is your prerogative.

Additionally I prepped my administrators with what I was doing and why before I 
implimented any component of TBL. I also front load my course with a short TBL 
unit (just a small snippet of the curriculum), so that students can see what the 
whole process looks like.

Scott 



________________________________
From: Nancy Sohler <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wed, January 26, 2011 2:47:50 PM
Subject: Course evaluations


I just got my course evaluations from my first shot at TBL in an epidemiology 
course for undergraduate medical students.  

 
Almost all of the students asked for more lectures and more explanations of the 
reading material.  I am looking forward to going to the TBL conference soon, but 
have others been rated harshly because of so much reliance on self-learning 
techniques?