Happy New Year Everyone!

 

I hope this message finds you well and still at least somewhat optimistic about Spring term.  I am really looking forward to 2012 and I want to kick it off with some exciting news about what the various groups within the TBL Collaborative have been up to.

 

First, an exciting announcement:  I am extremely pleased to announce the appointment of the TBL Collaborative’s first-ever Member-at-Large for K-12 Education, Dr. Martha Haynes!  Martha is currently a project coordinator at Florida State University’s Florida Center for Reading Research.  Martha’s unit and four Texas universities are partnering on a grant called Promoting Adolescents’ Comprehension of Text (PACT), which is a five-year project that includes two years of development followed by three years of experimental studies to evaluate the instruction. Currently in the second year of development work, the PACT project has adapted Team Based Learning (TBL) strategies to extend students’ understanding of course material. A very warm welcome to Martha, who will be at the conference in March. :-)

 

On that positive note, here is a quick rundown of what the TBL Collaborative committees have been up to this year:

 

TBL CONFERENCE PROGRAM– Wayne McCormack, Chair

 

We have assembled another exciting program for the 11th annual TBLC meeting in St. Petersburg, Florida on March 1-3, 2012.  Workshops, oral presentations, and posters will be organized in three tracks, including:

·         “Fundamentals” for those who are new to team-based learning,

·         “Innovations” for TBL users seeking to expand and improve their TBL skills, and

·         “Research and Scholarship” to present methods related to educational research or research studies about TBL. 

Plenary speakers will include Christopher Chabris from Harvard, speaking about collective intelligence, and our own Larry Michaelsen, speaking about stretching the boundaries of TBL. 

If you are coming to the conference don’t forget to book your hotel room before February 2nd to get the Early Bird rate!

 

EDITORIAL BOARD – Ruth Levine, Chair

 

·         We have started the process of peer review of resources for the TBL resource bank (used to be called the “Case bank”).

·         We are actively peer reviewing a number of resources for the bank, and have a hard-working committee of editors working through the resources. 

·         As reminder to everyone:  please keep submitting resources that you want to share—it’s a way to “pay forward” help you have received from others in the Collaborative! :-)

FACUTLY DEVELOPMENT/OUTREACH SUPPORT – Rick Sabina, Chair

 

·         We are working with the Membership Committee to provide a "Faculty Development" column for their planned TBLC Newsletter.  Our first contribution, "TBL with JiTT", has been submitted to that committee for inclusion in their inaugural newsletter.

·         We are compiling and collating TBL training and development resources, which we will review and work with the contributors to refine (if warranted) with the goal of posting these resources on the TBLC website for members to use in their own development or for use in disseminating best practices for TBL.

MEMBERSHIP – Michele Clark, Chair

 

·         We will be launching a TBL newsletter 2 to 4 times a year highlighting some of our committees’ work and what is going on in TBL - our newsletter is going to be short and easy to read and will direct the reader back to the home page.

·         At our annual conference, Jim has offered to do short (60-120 seconds) videos  presented by our members on fun TBL strategies or reasons to use TBL.  We will do a call out to the membership before our conference and give some criteria - the time (60-120 sec) is very short so we might need to tweak that but we want to market the enthusiasm of our membership in the short videos.  It is our idea to rotate these videos on our website.

·         Jim has produced a video to be posted on the home page that introduces the newcomer to all the exciting and helpful areas on available on our home page. Also, there have been three short productions (3-5 minutes) on different TBL strategies one might use in the classroom. Hopefully, those will go up on our website soon.

RESEARCH AND SCHOLARSHIP – Kelly Ottman, Chair

 

·         We have been working closely with the Program committee to organize the Research and Scholarship track at the TBL conference in March, including:

o   a “speed networking” session in which participants will be able to meet many other folks willing to collaborate on future scholarship projects.

o   A collection of research and scholarship workshops for the TBL conference designed to be both mutually-supportive but also stand-alone.

·         We have been working on rubrics in support of a “best scholarship” award we’d like to begin presenting at the conference every year.

·         We will be contributing a column to the Membership Committee’s newsletter.

·         We are working to include more people from around the world on the committee.

TRAIN-THE-TRAINER/CREDENTIALING – Paul Koles, Chair

 

·         We completed of peer review of all candidates for graduation from the TBLC trainer-consultant curriculum.  Seven members of the class of 2010-2011 have met all requirements of six essential competencies, and will be recognized as graduates at the 2012 TBLC meeting. 

·         We developed objectives and content for two pre-conference workshops that will launch training for a new group of trainer-consultants, with anticipated graduation in March, 2013.   Each participant will be matched with a mentor who will support their professional development toward meeting the six essential competencies.

·         We developed a standardized module for training educators in the fundamental principles and practices of team-based learning ("TBL 101"), to be submitted for review by the TBLC board.  This module is intended to prepare educators to implement best practices of TBL in their unique teaching and learning cultures. 

TBLC Website (www.teambasedlearning.org) – Jim Sibley and Julie Hewitt

 

This year saw a significant revamping and reorganization of entire TBLC website, reflecting some of the efforts listed above and many other additions:

·         The Program Committee has assembled another exciting program for the 11th annual TBLC meeting in St. Petersburg, Florida on March 1-3, 2012.  Workshops, oral presentations, and posters will be organized in three tracks, including “Fundamentals” for those who are new to team-based learning, “Innovations” for TBL users seeking to expand and improve their TBL skills, and “Research & Scholarship” to present methods related to educational research or research studies about TBL.  Plenary speakers will include Christopher Chabris from Harvard, speaking about collective intelligence, and our own Larry Michaelsen, speaking about stretching the boundaries of TBL. 

. . .  as you can see, the passionate folks in the Collaborative have been busy broadening and deepening our support to TBL instructors across the board. Thanks to all of them for all their hard work and THANKS TO YOU for caring enough about your students’ learning experience to enrich it with the benefits that we know TBL can bring.

 

2012 is going to be an awesome year—I look forward to seeing many of y’all at the Conference in March!  :-)

 

-M

 

 

Michael Sweet, Ph.D.

Director of Instructional Development, Center for Teaching and Learning

MAI 2206  |  Mail Stop G2100  |  (512) 232-1775  |  http://ctl.utexas.edu