The answer to your question is not a simple one. If you want teams (and once you have them, you have a very real asset to help you in your attempts to promote learning), you have to do things in a way that will promote team development. You can choose how you form the groups and what you ask them to do but, you can't choose the outcome--that simply what happens as a natural consequence of your choices.
If you follow ALL of the TBL prescriptions (see the course scorecard at <www.teambasedlearning.org>.), your groups will develop into teams pretty quickly and are very likely to be motivated to achieve the learning outcomes you set for them. If you decide against following all of the components of TBL (depending on which ones you decide to ignore) the process will be longer and, some groups will never become teams. Further, if you decide to only use some of the elements of TBL what you decide to leave out will make a big difference in the outcome. For example, if you decide to assign groups to create a lengthy document very few, if any, will ever become teams because the only thing they will really even partially together is to decide how to divide up the individual parts of the work.
In my opinion, if you only want to do one aspect of TBL, the most beneficial and the only safe element would be to use "4-S" group assignments (Significant problem, Same problem for all groups, requiring groups to make a Specific choice that assesses students' ability to USE course concepts, Simultaneous reporting of groups' choices). Using "4-S" assignments is both very low risk and will produce positive outcomes in any setting in which you use groups.
The most important factor in whether or not to use RATs is WHAT YOU DO WHEN YOU ARE NOT DOING THE RATS. I'd strongly caution AGAINST simply using a series of quizzes (even if you call them RATs, give them to teams as well a individuals and use IF-AT forms for the teams) if each one is followed by either lectures or another quiz. The most common reason that students get really angry at what the teacher thinks is TBL (but really isn't) is that he or she gives a whole lot of quizzes (that might even be called RATs) that follow one after another. In doing TBL, you are making sort of an implicit agreement with you students. You do your part (prepare for class) and I'll do mine (reward you by doing something meaningful in class that will promote deeper understanding of WHY the material is important or HOW it can be used to accomplish something worthwhile). If you don't deliver on your end, experience for students is studying for a quiz, only to be "rewarded" by more studying of terms that are only useful because they help with preparation for, yes, another quiz or a mid-term or final test all of which are over a whole bunch of meaningless terms.
Ironically, giving too many individual & team quizzes with no applications (they wouldn’t be RATs unless you follow them with applications), is a really powerful way to build highly motivated teams. Unfortunately, it isn’t the kind of motivation you want. Instead of promoting learning, the teams are highly to find a way to stop the professor from giving, yes, more quizzes.
I hope this helps.
Larry
Hello,
I am new to TBL but intrigued by the approach and I plan to adopt it in one of my courses(upper level Ecosystems Ecology course) to start with. However,for my lower level ecology course I was considering using the IF-At scratch forms only as a way to hold students accountable for the readings. So my questions are:
Does anybody in the group have experiences with just using the forms without switching the entire course over to TBL? Is it effective when asking students to complete the forms outside the class and hand them in at the beginning of the class? Any thoughts or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
I was also wondering whether there are any ecologists that already use the TBL approach? It would be great for me to get in touch and exchange experiences. Please contact me at [log in to unmask].
Finally I am right now on sabbatical in the NY city area and I was wondering whether there are any TBL users nearby (in any discipline), which would be willing to let me observe their classes. If so please let me know at [log in to unmask]
Thanks for your help and feedback
Renate Gebauer
Environmental Studies
Keene State College
Keene, NH 03435