Ronald, Michael and all:

Encouraging results: Has anyone also managed to find a way to use TBL in Distance Ed with asynchronous... i.e. students not all there at the same hour... learning? In my experience, most distance students do not wish to "be there" all at the same time.. and, is a main reason they take distance courses.

In my hybrid course, which is also "live" on Adobe Connect, in the on-campus classroom (with in-residence students being present), typically only 3-4 of the 30-35 distance students (10% or so) choose to also "be there" at the designated hour (clearly preferring to tune-in to the Adobe Connect recording and Podcast recording, plus posted pdf file of the ppt, at a later time).

Anyone managing to do TBL with the asynchronous learner/environment? Seems it could be done.. just let the Teams choose their own meeting time... or, even do it over several meeting times, like on an asynchronous discussion board (which we have tried with success, to make a discussion board work for class sizes over 40.. the teams posting the essence of their team discussions to the larger board). I see problems with RATs, though... the tRAT in particular... if done over time (the open book problem... but, then, does it matter, as long as they find the answer??).

Any experiences here?

Thanks.

Gary D. Lynne, Professor
Department of Agricultural Economics and
School of Natural Resources
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"Michael J. Welker" ---04/11/2012 02:03:19 PM---Ronald, I too have utilized Elluminate for a synchronous TBL setup.

From: "Michael J. Welker" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: 04/11/2012 02:03 PM
Subject: Re: TBL for fully online, synchronous course
Sent by: Team-Based Learning <[log in to unmask]>

Ronald,
I too have utilized Elluminate for a synchronous TBL setup.

I have attempted Team quizzes in 2 ways -
1- eliminate them and just do the individual round before class via Blackboard.
2- Have a narrow window for the individual round (~1 hour - 30 mins before live class start) in Blackboard and then send teams into their breakout rooms for the team round. I would setup a powerpoint slide with the quiz questions and instruct the teams to use the whiteboard to highlight the team answer. When a team completed a quiz slide they raise their hands and I come check their work. If all correct, I advance them to the next set of quiz qs.

Approach #1 I feel worked but took away the Team RAT bonding process slowing team cohesiveness.

Approach #2 while a bit kludgey, I feel truly helped the team formation and functioning curve tremendously. Obviously massive "open book" security issues but not insurmountable depending on the quiz Qs.

Otherwise, the midterm "dry run" teammate evals tended to be an excellent catalyst for improving teammate satisfaction and engagement for the 2nd half.

Likewise, another trick that seemed to improve team functioning was having up a simple team members spreadsheet in a separate window during the live class and using it to record "tallies" for each time a separate team member speaks for explaining team answers in Application exercises. Particularly when I used this to "cold call" quiet team members.

One other promising practice has been creating team-based role plays on the asynchronous discussion boards for chapter/unit capstones. An example: I assigned teams different allegiences as party newspaper editors in the Election of 1828. Each individual had to publish a slanted (but research supported) op ed on why they should vote FOR their man (Andrew Jackson or John Q. Adams) and why they should vote AGAINST the opponent. One team I assigned as the "electorate of 1828" who got to respond to the opening op eds with "letters to the editor" questioning the arguments. the editors got to respond either to the voters or the opposition for their 2nd round. the Electorate team got a 2nd round where they had to cast written ballots explaining who they were voting for and why. Anytime I have done any role play like this, it has greatly enhanced and speed up team functioning. (even got to where each side was trying to outdo each other sneaking "campaign ads" onto the Whiteboard screens during the whole class session).

Glad to hear of your successes!! Keep at it :)

Best,
Mike Welker

Mike Welker
Distance Learning Coordinator
& History/Humanities Adjunct Faculty
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On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 7:17 PM, Ronald Giachetti <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi,

I have interesting, but not necessarily scientific findings that show TBL can be translated to a fully online, synchronous course. When first arriving to NPS, I was asked to teach the introductory Systems Engineering course as a distance-learning course to support Navy commands around the country. All the materials were available, highly organized, and of high quality. The technology we use is Eluminate and Sakai. The course met once a week for three hours for 10 weeks. I resorted to a traditional approach of teaching the course via me mostly lecturing and presenting the material. If lectures are poor in person, imagine online via the computer :( I realized this and made changes during the semester, but essentially stuck to the lecture format. At NPS, all students are required to complete a course survey, and the results this first quarter were so-so.

I had to teach the same course the next quarter, and this time I reorganized it according to TBL. In an online environment, this takes some adaptation. Here's what I did:

1. Instead of iRATs/TRATs, I made a multiple choice quiz that followed the lesson for that module via the website on Sakai. I gave each student 2 tries at the quiz with a due date before the class session. The students got immediate feedback on the quiz after their first attempt.

2. Students were organized into teams. I would lecture and discuss the material for 30-60 minutes. Then in Eluminate we can create break-out rooms, such that each team has their own room. The students were given a task, and they would work as a team on the task. I could virtually "drop in" on each room, see what they were doing and give some direction/feedback. Then after the time limit, we could all go back to the main room for the debriefing.

3. Student teams were asked to write up the final team exercises and submit. The write-up requirements were not very demanding, but I needed some document for records and assigning grades. I would say about 70% of the teamwork was completed during our Eluminate classes.

In this second offering of the course using TBL, the student evaluations increased significantly (from 3.8 to 4.5/5). The written comments, were largely in favor of the approach. They like the quizzes and found it useful because of the immediate feedback and ability to retake the quiz. They also thought the team assignments were useful. Although, one student noted that "some team members didn't particpate as high". I think an "in person" team limits social loafing, but a "virtual team" still enables some to not participate/contribute as fully (e.g., checking email, facebook, etc. during the team exercise since nobody can see what they're doing).

We are very standardized at NPS, so the assignments in the offerings are more or less the same, and the two cohorts had the same grade distribution. So the TBL section didn't learn anything less than the first.

The technology has limitations, and I'm interested in anyone else's experience with distance-learning and TBL. Teams via Eluminate are less efficient, so it takes more time than what is necessary in a classroom. Also, I cannot figure out how to have "team quizzes" in an efficient manner.

I'm very happy with the results. I say the improvements, while statistically significant, are not scientific because other reasons can be attributed to the improvement such as my second time teaching the course, ...

Ronald Giachetti
Professor
Systems Engineering
Naval Postgraduate School
Monterey, CA 93943
http://web.eng.fiu.edu/ronald/
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