Hi Ron, What you've described is almost a replica of what I'm currently doing in my 3rd year of TBL in a 1st year course for ~150 students. The semester is 12 wks and I do 6 wks with TBL and another 6 wks without. We have single day timetabling and 3-hr lecture blocks (part of the reason I needed something different to lectures) and I had excellent results last year, achieving an award for excellence in teaching. In the rest of the course I start out lecturing and giving background to the course in the first couple of weeks, then have the first TBL (actually on learning theory), a week with lectures but with the final hour doing application questions in the TBL teams, and then 5 consecutive weeks of TBL. I only do 2hr of TBL as the first year I found 3hr was too long) and in the other hour I either have a guest lecturer or give a lecture myself. The TBL session includes a traditional use of I-RAT, T-RAT, mini-lecture if necessary and application exercises. I do find that after 2hr of TBL in the third hour even with a lecture the students are far more interactive than they were pre-TBL. In the other weeks I have mostly guest lecturers that come in who are experts in their areas eg. the person responsible for animal welfare legislation in our State. There seem to be big social benefits to the students doing TBL when they are part of a large class- one student in feedback last year said 'Now I have friends.' They also like tracking how they are doing with their class mates through the I-RAT as they are mostly new to the university system. A strong theme in feedback was also reinforcing or learning concepts from their peers. Susan Susan Hazel BVSc BSc(Vet) PhD GradCert (Public Health) MACVSc Lecturer in Animal Behaviour, Welfare and Ethics School of Animal & Veterinary Sciences THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE Roseworthy SA 5371 Australia Ph : +61 8 8313 7828 Fax : +61 8 8313 7972 e-mail: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> CRICOS Provider Number 00123M ----------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT: This message may contain confidential or legally privileged information. If you think it was sent to you by mistake, please delete all copies and advise the sender. For the purposes of the SPAM Act 2003, this email is authorised by The University of Adelaide. Think green: read on the screen. From: Team-Based Learning [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carson, Ron Sent: Friday, 17 August 2012 12:46 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: If not Doing iRats, What? I completed last semester's Older Adult course with good results. The way my class was set up, I had 7 weeks of TBL and 6 weeks of traditional lecture, practicals, etc. For the coming semester, I have 13 weeks of TBL class. So, given that only 6 or 7 iRats are recommended, what do you do on the weeks when no iRATS are scheduled? Or, is it OK to do iRATS every week? Thanks, -- Ron Carson MHS, OT Assistant Professor Adventist Univeristy of Health Sciences<http://www.adu.edu/> 671 Winyah Drive Orlando, FL 32803 407.303.9182 (office) 407.303.7820 (fax) [Description: sig]