Hi Lark,
I can think of two things that might help….although the recommendations thus far seem reasonable.
1) Consider giving honors to the best team (even if it does not translate into an actual real grade)…this is likely to create a health level of friendly competition…perhaps treat the best tea to ice cream?
2) Consider providing not a single ‘North Star’ but a list of learning objectives that are very specific to the session at the end of the AE itself. These can be in the form of important and specific learning peals….instead of you creating them, ask the teams to create them and then you can put them together into one file and distribute them at the end of the session. Have them spend ten min or so and go through each question in the AE and identify no more than 2 important take home messages.
Just a note about grading the AE. I certainly understand your hesitation to grade what you refer to as a formative activity, but do remember that if students spend a considerable amount of time on an AE, providing them with some marks (simply due to the time they spent) certainly sends a message on the value you place on their time and effort. You may wish to reconsider grading this even if it is a low total percentage of their final marks.
Good luck!
Charles Gullo
Singapore
From: Team-Based Learning [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dee Fink
Sent: Friday, 14 June, 2013 6:01 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Gold star incentives for immediate feedback on application exercises
Lark,
I will let others chime in, as they have already started doing, on the implications of your Gold Star idea for group dynamics.
But I would like to address what you mention as your "Worst Fear": That everyone will get up and leave [I think you mean, after the tRAT]. I would not rely on the Gold Star system to resolve that challenge.
My sense is that you need a good "Big Purpose" for your course. This is a course design issue. You need something that you present - or better yet, that the class develops with your guidance, during the first week of class, that convinces all of them that there is something really valuable that they can learn in this course if they work and learn thoroughly during all five modules.
This Big Purpose should be a single sentence or statement that serves as a "North Star" for all the course activities. In a course on nutrition for allied health majors, that Big Purpose might be something along the lines of:
"Students who complete this course will be able to identify the implications of nutrition for professionals in all the health professions."
Then of course, you want to offer an example or two during that first week of what "identifying the implications of nutrition" might mean.
But if you do this, then your students will already know why they should NOT get up and leave - and your worst fears will be unrealized! :-)
Dee Fink
On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 12:51 PM, Lark Claassen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I am putting together my first TBL course, which will be a hybrid course. It will serve 50-80 students. The course is a sophomore-level nutrition course designed for allied health majors, with the biggest population at our campus being pre-nursing majors.
I have the content broken down into five 1-3 week modules to be delivered over 15 weeks with 13 actual F2F class meetings.
I plan to give an online iRAT followed by an in-class tRAT. Then for the remainder of the 75 minute in-class session do application exercises. Students will be held accountable for pre-class preparation by their iRAT's and by team peer reviews (using the CATME program) done at mid-semester and at the end. So students have the opportunity to get feedback they can use to improve, I was thinking of weighting their two peer evaluations as 25% for their first peer review factor and 75% for their final peer review. These scores will be used to come up with a multiplication factor I apply to their tRAT scores to come up with a number that represents 15% of their final grade.
Students will have 3 exams and a final plus some individual projects.
In this scheme I've got a lot going on, but no room for team accountability for the application exercises. I'm hesitant to award points for their performance on the activities because I don't want to penalize them for what should be a formative process. And I don't want to grade on participation because that is what their peer evaluations are for. So how do I get them to care about the quality of their work after the tRAT is over? My worst fears? They will all get up and leave after it's over!
One thought I had was to use the weekly grid I had planned to put in their team folders to record their team members attendance and their tRAT scores. What I would do is give them a sheet of gold stars- about 1.5 times more stars than we have class meetings- and have them at the end of each session consider who should get the gold star for the day for their pre-class preparation and in-class contributions. I will tell students two things: 1) the gold stars will serve as a record of how their team members are doing which will be helpful when they sit down to do their peer evaluations, 2) the gold stars will be considered when awarding letter grades if a student is "on the border".
Can anyone see any problems this might create in the social dynamics of the team? Do I need to worry about them caring about the quality of their work once the tRAT's end or can I count on the four S's to make this a non-issue?
--
Lark A. Claassen, Ph.D.
Lecturer
Department of Biological Sciences
University of Maryland Baltimore County
1000 Hilltop Circle
Baltimore, MD 21250
--
***********************
L. Dee Fink
234 Foreman Ave.
Norman, OK 73069
Phone/FAX: 405-364-6464
Email: [log in to unmask]
Websites:
www.designlearning.org [multiple resources on course design]
www.deefinkandassociates.com [offer workshops & online courses]
www.finkconsulting.info [Fink's consulting activities & publications]
**Former President of the POD Network in Higher Education (2004-2005)
**Author of: Creating Significant Learning Experiences (2003, Jossey-Bass)
**National Project Director: Teaching & Curriculum Improvement (TCI) Project
**Senior Associate, Dee Fink & Associates Consulting Services