What about giving the participants a choice of three or four application exercises on the same topic and have them choose the most effective exercise/the one
they would use in a course?
Andreas Broscheid
Associate Professor, Political Science
Faculty Associate, Center for Faculty Innovation
James Madison University
From: Team-Based Learning [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Small, Candice B.
Sent: Friday, August 09, 2013 8:42 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Application exercise for faculty development exercise
Hi all,
I’m facilitating a workshop for our faculty on TBL next week. Like many of you have done, I’m setting it up as a TBL session as much as possible. The IRAT/TRAT
part is easy enough. For an application exercise, I would like to give them a case study of a professor considering using TBL, with the groups deciding whether the professor should do so. I think that could lead to some solid discussion about factors to consider
when moving to TBL.
Cribbing from the TBL site’s FAQ, I’ve identified some complicating factors. A rough draft of the case:
Sam just attended Candice’s TBL workshop and is thinking about using it this fall with his Intro to the Major class. He’s taught this class for 2 years in a
mostly lecture format and finds students have not been very engaged and often don’t complete the readings outside of class. His class will have 50 students in a seated auditorium, meeting MWF for 50 minutes each time. He likes experimenting with pedagogy,
but he’s also concerned about fitting all his content in. He also had terrible group work experiences himself as a student and is hesitant to put his students into similar situations. Do you think Sam should try TBL this fall?
/case
Factors to discuss: whether size of class matters; how much prep time do you need to do TBL; can you do this in a MWF schedule; how you can assure students
do the pre-work; how can you fit all of your content in. Are there other common complications I should throw in there? Any feedback is appreciated.
Best,
Candice
Candice Benjes-Small, MLIS
Head, Information Literacy & Outreach
University Coordinator for Information Literacy
McConnell Library, Radford University