Dear TBL Colleagues,
On Jan 8 and 10, 2014, the University at Albany will host the winter iteration of our recurring Academy on Team-Based Learning.  This hands-on, extended workshop supports and guides new adopters of TBL in the design and implementation of a TBL format course, specifically for the Spring 2014 semester.  While the primary audience for this event is UAlbany instructors, in recent years we have kept open a few seats for non-UAlbany guests. The cost is modest, and the cohort (team-based) approach provides faculty participants with an experience analogous to that of their eventual students.

If you are aware of faculty colleagues who are thinking about adopting TBL, and who are looking for a structured opportunity to learn the method, we invite you to share with them this announcement. Participants in the Academy will plan and develop TBL learning sequences, practice writing RAT questions, practice creating team application and critical thinking tasks, develop a TBL syllabus with TBL-compatible policies, learn about TBL course and classroom management, and examine approaches to peer evaluation.

For more information, please see the promotional text below, or visit the application page at
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GuestTBLAcademyJanuary2014.

Bill Roberson, Ph.D.
Institute for Teaching, Learning and Academic Leadership (www.itlal.org<http://www.itlal.org>)
University at Albany, State University of New York

Instructional Leadership Academy: More Rigor and More Fun with Team-Based Learning (Jan 8 and 10, 2014)
As we reflect on the soon-to-end fall semester and think about the future, we are reminded once again of the perennial challenges of university teaching, such as...
*         Getting students to take more responsibility for their own learning
*         Getting students to participate willingly and actively in class, without special rewards or coercion
*         Inducing students to think and communicate at a higher level
*         Ensuring that students prepare for class
*         Getting more buy-in from students, so you're not the only source of energy and enthusiasm in the classroom

If these are the kinds of things you're trying to make happen in your courses this fall, we invite you to participate in the upcoming iteration of ITLAL's Instructional Leadership Academy: More Rigor and More Fun with Team-Based Learning. More than 150 UAlbany faculty members (and as many grad students who teach) now use some form of the Michaelsen TBL strategy. The principle? Design well and then get out of students' way while they figure things out! TBL is currently being used successfully at UAlbany in undergraduate and graduate courses, small and large classes, in areas as disparate as Computer Science, Public Health, Criminal Justice, Political Science, Math, Literature, Public Administration, Social Welfare, Information Literacy, History, Art, Physics, and Philosophy, to name just a few. This Instructional Leadership Academy will take you through the process of transforming a traditional course into a TBL course. More information on TBL can be found at www.teambasedlearning.org<http://www.teambasedlearning.org>.

Academy Dates: January 8 and 10, 9:30am to 3:30pm, including substantial assignments before and between the two dates.
Application Deadline: January 2, 2014. There are a limited number of seats for this Academy.
Submit your application: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GuestTBLAcademyJanuary2014