UBC Mailing Lists 17.0 - TEAMLEARNING-L Archives

We routinely use TBL in classes of 180-200

ALL our classrooms are tiered lecture theatres with fixed seat

TBL works fine…..

We were nervous at the beginning of using TBL 11 years ago that classes larger then our normal 120 student classrooms….we worried it would lead to lower energy, and poorer discussion…..It has not been my instructors experience

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A few things to consider for large classes

Use team folders and have team send a representative to the front to collect then and drop them off….frees up the teacher to remain engaged and observant and not running back and forth

Have teams turn over their IF-ATs when they are not scratching….as it is easy to see group in front of you in tiered lecture hall

We often will divide class into 4 quadrants. A, B,C, D and then have teams A1-A10, B1-B10….etc…..this way when we facilitate we move quadrant to quadrant to ensure we don't get stuck in the corner of the class

In many of the engineering classes…we often have hot seat activities where the team with the lowest estimated cost is on the hotseat and other teams try to find fault in their design

We have bonus mark for surviving the hotseat with the lowest cost viable design…we also use bonus mark if the lowest cost design comes from your quadrant…this way is your design was over-priced this gives you incentive to re-enter conversation to defend another team in your quadrant

Our classrooms are packed…with every seat filled….which makes some teams in the middle inaccessible to instructor…not ideal…but we have not found this to be a problem…we still circulate up and down aisles listening

Manpower with 200 students…usually we do with 1 instructor and 1 TA…but would be doable by just 1 person

One thing to consider is that every voice will not get heard….maybe most positions and rationale will be heard…but I worry that not everyone is heard….

Make sure there is a strong CLOSE to the session….summarizing key points and using some words of encouragement to help with students sense of achievement…reward them for their effort and thinking

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My two cents :-)

jim

Jim Sibley

Director
Centre for Instructional Support
Faculty of Applied Science
University of British Columbia
2205-6250 Applied Science Lane
Vancouver, BC Canada
V6T 1Z4

Phone 604.822.9241
Fax 604.822.7006

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Check out www.teambasedlearning.org

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From: Dee Fink <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Dee Fink <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, March 13, 2014 2:19 PM
To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Largest TBL Classes?

To Bill & Others,

A very good resource of ideas on how to handle very large classes [>100] with TBL, is Larry Michaelsen's chapter on "Team-Based Learning in Large Classes" in his original book (2004), Chapter 11.

Here he identifies several of the challenges of very large classes - and provides his analysis and possible responses to each.

I am reasonably sure he would NOT recommend using the clickers for the report-out. In this chapter, he gives examples where the professor handled the report-out task by distributing to each group, at the beginning of class, a few sheets of legal size paper (you could use something larger, if need be) and large felt-tip markers. The teams wrote their response on the large paper and, at the signal, all held them up simultaneously.
The advantage of this over the clickers, is that all the students and the teacher can immediately see who answered which way - and then direct their questions to the right group(s) accordingly. Leads to much better discussions.

Dee

On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 1:35 PM, Bradetich, Judith <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I'm currently teaching a class of 100, using clickers and TBL. Clickers are great for asking general questions and looking at immediate responses to prompts, but I find using them very frustrating for having a discussion, as I can't tell which team voted which way. Clickers are great for opinion surveys, lousy for in-depth discussion - unless someone knows a way to identify who voted which way...

Judi Bradetich, M.S., M.M.
Lecturer, Development and Family Studies
Dept. of Educational Psychology
University of North Texas
________________________________________
From: Team-Based Learning [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Bill Goffe [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 12:06 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Largest TBL Classes?

I'm giving a presentation about TBL to our STEM group in a few weeks. I'll
likely use the presentation package that Jim Sibley put together (thanks!) but
there is an obvious question that will likely come up that I don't know
the answer to. What is the largest size class one can use TBL in, assuming
you have a sufficient number of people in the classroom to help run it?
Class sizes of ~350 are common here and one classroom seats up to 700.

On "a sufficient number of people in the classroom to help," our STEM
group has an active "Learning Assistant" program where undergrads assist
with Peer Instruction and similar tasks. In some 500 student classes there
are 30 learning assistants. The semester before they go into the classroom
they go through a 1.5 hour course. It is modeled after the LA program at
the University of Colorado at Boulder.

On large class TBL I'm thinking that teams could report out with clickers.
Perhaps the most important aspect is the ability for LAs and the
instructor to be able talk to teams during class. Thus, every third row
might be vacated to ease access. But, that's more a guess than something
based on experience. Also, I'm thinking that in such a large class it
might be difficult to get a sufficient number of students to explain their
team's thinking.

Thoughts? Experiences?

- Bill

--
Bill Goffe
Senior Lecturer
Department of Economics
Penn State University
304 Kern Building
University Park, PA 16802
814-867-3299
[log in to unmask]
http://cook.rfe.org/

***********************
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)
**Senior Associate, Dee Fink & Associates Consulting Services