Rebecca

I use a variation of TBL in my EE circuits class.  I love the UMass room, great for TBL.  The space I like best right now is u-shaped.  There is no back row.  I walk around in the middle of the U or horseshoe, do a little bit of lecturing, a few minutes at best.  Then students work together on a worksheet.  They also have a before class (BC) assignment to get them ready for the material.  I can't handle more than about 18 students in this configuration.  I have used a space in which fixed chairs were replaced by roll around chairs (bumper cars?).  It can be hard to walk around, but it certainly is versatile.  When I have a class of 35 I end up with a room with four lines of tables.  I push apart the middle tables so that I have easy access to anyone in the room.  In any configuration I always do worksheets and teams to talk to each other.

If you haven't seen it, here is a very nice paper on the value of active learning.

     http://www.pnas.org/content/111/23/8410.full

Tim Healy

Santa Clara U.