Hello,

 

Most teams do sort themselves out well enough, though occasionally there are suboptimally functioning teams.  Formative peer evaluation may help this process and articulating the reasons for it carefully and giving the scores sufficient weight may underpin its importance.  If you include the peer evaluation component, I wonder if moving it up earlier in the course would be helpful – mine is typically midway through, with the summative peer evaluation at the end of the course.

 

Having a requirement that individuals need to have a certain mean score on their iRAT’s to access the tRAT helps motivate good class preparation.    I do not change teams partway through a course.

 

Good luck!

 

Liz Winter, Ph.D., LSW

Academic Coordinator and Clinical Assistant Professor

Child Welfare Education for Leadership Program

School of Social Work

University of Pittsburgh

 

2327 Cathedral of Learning

Pittsburgh, PA 15260

Phone: 412-648-2371

Fax:     412-624-1159

 

 

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From: Team-Based Learning [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Michelle Walks
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2017 1:17 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Restructuring teams mid-way when social loafers dominate a team

 

Hello Kathryn!

After doing TBL for a few years (5 I think), I have found that what works best in my classroom is switching teams up half way through the term. On one occasion I realized too late that there was a toxic group (2 people accusing each other of verbal abuse that blew up right before class one day in week 10), and also noticing other teams falling into "we know who will do the work, so we don't need to, regardless of how it looks on peer evaluations". Switching teams up has been beneficial in breaking up cliques (clicks) that form, and also disrupts student apathy. I know this midterm team switch up goes against the typical practice, but I have found it helps the effectiveness of the learning.

Good luck!

-Michelle

 

On Tue, Jan 3, 2017 at 10:08 AM, Kathryn McKnight <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Dear Colleagues,

 

I have been using TBL for 10+ years and love it.

 

This past fall for the first time, I ended up with one team that had two brilliant, dedicated students and four non-readers, three of whom barely spoke in class. That was a first for me. The class is an advanced UG course in Spanish American literature that fulfills a requirement for the major. I considered reshuffling teams, but after checking in with the two really dedicated students I felt they were willing to take on the challenge. They ended up learning and growing tremendously and they didn’t resent the team, although they did express some discontent in their team evaluations. Still, they could have had a much richer learning experience had I reshuffled. I met with the other fours students to try to motivate them, but it never took hold. Two didn’t have the skills to read well; two didn’t have the priorities.

 

I feel I got lucky that the two dedicated students were such good sports. But, thinking about it for next time…. Is there ever a time you have decided to reshuffle teams after the first week or two because the random/diversity-distribution team-formation process just didn’t turn out well? And, relatedly, are there questions you have found you can ask in the team-creating process that get at characteristics related to social-loafing tendencies without straight-out asking for students’ past grades or study habits?

 

Thanks!

Kathy

 

Kathryn McKnight

Associate Professor

Department of Spanish and Portuguese

MSC 03 2100

1 University of New Mexico

Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001

Department: (505) 277-5907

http://spanport.unm.edu/about/people/kathryn-mcknight.html

 

 

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