2013 TBLC Annual Conference:
Wow, You Should Have Been There!

Wayne McCormack, PhD

After a few years with average attendance of about 100 TBL users, the annual meeting of the Team-Based Learning Collaborative has been steadily growing over the past few years, breaking 200 attendees in 2012. This year in San Diego we set a new record with about 250 attendees at our 13th Annual Conference on Team-Based Learning, which was held on February 28 to March 2, 2013. Pre-meeting workshops were sold out and many of our workshops were closed to late registrants because of our increased numbers. We had two days of TBL workshops, posters, oral presentations, a panel discussion, and plenary sessions. The three themes or tracks that ran throughout the program included Fundamentals of TBL, Innovations in TBL, and Research & Scholarship of TBL.

We were so happy to have as our plenary speakers will Stephen Fiore and Larry Michaelsen. Dr. Fiore is the Director of the Cognitive Sciences Laboratory at the University of Central Florida Institute for Simulation & Training and President of the Interdisciplinary Network for Group Research. He discussed the identification and assessment of competencies involved in teamwork, which will provide a useful framework for those of us looking for ways to assess the effectiveness of TBL. Larry Michaelsen, from the University of Central Missouri, once again provided our closing plenary talk with an engaging discussion about best practices for implementing TBL.

We enjoyed 10 oral presentations and about 50 posters presented by our members. A judging panel selected three “Best Posters”, and those abstracts will be featured in upcoming editions of this newsletter. One of our 2012 “best posters” was featured in the inaugural issue of this newsletter, and the other two are featured below. Mary Bee and colleagues reported novel approaches for application exercises that improved student engagement in teaching anatomy. Elizabeth Krajic Kachur described the successful use of TBL for delivering faculty development programs, even if participants are not attending a TBL workshop per se.

Save the dates on your calendar! We’re planning for more workshop opportunities next year to accommodate our growing membership. They say things are bigger in Texas, so we look forward to seeing you in Fort Worth, Texas for our next annual meeting on March 6-8, 2014.

Wayne McCormack
University of Florida
President, TBL

Celebrating a Global Member

Michele C Clark PhD, RN

The College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago (COSTAATT) is one of the largest public tertiary institutions in Trinidad and Tobago. This college offers a variety of programs to meet the unique health care needs of Trinidad and Tobago and has open access to all citizens of this Caribbean country. Students can chose to enroll in programs where they earn awards, certificates, advanced diplomas, associate and bachelor's degrees in a wide range of specialized, technical and academic programs.

Ms. Anjenney Dwarika, Dean at the School of Nursing, Health and Environmental Sciences is committed to students' successful completion of the professional programs in her School. These programs include nursing, health science technologies, environmental studies, and natural and life sciences. Because each program demands academic rigor for completion, Anjenney is exploring new teaching strategies to assist students enrolled in all of her programs. However, educating students from varied backgrounds with different educational strengths and needs is complex and Anjenney understands that it is imperative that she provide the environment and resources to assist students to successfully complete their studies. In line with this commitment to provide the best educational resources for students, Anjenney traveled to the United States to attend the Lilly Conference on College and University Teaching in Michigan. There she sought out teaching strategies to help students in the professional health care programs develop the skills necessary to become excellent practitioners. It was during this conference that the evidence based teaching strategies of team based learning (TBL) were introduced to Dean Dwarika.

The elements of TBL were congruent with Anjenney's commitment to provide the environment and resources for students to become excellent health care professionals. TBL is also compatible with her initiative to "create a learning environment that will produce confident and competent individuals that support key health care policies and initiate change as pioneers in their fields." To assure that students as health care professionals accomplish these long range goals, Anjenney decided to introduce TBL not only to faculty in her School but the entire faculty at College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago (COSTAATT).

In August approximately one hundred and fifty faculty members attended TBL 101 at COSTAATT. Most of the departments at this college were represented at the workshop. More exciting was that after experiencing a class in TBL most faculty members were committed to integrate some aspects of this teaching strategy into their classroom teaching. Faculty expressed enthusiasm in learning an instruction strategy that focused on active learning; specifically helping students apply important course concepts when solving complex problems.

It was through the generosity of Dean Anjenney Dwarika, that faculty members from many departments at COSTAATT were introduced to a new active learning. The Dean planted a seed to help faculty consider using active teaching strategies in their classroom. At the completion of the workshop, faculty members expressed their view that TBL is one strategy that can assist students from a variety of backgrounds to learn critical thinking and problem solving skills; critical to successfully completing their programs.

So, you want to get research output from your TBL Teaching?

Peter Balan, University of South Australia, Australia

Many of us are under pressure to produce research output, whether to gain tenure or for promotion. Because most TBLC members have their own area of expertise, it is likely that we have our own "technical" research projects to keep us occupied, and to meet our performance requirements. It would be great, however, if we could use the energy and thought that we put into teaching to also produce research output.

I'm a novice researcher in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship, and have (collaborative) research projects in those fields. I'm also new to TBL; I started using TBL in my undergraduate entrepreneurship courses in mid-2010, and this has really transformed my classes and my teaching. I enjoy teaching so much more, and I'm getting much better feedback and results from my students. TBL has changed my life!

For some years, I struggled to find ways to get research output from teaching. The papers listed on the TBLC website opened my eyes about TBL-related research. I think people in health education are fortunate to have a good body of literature, such as Haidet et al 2012 "Guidelines for Reporting Team-Based Learning Activities in the Medical and Health Sciences Education Literature". In my own case, I eventually worked out that I could position my work in the field of entrepreneurship education.

My classes are relatively small (35 to 85 students), so I cannot use quantitative surveys, as larger numbers are needed for statistical validity. However, I found interesting research questions in the entrepreneurship education literature that could be addressed using qualitative methods. So, I found a collaborator who introduced me to concept mapping as a practical way to generate interesting and useful results with my class sizes, using qualitative data that I could collect easily using "minute paper" evaluations.

A major practical problem was to get university approval to use student data. My university (like many others) is very sensitive about using students as research subjects, so getting approval from the appropriate levels required detailed documentation as well as a fair amount of persuasion, and took much longer than I expected. I found instructors in the US (through the TBLC Listserv) and in the UK who contributed research data from their classes. This international collaboration helped me get university approval, and has led to comparative research projects.

For me, collaboration is the key. I have found that it is just too hard to produce good work as an individual. Collaborating is more productive, more fun, and I learn more. It is early days, but so far I've published one paper relating to my teaching and to TBL. I've presented posters at two TBLC conferences, I have a couple of refereed papers accepted at entrepreneurship conferences, and these will lead to journal publication. I'm looking forward to the TBLC conference, when I'll give a presentation on some of my research, and I would like to meet people who are interested in collaboration.

In case you missed these

Learn from these top two posters presented at the 2012 TBLC Conference:

Engaging Team-Based Learning (TBL) Activities in the Anatomical Sciences

Mary T. Bee PhD, James Montante PhD, William Forbes DDS, Judith Venuti PhD, Rick Sabina PhD

BACKGROUND: Educating students in the field of anatomy has been a challenge for decades. Bringing a "dead" science to "life" has been problematic for even the greatest of educators. We have examined several different group activities and approaches to teaching anatomy that incorporated a variety of teaching styles and formats designed to keep the learning process engaging, stimulating, and self-motivating.

DESCRIPTION: Developing novel approaches for the group activity portion of the TBL is essential for student engagement. Group activities that I have successfully implemented include: (1) the incorporation of clinically relevant video clips, which students assess and discuss as a group, (2) construction of gastrointestinal organs out of modeling clay, (3) using fabric muscles made of felt to attach to a skeleton which helped reinforce their understanding of muscle attachments, and (4) using yarn to depict the passageway of nerves in the brachial plexus and spinal cord tracts.

RESULTS: The level of student satisfaction increased 24% and the majority of students felt that these activities enhanced their learning with an average of 6.82 out of 7 on the Likert scale. Moreover, grades increased 12% compared to another section of the same class where these techniques were not employed.

CONCLUSION: Engaging teams of students is of great importance for understanding difficult concepts and retention of knowledge in anatomical sciences. The activities presented here provide opportunities for unique student interactions that enhance student learning during TBLs.

Using Team Based Learning (TBL) for Faculty Development - A Model that Works

Elizabeth Krajic Kachur, PhD

BACKGROUND: The Team Based Learning Collaborative is famous for organizing workshops and conferences using the very methods they promote. And, indeed, there is no better way to explore the opportunities and challenges of any educational technique than to experience it oneself. Different from degree-offering programs, the contract between faculty and faculty developer typically does not include preparation requirements. These are important considerations for the readiness assessment. While it is acceptable, maybe even desirable, to demonstrate some lack of knowledge upfront, one has to be careful not to discourage learners, who thus might feel turned off from TBL and one's faculty development program.

DESCRIPTION: Over the past year three half-day faculty development workshops on Current Trends and Future Directions in Medical Education were organized by a guest lecturer for Vienna Medical School (Austria). One of five trends presented was TBL. The other topics were: Core Competencies, Curriculum Integration, Computer-based Learning and Clinical Skills Labs. Before coming to the session participants are asked to review an issue of the journals Medical Education and Medical Teacher and analyze the content. In the first half hour of the workshop additional information is presented to prime learners for the Readiness Assurance Test (RAT), a 5-item multiple choice test using Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique (IF-AT) forms. The application of the RAT followed the typical format of self-test before team-test plus a subsequent discussion of the answers. In the first application exercise participants had to equate the ACGME Core Competency Model with the European Tuning Project Level 1 Learning Outcomes using flip charts and Post-its. In the second application exercise participants had to select one of the 5 key topics and predict what would be "in" and what would be "out" ten years from now. Results were put on flipcharts which were subsequently presented to the large group. Groups were assigned by having participants first line up by level of experience in medical education and then count out the number of groups that the class was divided into.

RESULTS/EVALUATION: Institutional program evaluation forms indicated that participants were highly pleased with the program, although very few had prior experience with TBL. The "demands on participants" were viewed as "just right" by the large majority (i.e., 4 on a 7-point scale). No one felt that they were "too high" (6 o 7) or "too low" (1 or 2). Overall satisfaction ratings typically were between 5 and 6 on a 6-point scale, with 6 standing for "very good."

CONCLUSIONS: TBL can be utilized as a viable method for faculty development even if participants are not attending a TBL workshop per se. While one has to pay attention to the limited preparations one can expect from faculty-level participants, it is possible to utilize all other elements of TBL, from RATs to application exercises.

Add a Little JiTT to your TBL:  Enhancing Individual Student Accountability for Team Application Activities

Rick Goedde, Associate Professor and Director of Management Studies

Department of Economics, St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota

JiTT stands for Just-in-Time Teaching, the concept that students submit answers to instructor-posed questions a few hours before class time using the quiz feature of a course management system (Blackboard, Moodle, etc.) The instructor can quickly look at the answers before class and be better prepared to clarify difficult topics in class, while spending less time on topics that the students understand. As it relates to TBL, questions can be asked of individual students so that they will have done important prep work before contributing to more advanced team application activities (TAA) in class. The instructor will also be better prepared to lead the class discussion after the TAA, having seen the student's JiTT answers before class.

This example combines JiTT and TBL in a management class for a 17-page case study on deciding which of three job candidates to hire for the position of vice-president of sales at a bank. The case includes information of the bank's mission and values, resumes for the three candidates, and transcripts of interviews for the three candidates. Also included are some questions and unedited answers from students.

More Details

This case study is used at the end of a module on human resource management in an undergraduate course on principles of management. The students are assigned readings on human resources, a part of which includes reading on best practices in hiring, and take a RAT at the beginning of the module. Students are expected to read the lengthy case before class, knowing that we will be using voting cards for class discussion after the teams have had a chance to discuss a series of questions projected on the screen one at a time. The JiTT questions provide an incentive for students to think about the important concepts in the case before class so that they are ready to discuss.

Below are some questions and unedited student answers from this case. In addition to these questions, I asked the students other questions that get at higher level thinking - the "whys and what ifs" of the case. By using the quiz feature of Moodle, the students' answers are all lined up in columns and easy to read.

The JiTT answers are graded very leniently, more for completion than correctness, and the grades are posted to Moodle. Students know that failure to submit a JiTT assignment could have a material effect on their final course grade. The students also know that there will be essay questions on the final exam about the key concepts in this case.

Looking at student answers was particularly helpful to me in this example. The vast majority of the 45 students selected Charlotte as their first choice. Students were evenly mixed on their last choice between Jim and Scott. Consequently, instead of asking students in class who their first choice was (using voting cards), I asked for their last choice and got a much better discussion.

An optional addition to this method is to provide an extra blank on Moodle for students to write a question to me to help them better understand this case. I can quickly see areas of student confusion or curiosity and can discuss some of their questions in class.

Sample Student Answers from a Management Case Study on Hiring a Bank Vice-President

Below are five student answers taken from two sections of a management course with 45 students in total. The case study asks students to select the candidate they would hire from three finalists (A=Charlotte, B=Scott, C=Jim) for the position of Vice-President of Sales at a bank. The students are indicating their first choice and then their last choice. They are also giving two pros and two cons for their first choice and explaining their ranking of the candidates.

A B

PRO: 1) Has strong values and integrity 2) Has high level of intelligence mixed with a positive attitude CON: 1) Can get too personally involved 2) Seems to have difficulty energizing others RANKING: She has a high level of intelligence and leadership experience which would allow her to easily adapt to this role. Her level of authenticity and ability to work as a team player means that she had the potential to grow in to and succeed in the management of a team of people. She also has strong values and does not waver when it comes to making the right decision

A C

PRO: 1) Big-picture thinker, long term perspective 2) Principled, well like by her team CON: 1) 5-months pregnant, will need maternity leave 2) Minimal front-line interaction. RANKING: I ranked Charlotte as the number one candidate because she has the perfect balance of intelligence and people skills. The report indicated she was very intelligent with exceptional knowledge of her industry and had experience developing sales programs/strategies. But she was also reported as "well liked and respected by her team." I felt despite her lack of front-line experience, she deserved a shot to prove herself and had a great foundation with which to build upon.

B C

Pro: 1) He was very adamant about being goal oriented and being able to produce results. 2) He was also experienced in many areas including hiring and firing. Con: 1) He was potentially arrogant and may not give due credit to others. 2) He may truly believe that Regional Bank is better than Central. Ranking: 1. I believe that Scott is the best mainly because of his proven ability to produce results. He is a very intelligent individual and others may emulate his productivity and work ethic.

C A

PRO: 1) Exemplifies integrity, teamwork values and selflessness in interview answers 2) History of redesigning, revamping and reorganizing companies and/or projects CON: 1) Criticizes Central Bank, hesitant to leave First Northern Bank 2) Has a family condition that could distract him/take him away from work RANKING: Because Charlotte is out of the picture, due to her pregnancy, between Jim and Scott, Jim seems the most grounded and moderate. Although he is hesitant about working for Central Bank, this means that he will approach it with a critical eye, something essential when conducting a major turnaround for a company.

C B

Pro: 1) Strong Values 2) Focus on efficiency. Con: 1) Less experience than the other candidates 2) Question of commitment and ability to adapt. Ranking: I chose Jim as the top candidate because I thought his values corresponded most closely with the company's mission statement. He cared about efficiency, the importance of a team and leading others, and realized how to translate values into good business practices.

TBL Teaching Tip: How to Handle Extended Team-Projects in TBL Using Wikis

Sarah J. Mahler, Florida International University

Background:

To date, "orthodox" TBL discourages assignments involving team-based projects exceeding a class period because they can undermine the team esprit de corps engendered through the Readiness Assurance Process and in-class content application exercises in teams (the 4 S's). The operating wisdom is that such longer-term projects can provoke team dissention leading to resentments when Type A students do more than their share and Slackers come out of the TBL woodwork. But in "real life" teams typically must work collaboratively on projects that cannot be accomplished in the equivalent of one class period let alone one week. This begs the question, then, of whether or not TBL environments can successfully require student teams to work on projects that involve several weeks' work and yet do not cause the teams to devolve into squabbling "groups." If so, how?

A possible solution is to use Wikis. Very succinctly, wikis are web-based collaboration enhancement multimedia platforms that easily accommodate documents, digital photos, audio and video, etc. with one feature that makes them distinct from other such platforms (e.g., Google docs)- the input from each and every person involved with the wiki is chronicled. This means that wikis capture effort and therefore makes it possible to evaluate projects overall (that is, for the team) as well as by individual. All the work individuals do is chronicled (see illustrations below); students can put in material, comment and edit others' material, even undo edits others have done.

Wikis programs are available for free on the Internet; some learning management systems (LMS) such as Blackboard Learn and Moodle also have wiki capabilities and they have an advantage too - that the instructor does not have to be granted "designer" privileges in order to see student contributions. That is, on commercially available wikis, unless you are granted "designer" (or equivalent) privileges, you can see only the final product but cannot see the "guts" of the wiki, including the "history tab" (or equivalent) where individual contributions are chronicled.

Examples and Information on How to Use Wikis

TYPICAL EXAMPLE: Students are assigned a research paper or report. I am one team member and I draft a section of the report and then ask the other team members to read and edit it accordingly.

What I wrote is logged and date stamped by the wiki as the first version of the wiki.

That peer makes changes and that version of the document is also logged by the wiki, indicating changes to my version typically in another color. This collaborator also adds new information and this is preserved in version two. I can see this version by clicking on the "history" tab view in the wiki.

I visit what my collaborator has done and disagree with some changes. I reverse these changes and these are preserved as version 3. And so on.

All of my and my peers' efforts are easily viewed and can be evaluated and assessed (for students' work) by clicking on the various versions of the wiki.

ACTUAL EXAMPLE One hundred and twenty first-year students divided into 15 teams in this newsletter tip author's TBL global learning class at Florida International University, a course combining history with social sciences, were assigned two historical figures to research, one common to all teams and which served as a practice wiki and one chosen by each team (and thus different from other teams' figures/wikis). Teams were given a rubric for what to investigate and then given a template for what information and analyses to cover in their wiki. Each team developed its own wiki to include written text as well as multimedia information. Students were introduced during a class to wikis and shown how to create, edit and present them. Afterward they were given almost all class time to coordinate their wiki efforts while individuals' wiki work was required in between classes. (Experimenting with giving students class time to do wiki work proved a poor use of class time as students did not attempt to advance their wikis in between classes.) Each team had one student serve as wiki coordinator (all team members had team "jobs" during the semester). The coordinator was the team member most experienced with wikis or related technologies such as knowing how to use digital media (teams were formed to distribute such students across all teams).

One hundred and twenty first-year students divided into 15 teams in this newsletter tip author's TBL global learning class at Florida International University, a course combining history with social sciences, were assigned two historical figures to research, one common to all teams and which served as a practice wiki and one chosen by each team (and thus different from other teams' figures/wikis). Teams were given a rubric for what to investigate and then given a template for what information and analyses to cover in their wiki. Each team developed its own wiki to include written text as well as multimedia information. Students were introduced during a class to wikis and shown how to create, edit and present them. Afterward they were given almost all class time to coordinate their wiki efforts while individuals' wiki work was required in between classes. (Experimenting with giving students class time to do wiki work proved a poor use of class time as students did not attempt to advance their wikis in between classes.) Each team had one student serve as wiki coordinator (all team members had team "jobs" during the semester). The coordinator was the team member most experienced with wikis or related technologies such as knowing how to use digital media (teams were formed to distribute such students across all teams).

In this class, each team developed two wikis each taking 2-3 weeks of class time, one served essentially as a "practice" wiki; the assignment was the same for all teams (historical research on John D. Rockefeller, Sr.). After finishing these wikis, teams viewed and evaluated two other teams' wikis (again—key here is that they all did the same wiki) using a rubric provided by the instructor. This peer review exposure enabled students to see where they could have done better. The second wiki was similar (historical figure research) but each team had to select and research a different figure (teams ranked their choices and were given one).

During the wiki weeks, instructor and TAs would move from team to team during class time to assess team coordination efforts, answer any particular questions and make suggestions. Outside of class, they monitored teams' work by logging into the wikis and making comments and suggestions there. Upon logging in they could also monitor each student team member's contributions and prompt greater participation by slackers.

Assessing Individual Student and Team Effort with Wikis

Individual Effort Assessments

Two measures of individual effort were used (1) instructor evaluation of both quality and quantity of effort as evidenced in the wikis' history tabs themselves and (2) team members' evaluations of the wiki efforts made by every team member excluding themselves. Students knew that they would be individually as well as collectively evaluated, an assessment format utilized to mitigate against slackers. Illustration 1 below shows a screen shot of the history tab of one wiki where the arrow is pointing to one entry by one student. Illustration 2 shows the actual work contributed by that student in this history entry; additions are highlighted in green while deletions are highlighted in red. The combination of counting the frequency of student edits to the wiki in addition to the qualitative information provided by the highlighting makes it quite easy to evaluate ever team member's contributions.

Team Effort Assessments

Each wiki was evaluated by the instructor using a multiple-item rubric.

Outcomes & Recommendations

Outcomes

All teams successfully produced two wikis; the second ones were much improved. Team evaluations of members' participation varied with most reporting some members not doing their fair share. Given that this was a required course full of freshmen, some "slackers" were to be expected, but overall teams functioned very well.

Teams overwhelmingly operated by decided which team member would do what part of the assignment. Slackers created weak sections which were rectified by stronger students—all of which was easily identified in evaluation. Wiki coordinators usually did the most work.

The wiki proved to be an excellent tool for such extended collaborations given that it (1) facilitates collaborative work outside the classroom and (2) documents both individual and team work.

Recommendations:

1. Form teams using wiki knowledge as one of the criteria. If not wiki knowledge, substitute webpage design and/or digital video experience. Each team should thus have at least one person who can lead the wiki effort (wiki coordinator).

2. Unless many students have experience using wikis, spend class time showing them how to use them. If time permits, do a practice wiki before a wiki that will be assessed. Provide examples of wikis for teams to emulate.

3. Using free wiki software can be better than wiki software in LMS programs - at least for Moodle. However, LMS provide instructor access to all wikis (without separate passwords) and controls to hide or reveal wikis from other teams. In short, get help selecting your wiki software.

4. Assignments should have multiple sections each of which is due separately and before the finished wiki. This keeps teams on track

5. Faculty and TAs, if available, should work closely with a set of teams, particularly early on, to ensure that they have a team plan for how to accomplish the project, divide up the work and stay on task. If possible, meet individually with each team after assigning wikis.

For more information on how wikis can enhance web-based collaboration, click on the link below:

50 Ways to Use Wikis for a More Collaborative and Interactive Classroom, Smart Teaching.org