Team-Based Learning (TBL) Faculty Development Open Educational Resource (OER)

This module explores in more depth the four essential elements of TBL:

1. Properly formed and managed teams;
2. Individual student and team accountability;
3. Frequent and immediate feedback; and
4. Application activities that promote both learning and team development.

Before doing the iRAT please make sure to:

Read Larry Michaelsen's article “The Essential Elements of Team-Based Learning,”

(CC 3.0) Jacobs School of Engineering, UC San Diego

Complete the following reflection exercise:

Having permanent teams consisting of five to seven team members (depending on the size of the course) allows students to learn how to work with and interact with each other, as well as to become accountable to one another. It is important to make sure that there is an equal distribution of assets, which can vary depending on the course. Such assets include full-time work experience, previous relevant coursework, perspectives to other cultures, age, gender, major, negative attitude toward course, limited fluency in English, etc.

Select one of your courses.

Which assets are important to team contribution?

Rank order them.

Which are most important to your specific course? What about your other courses?

If possible, engage in a discussion with colleagues regarding these reflection prompts.

View the Larry Michaelsen video describing how he forms teams in his courses:

Typically, once you have all the students lined up in the front of the class (i.e., they have each walked up to the next spot on the line if a particular prompt applied to them – e.g., as in the video, “hard science” students lining up next), they count off to form the groups. For example, depending on the size of class, if there will be five teams, then they start counting off from the beginning of the line: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, etc. Then all the 1’s constitute Team 1, the 2’s are Team 2, etc. The students then sit in teams from that moment forward.

Complete the following application exercise:

• You are helping your friend brainstorm the implementation of TBL in their Introduction to Sociology course. The course is most students’ first exposure to Sociology as “the study of our behavior as social beings.” It averages about 45 students, with a rough majority being undeclared first- and second-year students, and the rest being third and fourth years of all different majors taking the course to satisfy a graduation requirement, with an increasing number of returning students (older than the traditional 18–22-year-olds).
• The course is organized into five units with the following topics:
  • Unit 1: Imagining Society: The Structuralist Approach (human nature is to cooperate); The Critical Approach (human nature is to compete)
  • Unit 2: The Basics: Culture, Socialization and Social Structure; Groups and organizations; Deviance
  • Unit 3: Socially Structured Inequality:  Economic Stratification; Racial/Ethnic Inequality; Gender Inequality; Age Stratification
  • Unit 4: Continuity and Change I: The Family; Education as Cultural Reproduction; the Function of Religion
  • Unit 5: Continuity and Change II:  Political Economy; Health and Health Care; Community and Population; Social Change 
• Given the content of the course and its expected students, choose the BEST order of the following factors by which to line up students when making your teams:
  1. Major
  2. Age
  3. Gender
  4. Where they grew up
  5. Anxiety of discussing course material
  6. Year in school
  7. # of credit hours currently enrolled in

Rank order these factors. Which are the top three factors to distribute among teams?

If possible, conduct this application exercise with a group of colleagues, divided into at least two teams. Engage in both intra- and inter-team discussions. Note that application exercises may have one correct answer or several possible answers. The point is for teams to explain their answers and provide support for their specific choices. For this exercise, there is no one right answer. Have fun discussing the possibilities and why a specific ranking was chosen!

Explore the form created by Jim Sibley, entitled, TBL 101 Group Work Beliefs, that has been used during TBL faculty development workshops to create teams of faculty.

• Sibley, Jim. "TBL 101 Group Work Beliefs (word)" Adapted from questionnaire created by Larry Michaelsen.

Reflect: What did you like best about the form? What did you like least? Would you use a survey to assess a variable that you want to distribute across teams? Why or why not? If you plan to use such a form (modified to your own course needs), what would it look like? How would it relate to the factors you identified already?

If possible, engage in a discussion with colleagues regarding these reflection prompts.

Explore the following procedure which was used in the past to create teams during a Brooklyn College TBL faculty development workshop.

At the beginning of the workshop the participants were shown a PowerPoint slide with the following prompts presented one at a time in order: