CEIT 25 March 2011

TBL involves a highly structured sequence of activities
that requires active participation both by the
individual members of a team and by the team itself.
 Students receive the TBL class materials in advance to
allow study time in preparation for a quiz.
 IRAT (Individual Readiness Assessment Test): Each student
takes a multiple-choice quiz on the material.
 GRAT (Group Readiness Assessment Test): Students retake
the quiz as a group (6-8 students per group).
 GAE (Group Application Exercise): A more complex set of
questions that requires students to apply what they have
learned.

Lectures are not the best way for people to learn
 Focus time limited to about 12-15 minutes
 Only about 20-40% of a lectures’ content captured in
notes

Alternatives involve forms of active learning
 Problem-based learning
 Peer teaching
 Immediate feedback
 Team-based learning

Lectures
 economical and efficient
 as effective as other methods of
teaching for information
transmission and explaining

TBL
 better for interactions that assist
the learner’s cognitive, problemsolving abilities
 promotes self-motivation and a
sense of responsibility for learning
that carries over into adulthood
 promote long-term effects such as
improving communication and
teamwork
Why & when
Before TBL activity
 Assign students to groups
 Prepare students with tutorial and TBL handout
 Students know the activity is graded
 Class day
 Hand out envelopes with exams, answer sheets, etc.
 Students take IRAT individually; answers on bubble sheets & turn in
 Students sign group sign-in sheet and take same test again as a group (GRAT);
group answers on single bubble sheet
 Group presentation of GRAT answers & discussion; turn in
 Students take GAE; answers on IFAT form; turn in remaining materials
 Discussion
 Blackboard survey posted after exam; response due within 1 week.


1 large and 3 smaller envelopes (each labeled
with group number & contents)
IRAT & GRAT
GAE
Immediate feedback is
superior to delayed
feedback for learning
 Students learn while
taking the exam; they
eventually get the right
answer!
 The last response given
by students on a test
item is what they learn

http://www.epsteineducation.com

The first thing that comes to mind is that working with my
classmates was very useful; I feel like what I learned was
adequately reinforced through conversation with my group.
Thinking a little more on it, I kind of liked the responsibility of
having to review and learn the material somewhat on my own at
first...the presence of a test really made me feel responsible for
the material and the importance of it being worth a grade
enforced my enthusiasm in retaining what I gained from the
readings.

The group application part of the TBL was very useful, and fun! It
was nice to try and put everything together and work with other
students to figure out the solutions to those 3 group application
questions. I also really didn't mind teaching the information to
myself, especially since you provided a tutorial.
Strongly
agree
27
Agree
Discussing the answers to the quiz
questions with my group helped
me to understand the material
better.
We should use TBL to replace
more lectures this semester.
1. I was able to learn and
understand the overview of the
nervous system using the TBL
method.
The quiz was:
Disagree
55
Neither agree nor
disagree
4
Strongly disagree
42
30
11
3
1
16
29
21
15
6
Way too easy
Easy
Difficult
Way too difficult
1
15
Neither easy nor
difficult
56
1
15
What were the most useful aspects of this TBL activity? (85 responses)
Being able to discuss the questions with a group helped to clarify any slight misunderstandings, and also
allowed us to maybe determine slightly different ways of seeing the answers - I think this is ultimately
more valuable for learning than a traditional teaching style.
Group Learning
Tutorial
67
13
I enjoyed discussing the answers and coming to a consensus with members of y group. It was helpful to
hear how others approach solving a problem and how they analyze an exam question. It pointed out a
few errors in my own test taking skills, i hope to be a better test-taker in the future because of this
experience.
The most useful aspect of this TBL activity was the tutorial posted because it outlined what the
important points of the topic. If I read the chapter by itself and in its entirety, I would not have absorbed
and understood the material as well. I really liked the tutorial.
It forced you to really sit down and learn the material instead of putting it off.
… seeing what a test would be like before actually taking a test that counts for a big grade.
Testing
13
… the quiz was an incentive for me to actually study the material in depth and understand it more fully
prior to the class.
The fact that we had to learn the information on our own, but then apply it to understand the last 3
questions helped to ensure that we understood the concepts.
GAE
7
Focus
2
Multiple approaches
2
Feedback
1
The last part of the activity with the application questions and the immediate feedback answer sheet
were very useful and interesting as was the information packet we read before doing the activity.
What were the least useful aspects of this TBL activity? (80 responses)
None, i thought it was a great learning experience
I feel that all components of the exercise were relevant, and useful.
I really would have preferred to have been taught the material considering that if I wanted to teach myself that
stuff I would have just read a book to begin with instead of taking a class on it.
Easy to skim over things when reading them without the concepts being explained more thoroughly.
Nothing
22
Prefer lecture to tutorial
8
Did not like whole class discussion
6
It wasn't especially useful to have the entire class reach a consensus on the answers to the quiz since the
groups were large enough that everyone had usually come to an agreement about the correct answer already.
6
I think people were a little freaked out that TBL accounts for 25% of the first exam and it took place within the
first 2 weeks of classes. It puts alot of pressure on the student so some people may have studied irrelevant
material.
Stressful
Groups
Group decision-making frustrating
Group discussion poor
6
5
Having to decide on one answer when not everyone was in agreement.
Working in a group on the questions didn't really give you time to think the questions through yourself, so you
didn't get to see if you could have answered them on your own.
I still don't understand some parts of the nervous system. Although our group discussed the answers,
sometimes we didn't get the answer correct and thus I still don't understand why the actual answer is correct.
Unprepared team members
Quiz
General
2
Getting stuck with people who didn't study
4
The individual tests because people could have been confused on certain concepts before going into class
Should be longer
6
Too easy
2
The quiz needed to be longer and cover more aspects of the subject. We could have covered a lot more
material than we did.
I thought that the quiz questions didn't fully encapsulate the whole general material we studied for the NS.
Maybe it should have been harder as I know many students took this quiz way too seriously for the questions
given.
Inconvenient to have it in a different location that where class usually is held.
Group size; time-consuming; IRAT; not for new material; GAE waste of time; GAE too rushed
Location
Miscellaneous
3
What changes would you make to improve the TBL activity? (76 responses)
Make quiz longer
11
Add pre-class review/discussion
6
Smaller groups
6
Eliminate IRAT
3
GAE
Allow individual GAE scores after
discussion
5
More GAE questions
6
Copy of GAE for each student
3
Other
Miscellaneous
2
1 vote ea.
Add a few more quiz questions just to cover more material learned
Ask more than 10 questions with the group. Discussing the subject matter with teammates was
very helpful.
I would have liked to have had a little discussion about what we learned before actually taking
the quizzes.
I would suggest that before even the individual the tests, the instructor conduct a brief Q & A
and/or small lecture as some sort of review for the tests.
Make the groups smaller. It was hard to communicate and hear everyone.
Make the entire activity team based so it's more of a discussion.
Eliminate the personal quiz; instead, more challenging questions (similar to the IFAT) with a
group worked better for me because we had to discuss and try to figure out the answer.
Instead of having one answer sheet to fill in as a group, have each person fill out another quiz
sheet after discussing with the group, so we all ultimately can make our own decision as to what
answer we believe is correct after talking about it
Spend more time on the group thought questions. I thought those were very useful and similar
to something we may see on a test and giving more questions and more opportunity to talk the
answers out with the group may help in the learning process
Having more copies of the question sheet for the last activity would have been nice because it's
hard to share one sheet with 7 other people especially when the questions are as complicated as
they were.
Eliminate GAE; use tutorial during GAE
Post quiz BB review; change point structure; clarify expectations; earlier in course; eliminate
whole class discussion; release tutorial earlier; make Jeopardy-like game; more frequent TBLs;
not too many TBLs/semester; tricky questions; too easy; no group discussion; more discussion





Make the IRAT/GRAT quiz longer and include
a few more questions that are more
challenging.
Have a few more GAE questions
Provide copies of GAE test to each student
Have a BlackBoard “debriefing”
Get a room with a round table for each group!

It is VERY labor intensive.
 Writing study materials
 Writing instructions for students
 Compiling nested envelopes labeled for each
group


Classrooms often not ideal
Team structure
 Important to have diverse representation in team
 Best if team members work together as a team all
semester (even all year)

Outcomes:
 It’s not clear that students learn or retain
information better using TBL than traditional
lectures.
 How does one measure:
▪ Personal responsibility
▪ Improvements in communication
▪ Improvements in teamwork



To the CEIT for organizing the conference
To my administrative assistant, Danka
Charland, for assistance with assembling the
materials
To my teaching assistants for help with running
the class:
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
Nick Bene
Sara Crandall
Larry Istrail
Tulsi Patel
Aaron Yengo-Khan

Bonwell, CC, and JA Eison (1991). ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 1, Washington, DC,
George Washington University.

Butler, Judy D (1992). retrieved Jan 19, 2011:
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_
SearchValue_0=ED396991&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED396991

Hattie, J, & Timperley, H (2007). Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112.

Johnson, DW, Johnson, RT & Smith, KA (1991), Edina, MN: Interaction Book Company.

Michaelsen, LK, Bauman Knight, A and Fink LD (2002) Praeger.

Team-Based Learning Cooperative, http://tblc.camp9.org/.

http://its.uiowa.edu/instruction/tile/resources/General/Intro%20to%20TeamBased%20Learning.pdf

Jones, RW (2006) Anaesthesia and Intensive Care 34.4 : p485(4)