In healthcare system Practices of Team-Based Learning and Fundamental 4 Principles is a rules and manners of collaborative and vast information. It is interactive and dynamic process as compare to traditional method of teaching only giving knowledge.
Fundamental 4 Principles and Practices of Team-Based Learning
Team-based learning (TBL) differs from other forms of small-group work in that it involves developing and using learning teams as an instructional strategy. As a result, implementing TBL typically requires linking each learning activity to the next and explicitly designing assignments to accomplish two purposes: deepening students’ learning and promoting the development of high-performance learning teams.
We are all familiar with the look and feel of traditional, lecture-based instruction—as students, we learned that lecturing is what college teaching was mostly about—and many of us carried that model of teaching into our own early careers as professors. When coming from a chalk-’n-talk background, implementing TBL requires a fundamental change in the way you think about what happens in class rooms and laboratories.
Traditionally, teachers have focused on teaching with an emphasis on facts and ideas and how best to present them. In contrast, the TBL instructor focuses on learning, and the emphasis is on what the students are doing in the classroom and how they are learning from their experience. The goal of this topic is to describe the key characteristics of TBL and how it can best be implemented as an instructional strategy.
Throughout, we will emphasize that the tremendous power of TBL is derived from a single factor: the high level of cohesiveness and trust that can be developed within student learning groups while never stepping away from course content. In other words, the effectiveness of TBL as an instructional strategy is based on the fact that it nurtures the development of high levels of group cohesiveness and trust among students as a natural result of how content is covered in class.
In TBL, the cohesiveness and trust that develops among team members derives from the sequence and structure of content-mastery activities. As the course unfolds, this cohesiveness development makes possible increasingly rich and motivated discussion among students, generating a wide variety of other positive outcomes.
When one fully understands the importance of group cohesiveness and trust as the foundation for powerful learning teams, the significance of the procedures described in this topic become clear. The development of a small group into a learning team is best described as a transformation process ( Michaelsen, Knight, & Fink, 2002, 2004).
The paragraphs that follow will outline a set of principles and practices that are critical to this transformation process. Part one of this post presents four essential principles for implementing TBL, part two provides a discussion of the steps involved in actually implementing TBL, and part three briefly outlines some of the primary benefits of using TBL.
Four Essential Principles of TBL
Shifting from traditional forms of teaching to a TBL approach requires significant changes in:
(a) the focus of the learning objectives for a given course
(b) the nature of the classroom events intended to achieve these objectives
(c) the role played by the instructor and students within these events
The primary learning objective of most classes is to familiarize students with course concepts. By contrast, the primary learning objective in TBL (and one that is completely consistent with the demands of health professions education) is to ensure that students have the opportunity to practice using course concepts to solve problems. Thus with TBL, although some time is spent on ensuring that students master the course content, the vast majority of class time is used for team assignments that focus on using course content to solve the kinds of problems that students are likely to face as practicing professionals.
This, in turn, requires that the instructor’s primary role shift from dispensing information to designing and managing the overall instructional process. Furthermore, instead of being passive recipients of information, students are required to accept responsibility for the initial exposure to the course content so that they will be prepared for the in-class teamwork. Changes of this magnitude do not happen automatically. They are, however, reliable and natural outcomes when the four essential principles of TBL have been implemented. The four essential principles of TBL are:
- Groups must be properly formed and managed.
- Students must be accountable for the quality of their individual and group work.
- Students must have frequent and timely feedback.
- Team assignments must promote both learning and team development.
When courses are designed and managed so that these principles are implemented, student groups naturally evolve into cohesive learning teams.
Principle 1: Groups Must Be Properly Formed and Managed
Forming effective groups requires that the instructor oversee the formation of the groups so that he or she can manage three important variables. One is ensuring that the groups have adequate and approximately the same level of resources to draw from in completing their assignments.
The second is ensuring that the groups have the opportunity to develop into learning teams. The third is avoiding establishing groups whose membership characteristics are likely to interfere with the development of group cohesiveness.
Distributing Member Resources
In order for groups to function as effectively as possible, they should also be as diverse as possible. That is, every group needs access to the students who have the potential for making a significant contribution to the success of their group. Thus, each group should contain a mix of student characteristics in relation to the course content (e.g., previous course work and/or course-related practical experience) as well as demographic characteristics like gender, ethnicity, and so on.
Further, teams will develop faster when relevant member characteristics are evenly distributed across the groups. However, students intuitively have neither enough information nor the inclination to wisely form groups; therefore the task must always be the responsibility of the instructor. Because TBL assignments involve highly challenging intellectual tasks, teams must be fairly large and diverse.
Specifically, we recommend that teams should be composed of five to seven members and be as heterogeneous as possible. If teams are smaller and/or homogeneous, some are likely to face the problem of not having a sufficiently rich talent pool of individual resources needed to be successful—especially on days when one or more team members are not present in the class (Michaelsen et al., 2002, 2004).
Time A Key Factor in Team Development
Students should stay in the same group for the entire course. Although even a single well-designed group assignment usually produces a variety of positive outcomes, only when students work together over time can their groups become cohesive enough to evolve into self-managed and truly effective learning teams (Michaelsen et al., 2002, 2004).
Team development occurs through a series of interactions that enable individual members to test the extent to which they can trust their peers to take them seriously and treat them fairly. Newly formed groups tend to rely heavily on their one or two most assertive (although not always most competent) members and have not yet learned how and when to tap into the resources that reside throughout the group. Under the right conditions, however, the vast majority of groups learn how to inter act much more productively.
In addition, although member diversity initially inhibits group processes and performance, it eventually becomes a clear asset when members have worked together over an extended period of time (Watson, Kumar, & Michaelsen, 1993). As groups develop into teams, communication becomes more open and far more conducive to learning.
In part, this occurs because trust and understanding build to the point where members are willing and able to engage in intense give-and-take interactions without having to worry about being offensive or misunderstood. In addition (and in contrast to temporary groups), members of mature teams become more willing to challenge each other because they see their own success as being integrally tied to the success of their team.
Thus, over time, members’ initial concerns about creating a bad impression by being ‘‘wrong’’ are outweighed by their motivation to ensure the success of their team (Michaelsen et al., 2002, 2004). When this occurs, studies have shown that 98% of teams will outperform their own best member on learning-related tasks (Michaelsen, Watson, & Black, 1989).
Minimizing Barriers to Group Cohesiveness Avoiding Coalitions
The greatest threats to group cohesiveness development are coalitions: either a previously established relationship between a subset of members in the group (e.g., boyfriend/girlfriend, fraternity brothers, etc.) or the potential for a cohesive subgroup based on background factors such as nationality, culture, or native language.
In newly formed groups, these factors are likely to become the basis for insider/outsider tension, which can plague the group for the entirety of a course. As a result, allowing students to form their own groups practically ensures the existence of potentially disruptive subgroups and must be avoided (Fiechtner & Davis, 1985; Michaelsen & Black, 1994). Thus, teachers should use a group formation process that mixes students up in a way that forces all groups to build into teams from the ground up. ( Michaelsen et al., 2002, pp. 40–41; 2004, pp. 39–40).
Principle 2—Students Must Be Accountable for the Quality of Their Individual and Group Work
In traditional classes, there is no real need for students to be accountable to anyone other than the instructor. Thus, it is possible to establish a sufficient degree of accountability by simply assigning grades to students’ work. By contrast, with TBL it is essential for individual students to be accountable to both the instructor and their team for the quality and quantity of their individual work. Further, teams must also be accountable for the quality and quantity of their work as a unit.
Establishing this accountability requires creating two conditions. One is ensuring that the quality of students’ individual and teamwork can be monitored. The other is ensuring that the quality of their work will have consequences (good and bad) that are significant enough to motivate high-quality work. The paragraphs below describe how the various practices that are part of TBL promote accountability for the behaviors that are critical to successful teamwork and individual learning.
Accountability for Individual Pre-class Preparation
Lack of preparation places clear limits on individual learning and team development. If several members of a team come unprepared to contribute to a complex group task, then the team as a whole is far less likely to succeed at that task, cheating its members of the learning the task was designed to stimulate. No amount of discussion can overcome absolute ignorance.
Furthermore, lack of preparation also hinders cohesiveness development because those who do make the effort to be prepared will resent having to carry their peers. As a result, the effective use of learning groups clearly requires individual students to be made accountable for class preparation. In TBL, the basic mechanism that ensures individual accountability for pre-class preparation is the Readiness Assurance Process (RAP) that occurs at the beginning of each major unit of instruction (see below and in Michaelsen & Black, 1994).
The first step in the process is an individual Readiness Assurance Test (RAT; typically 10–20 multiple-choice questions) over a set of pre-class assignments, for example, readings, lab exercises, dissections, etc. Students then turn in their individual answers and are given an additional answer sheet to retake the same test as a team, coming to a consensus on their team answers. This process promotes students’ accountability to the instructor and to each other.
First, students are responsible to the instructor because the individual scores count as part of the course grade (discussed in detail below). Second, during the group test, each member is invariably asked to voice and defend his or her choice on every question. As a result, students are clearly and explicitly accountable to their peers for not only completing their preclass assignments, but also for being able to explain the concepts to each other.
Accountability for Contributing to Their Team
The next step is ensuring that members contribute time and effort to group work. In order to accurately assess members’ contributions to the success of their teams, it is imperative that instructors involve the students themselves in a peer assessment process. That is, members should be given the opportunity to evaluate one another’s contributions to the activities of the team.
Contributions to the team include individual preparation for teamwork, reliable class attendance, attendance at team meetings that may occur outside of class, positive contributions to team discussions, valuing and encouraging input from fellow team members, and so on. Peer assessment is essential because team members are typically the only ones who have enough information to accurately assess one another’s contributions.
Accountability for High-Quality Team Performance
The third significant factor in ensuring accountability is developing an effective means to assess team performance. There are two keys to effectively assessing teams. One is using assignments that require teams to create a product that can be readily compared across teams and with expert opinions (including those of the instructor see below). The other is using procedures to ensure that such comparisons occur frequently and in a timely manner .
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