Feedback on a TBL Module for a Medicine Program

Team-Based Learning
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1

Hello all,
We use TBL as our primary instructional strategy in our medical school and it comprises 90% of our lectures this has been our experience for the last 2 years:

  1. The students come more prepared as they are studying for the iRAT / tRAT

  2. We made the iRAT/tRAT to be 15% of the total BLOCK Grade

  3. The students do not perform the tRAT well and they do not know how to interact in a group setting and the discussion that is supposed to happen does not happen to discuss the iRAT MCQs!

  4. The faculty goes over the feedback session, and this is a good session where they go over the iRAT’s

  5. I allowed the faculty to add a 15–20-minute session where they go over the important points of the PowerPoint of the flipped component --Not classically an part of the TBL

  6. I am not sure the faculty are doing a good job in the application exercises as they do not map them back to the LOs and this is the main and essential part of the TBL!

Feedback?

George

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Hi @gcortas Thank you for sharing your experiences and insights with using Team-Based Learning (TBL) as a primary instructional strategy in your medical school. It’s impressive to see such a high level of integration, with 90% of lectures utilizing TBL.

Team Interaction: The challenge you’re facing with students not performing well in the tRAT and struggling with group interactions is not uncommon. It might be beneficial to incorporate a team-based learning orientation session, some team-building activities, and training on effective group communication early in the course. Additionally, providing clear guidelines and expectations for group discussions could help. You can also share this video with the students so that they understand the benefits of a TBL approach.

Application Exercises: The concern about the quality of application exercises is crucial. It’s important that these exercises are well-designed to align with the learning objectives (LOs). Providing faculty with additional training or resources on how to design and implement effective application exercises could enhance this aspect of TBL. I would highly recommend that you encourage your faculty to attend online workshop on TBL. You can also find additional resources on TBLC website.

@SandyCook @lmichaelsen @TomJansen Do you have any other thoughts or feedback for @gcortas ?

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@gcortas,

Dear George,

Thank you for sharing your experiences. I have some comments and questions about your points.

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@gcortas George,

Thank you for sharing your experiences. Congratulations on engaging with your students in a team-based learning format. It sounds like you have some challenges in getting students and faculty engaged with the tRAT and application exercises.

As Shreya has suggested, try some team-building exercises to allow the students to get to know each other better–and try to encourage them to share ideas and dialogue with each other more frequently.

It is not just getting the answers right, but understanding why they are correct and engaging dialogue among students will help with that.

Some more training for your faculty can help with the team application exercises. Especially help them to learn how to facilitate conversations among student teams and help students discover how to best present their team answer and explaining the rationale. Dialogue among teams is far more important than having conversations directed at the faculty.