Team Based Learning – Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

Camosun Story #111: Bob and Team-Based Learning

Bob is a faculty member in the School of Business. I first spoke to him back in 2021 about his experiences moving online during COVID, but recently I found out he has been embracing Team-Based Learning (TBL), and I wanted to find out more about his experience. “I had a conversation with Derek Murray in passing about student engagement and preparedness prompting me to take CETL’s Improving Student Engagement workshop last spring, which gave me a good overview of TBL.” After taking the workshop and reading Getting Started with Team-Based Learning, Bob was intrigued, curious to learn more, and to build TBL into his course over his Scheduled Development time. So, “in August that same year I took the TBL course through Vancouver Island University.” Bob was initially skeptical about the structured methodology of TBL, but after taking the TBL course learned that “you can decide how you want to use the structure in your context, but like, many things in life, you have to trust the process, so I did.”

As Bob worked his way through the course, the method began to resonate him. “The idea was to spend our class time on activities that allow students to apply what they’ve learned and make sense of it from each other. This means students are processing information in a different way from just listening to a lecture. But I was still wondering how to ensure that students would learn what they needed to learn to meet the course learning objectives.” Bob was also not convinced that components of the TBL structure would work for some of his courses. “For example, one TBL element is to give students a module test on the first day of that module. But if the module covers three chapters, and students are tested on all three chapters before coming to the first class, I am not confident that the students will come prepared. But I had an aha moment learning it was ok to, after learning the whole process, abandon those parts of the process that won’t work for your context.” But Bob told me he tried to hold onto as much of the full method as he could the first time around because “when the TBL group talks about the success stories from the classroom, those are real!”

I wondered what specifically happens in Bob’s classrooms when he’s teaching with TBL. “I follow the script, sometimes begrudgingly – TBL can take time out of your class in that students are not always working on content but developing how they’re going to be with each other. But the more effort you put in upfront to help students build comfort and trust with each other in their groups, the more engaged they will be. I spend a lot of time right up front explaining what TBL, or decision based learning as I prefer to call it, is: where students are working to come together on a decision about what they are going to do to move forward. And I explain why they will be working with the same people for the whole term. So, in the first class we don’t talk about the course at all.”

To set students up in groups, Bob first has them self-select into groups of six and discuss what they think they need in order to be successful in a team. “They decide on the range of abilities, knowledge, backgrounds, that need to be at the table so they can be successful at solving problems related to the course content, not just about how to be successful on a team. Each group comes up with their own list, then as a class, we work together to select the one thing that will inform the final group selection for the term. And that’s the first day.” One of the other activities recommended for a first TBL class is to run a practice iRAT (individual Readiness Assessment Test) / tRAT (team Readiness Assessment Test) about the syllabus. “I have never been able to get that done in the first class, so I move it to the second class, and then they go from that right into a real quiz. Because the first one is just for practice, they can have fun with it, and it destresses the real one.” After that, Bob runs the iRAT / tRAT during the first class of a module for the first chapter of the module, and students then complete quizzes on the other two chapters in D2L before each class. “Later, I can find the one or two questions students struggled with, and bring those to class, show the right answer and give them an opportunity to challenge that answer if they don’t agree with it.”

The TBL model also includes peer assessments, which Bob finds challenging. “In my classes, students individually identify five helping behaviours that they think will help their peers be successful. They then share those behaviours with their group and collectively, the group decides on their top five which they put on big yellow sticky notes.” Each group selects one person to represent them, and Bob brings those students into what he calls a Council of Six (since there are six groups) who explain their groups’ choices to each other. Finally, that group of six identifies a minimum of five helping behaviors for the class to be assessed by. However, Bob finds that, invariably, these behaviours chosen by the Council are not ready to be used by the class. “So, the Council works outside of class (for bonus points) to clarify their list. The first term, it took three weeks to get it done, but the second term it only took two weeks.” And while the end result might not be the ‘ideal’ peer review process, it’s the one the students’ chose. Bob includes two formative peer reviews in his classes (in weeks six and ten), giving students a chance to change their behaviour, as well as a summative one in week 14.

Once the preliminaries are all out of the way, Bob can dig into content. “I don’t follow the TBL approach completely. I’ll do a 15-20 minute mini lecture, which is really a reminder of the key concepts they’ve already reviewed, then we’ll take a break. Then we do two to three 4-S activities (Significant, Specific, Same, Simultaneous) in the last part of the class. I have them do an individual reflection on whatever the question is and write it out. I have them put their name on it, and sometimes I’ll select one or two in each class for them to turn in. I mark those not for being technically correct, but for being logical, showing their thought process, and demonstrating their familiarity with the content.” And these in-class activities become a part of the course grade, “generally 15 to 20%, which gives students some incentive to come to class, and which also which makes the learning process that much better.” Another reason Bob has students write down their reflections is that he can more easily see who is struggling. “I can then ask them why they think they are unable to answer the question, how did they prepare for class, did they understand the reading, or is did they not have time to complete the reading (in which case we may need to talk about time management.)”

Then students share their reflections with their group which “provokes a lot of cross-table discussion that is superior to a normal class group discussion because they’ve already set out their views, are accountable, and have to defend them, as opposed to just going along with the most dominant voice at the table.” Then the groups share their consensus with the class, trying to convince other groups to change their positions. “Generally, they don’t convince anybody, but sometimes you do hear: You know what? I never thought of that. I was really entrenched in my position here, but after listening to you, I think I’m wrong. And that is cool to hear.”

In Bob’s Business 322 course, all those reflections and discussions support students in completing their two assignments, the first of which is a proposal for how they are going to approach the second. “At the end of each module, they write a short paper about one takeaway from each of the chapters we’ve covered explaining why it stood out to them and how it has influenced their approach to their project. At the end, in addition to the major project, they write a reflection paper about the overall key takeaways from the course and how they will use those once the course is completed. So, everything connects, and they can see that.

I wondered what Bob’s thoughts were on how TBL influences student learning. “You can see students building relationships with people they wouldn’t normally have built relationships with. And at their tables, they have more time to reflect. I talk to them about how some people need time to formulate their thoughts, especially if someone is translating from English to their first language, formulating an answer in and then translating back to English. So, I think compared to other classes, students who maybe would be less forthcoming with their thoughts or ideas about things are more readily able to share them.” Bob tells me he is also excited by the engagement in the class. “The enthusiasm in the class is contagious. When students are having their conversations, they are wholly engaged. They’re talking to their peers about the content that they’ve digested and convincing each other of what’s true or not true or what could be or what shouldn’t be.”

As to what students say, “I haven’t asked for formal feedback, but anecdotally, students tell me that they’re enjoying the engagement. They also like that everyone is coming to class prepared. They tell me that time goes by so fast because they’re engaged in what they’re doing, and they love not listening to me.” And Bob is transparent with the students about the approach. “One of the things we do in the first class is set the stage for why we’re taking this approach. We walk them through a series of questions, for example: What can you do on your own (for example reading a lecture or watching a video)? What can you do with others (the conversation piece)? What is best to be done in the classroom? Then they understand why we carve off time for TBL in the classroom.”

I asked Bob what is next for him for TBL. “I’m working on Business 220 (Organizational Behavior) now. Another instructor has already been using TBL in that class, and it’s working really well. And I’ll also redesign Business 150, which is more of a survey course so it may more of a challenge. What’s exciting for me about those courses in particular is that they’re lower level – every School of Business student has to take it.” Meaning that students can be introduced to this engaged method of learning early. Another course Bob is weaving TBL into, working with another faculty member, is Business 311 (Employment Law). “I’m doing a TBL light in that course this term. Students are assigned to groups, and we do in-class activities without the formal structure of TBL which gives them an opportunity to process things with each other, rather than just waiting until their first exam to see how they are doing” Bob told me he is struggling with Business 290. “That class takes place in a computer lab and physical space is an important consideration for TBL since people need to move around. They will find a way, but it’s better if you can make it easy for them.” Reflecting back to how his classes were before, Bob says “students were engaged, but I wonder: were they really learning?” Instead of processing information individually, “now they sit with five other people engaging with discussion questions and amplifying their own knowledge with different approaches and aha moments which is just cool to watch.”

After such an amazing conversation about Bob’s work with TBL, I wondered what advice he might have for other instructors wanting to try it out. “Trust the process. Be cautious but have an open mind. Plan for planning – TBL involves a lot of prep, but each successive delivery is a bit less. And the first time you integrate TBL, learn about it as early as possible and work with it from the beginning of whatever course you’re developing, rather than integrating TBL while you are teaching the course. I would advise people to script out the timing of TBL class activities. For example, I plan for five minutes of reflection, then 10 minutes of table conversation. Part of TBL is putting the pressure on students to make a decision, so it lends itself to being timed. I have two or three pages of notes for every timed activity, and I will take notes in real time, if the timing is off, what happened so I can adjust next time.” In addition, Bob advises flexibility. “Not every class has to fit into a nice, neat box.” But the biggest note Bob has for new TBL instructors is to let go. “In traditional classrooms, students look to you to provide the answers but, in this approach, they need to look to themselves. And if they don’t have the answer, they need to find it as opposed to having handed to them. And your role is to ask questions more than making statements.”

And finally, Bob says, “follow the step-by-step TBL script at least once so you can see the benefits, then you can figure out what works for you. If you take shortcuts too early, you might miss some opportunities to see how things can work. It’s all time consuming, but it pays off and you will be surprised with the outcomes.”

In the end, Bob says it’s important not to start from a position of “no.” “I look at each course and ask myself how I could make it TBL versus wondering which ones could or couldn’t be TBL. In fact, I’m confident that most of the courses in the Management and Human Resource Leadership program could be moved to TBL. At the end of the day, anyone can make TBL fit with their personal teaching style because it’s all about how we can support students to engage with the content and each other so they can apply what they’re learning.”

Team-Based Learning (TBL): It’s not what you think it is…

Last spring, our Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) collaborated with the University of Victoria (UVic) and Royal Roads University (RRU) to run the first Team-Based Learning (TBL) Institute to be held in Victoria. I sat down with Derek Murray and Monique Brewer who were Camosun’s drivers on this collaboration, as well as two of the Institute’s participants, Kerry-Ann Dompierre and Robin Fast, to find out more about TBL, how the collaborative Institute went, and what’s next for TBL at Camosun.

I first wanted to know how Monique and Derek got involved with TBL. Monique, a fellow instructional designer in CETL and currently the Applied Learning Coordinator at Camosun, said “one of the biggest challenges I hear from faculty is related to group work – how to make groups work and ensure everyone is accountable for their work in a team. Then last year, Derek sent us information about a TBL Institute in Nanaimo. I thought it would be a great Scheduled Development opportunity and signed up.” It was only when Monique arrived that she realized that TBL “is more than just setting up teams with good instructions and clear accountability – it’s a whole pedagogical framework.”

Derek, an educational developer in CETL, told me “I’ve long had a fondness for collaborative learning and in 2018 I saw a notice about the Team-Based Learning Institute and was curious. Like many other instructors, I wanted to include group work in my courses, but often had challenges getting students to work together. So, when I saw the Institute, I thought I may as well try it.” After Derek completed the Institute, he decided to integrate TBL into the second-year course he was teaching at Capilano University. “Even though it was a lot of work to change the course to TBL and some students were resistant, that whole teaching experience was a blast. And seeing students really work together as teams was amazing. I also noticed that many of the international students, who had in some of my other classes clustered themselves away from the domestic students, were now part of teams where they had to engage with people of different backgrounds. TBL provided a structure to make that happen in a way that was really equitable for the people involved.” Then, in 2020, Derek taught one course using TBL and one course using active lecture, “two different sets of students, the same learning outcomes, but two different instructional styles. I tested to see if Team-Based Learning would lead to greater engagement and better higher achievement, and it did.”

While I figured I knew the answer, I wanted to hear from Monique and Derek about why they decided to bring TBL to Camosun. Monique herself, having been the only participant from Camosun at her Institute, was curious to see if other Camosun faculty would be interested in trying TBL so she could work with them to co-facilitate or co-design a course since she is not in the classroom herself. “I think it would be a much more engaged teaching environment and would work particularly well in the School of Business.” As for Derek, one of his UVic colleagues was at the Institute with Monique, which led to further conversations with UVic and thoughts of doing a South Island Institute. Derek and Monique brought RRU into the mix and the three institutional groups stated planning. “We connected with the folks at Vancouver Island University (VIU) who are the global leaders in TBL including Bill Roberson and Tine Reimers from VIU, as well as Jim Sibley from the University of British Columbia, who have led the TBL Institute at VIU for years. But by the time we spoke to them, Bill had retired, and we found out that Jim was retiring in the following June. So, without them we wondered what would happen with TBL in B.C. and realized running our own Institute was no longer a nice to do, it was something we had to do.” So, the VIU group developed a facilitator package, and last May led the South Island Institute for 20 participants from Camosun, UVic, and RRU, including seven who were there as facilitators-in-training.

I turned to two of those first participants in the South Island TBL Institutes and asked what brought them to TBL. Robin, who is both a faculty developer in CETL and an instructor in the Community, Family, and Child Studies (CFCS) program, said “I do a lot of group- and team-work in the courses I teach, and I think I’m pretty darn good at it. I work hard to create structure for students, so they don’t feel like they’re off on their own, and I thought that TBL would offer tools to enhance that structure.” Teamwork is central to the CFCS program, which is not the same for every program at Camosun. “I, too, have spoken to many instructors about their struggles with teamwork and teams, and while my teamwork strategies help people, I know even with all that effort teamwork doesn’t always work, even in my own classes.” Robin thought TBL would both help him develop better skills and provide him with more tools to support other faculty. But to his surprise, after attending the Institute, Robin discovered “that I’ve been doing quite a few things wrong and found it was a huge benefit to me to learn this different structure. There are a lot of things from TBL I can integrate into my own teaching, and I really see how it could be valuable for other faculty at Camosun.”

Kerry, who is a Nursing instructor, the Simulation (SIM) Coordinator in the School of Health and Human Services, and an instructional designer in CETL, at first dismissed the idea of TBL because she thought it was about team teaching or similar to Problem-Based Learning. But after doing some reading, she became intrigued. “I didn’t know until I participated in the Institute how similar TBL is to SIM design in terms of backward design. But what I found beautiful about TBL was how it brings students together to see each other’s humanity. Our program structure inadvertently creates competition between students, something which is counterproductive in healthcare. We need people to work collaboratively and to value each other’s perspectives.” Like Robin, Kerry’s classes include a lot of active learning, but she says she learned a tremendous amount during the institute, discovering that TBL is “a pedagogy that brings students together who would not have normally mixed in a class, who then see each other’s perspectives, which I think could be transformational for healthcare education.”

By this point, I was getting a general picture of what TBL is, but I wanted to be able to better understand its approach. Monique jumped in to explain that TBL “is a framework for teaching using a flipped learning model. The ‘lecture’ takes place before class and teams then spend class time solving authentic, meaningful problems that are complex enough that they can’t be solved by an individual. The philosophy behind TBL is that teamwork typically sets students up for failure by saying, we know you’re all taking full time courses, you’re probably working, you have families, but please find time to meet outside of class to do this additional work. TBL provides a structure that’s divided into five to seven modules of learning. At the beginning of each module is a readiness assurance process that where students demonstrate both individually and as a group that they have read and understood the materials. The readiness process also helps students learn the materials if they haven’t fully understood them. Then the teams complete problem activities where they have to work together to address an issue. The framework around the teamwork is called the 4S model [Significant Problems, Same Problems, Specific Choice, Simultaneous Report], where each group is presented with the same significant problem and presents their answers simultaneously.” Then the real learning happens, during the instructor-facilitated debrief and discussion.

Derek calls TBL “a coherent set of protocols designed to harness the power of small group learning in the process of collaborative decision-making,” avoiding the confusion of calling this “team-based” learning when it’s not really about “group work” at all. “Group work is, in fact, the vehicle that supports decision-making – we can make better decisions collectively than we can individually. When teams work well, they make good decisions together, but when they don’t work well, one person’s decision can override the group. The TBL protocols not only help create teams that work well together so that they can solve challenging problems, but also build skills that help students make decisions in any context. You need to have a rationale, you need to have evidence, and you need to think critically. The 4S application activities are designed to hold students accountable to both the instructor and to themselves and their group. When they have that accountability and come prepared to do the work, they are engaged in the process and invested in the decision that gets made.”

Kerry and Robin added to Derek and Monique’s comments. Kerry said, “I think there are several different pedagogical approaches underlying TBL. It made me think of interdisciplinary learning, bringing multiple perspectives to group work, as well as transformational and experiential learning. But the protocols are what’s so magical in TBL because they’ve worked out the kinks in terms of creating good groups.”

One thing occurred to Robin during the Institute was that “team-based learning is not simply assigning groups to work together for a semester. The team is also the entire class with the instructor; students are never left on their own to do work. The protocols encourage folks to come to the class prepared, they make decisions in their small groups, then are brought back together for a spontaneous reveal of their answers. Finally, the instructor facilitates a discussion among the groups, bringing in additional ideas, and making connections between ideas. In TBL the real teamwork, the real learning, happens altogether in class, in that final discussion.” And, as both Robin and Kerry noted, the Institute itself allowed them to both learn TBL while experiencing TBL.

Monique finished our discussion of the TBL model by saying “from an applied learning point of view, TBL drives home those key 21st century learning and employability skills: problem solving, critical thinking, communication, teamwork – those core competencies that students need for school and for work.”

I asked when and where does TBL work best in terms of courses, programs, and where students are at in their studies. Derek shared that the TBL literature suggests content-heavy disciplines are well-suited, “but also disciplines that require a lot of application and decision making, for example, Nursing and Business. The one area where, according to Jim Sibley and the folks at VIU, there does not seem to be a lot of uptake, is in writing intensive disciplines where so much of the work you do is internal. But I’m in a writing intensive discipline and I think TBL helps my students – I think it could be used by anyone in any discipline.”

Some of you might be thinking that revising your entire course to TBL sounds like a lot of work – I was, and I wondered if faculty could integrate pieces of it rather than committing to a complete revision. Monique said that at her Institute, this was a topic of discussion “and the advice they gave was that the 4S activities are just really good active learning activities. So, you could generate some good 4S activities and run those in your class. And then if you’re confident, if you’re enjoying it, and it seems to be working, you could work through your Scheduled Development period to start revising your whole course.”

Robin also spoke to the potential benefits of bringing TBL elements into CETL workshops. “If I’m designing a workshop and have participants do a 4S activity as part of this workshop, all those faculty are being introduced to a tool they can use that is not related to the workshop topic at all. This might be a nice way to seed TBL through the college.”

Derek also believes the 4S activities can, in addition to improving student engagement, support stronger assessment practices in light of Generative Artificial Intelligence concerns. But the question then becomes how to support faculty to learn more about the 4S activities. “They support meaningful discussions around a real problem where students have to make a decision and bring all of their knowledge to bear, but we’d have to discuss how to pitch it because a workshop called “4S Activities” isn’t going to go anywhere.”

Robin jumped in with some ideas for “selling” such a workshop. “We need to ask what the problem is that would draw faculty, and that’s probably: Do you struggle with getting your students to come prepared to class? Do you want to find ways to engage students and support them to work together? I think those questions would bring instructors in.”

Derek also mentioned constant feedback as another selling feature of TBL. “The 4S application activities generally start with an individual reflection about the problem, with students writing down their answers and rationale behind them. They then get into groups where they share their answers and rationale and build consensus. Through their group discussions, they are constantly receiving feedback on thinking skills, evidence-making skills, etc. Then when they come to a consensus as a group and present their interpretation to and discuss it with the rest of the class (with the instructor facilitating), they get feedback again because not every group will have chosen the same answer. And finally, as a group, they give each other feedback and encouragement around how they are working together. It’s that constant feedback amongst the learners in the group rather than it being back and forth with the instructor, that is key.” In this context, when the instructor goes to mark the more traditional assignments in the course, they have already seen the students in action – as Derek noted, you’ve seen their critical thinking skills in the classroom and can build from there, rather than feeling like you’re starting from scratch with each student on each assessment.

As we began to wind down our discussion, I wanted to know what was next in terms of TBL. Robin started us off. “My plan is to bring it to my professional practice course where there’s lots of application to field experience. It’s a first-year course, and because students don’t have field experience yet, they find some of the content hard to connect with meaning. TBL will be a great tool to support discussions around ethics and interprofessional practice, and I’m excited to give it a try.” And with Robin’s CETL hat on, he says that “the other piece is figuring out how to bring this to faculty in a way that is not too overwhelming – so you are not having to redesign course, but rather pulling in tools to support students digging into specific topics.”

Kerry is particularly excited because, while she was thought one of the biggest barriers to implementing TBL would be the team-teaching model in Nursing, her Program Lead is now encouraging her to go ahead with it as an individual instructor. “I went to the Institute thinking about a medical surgical course that I taught in the winter term. It is a very content heavy course where engagement has gone way down, so I’m going to try to TBL-ify that course for the winter term. I’m excited about it. As I said earlier, I think TBL could transform how we teach nurses, and I’m going to connect with Nursing programs at other institutions who have implemented TBL to learn from their experiences.”

As for Derek and Monique, they have plans to continue building on the institutional collaboration with UVic and RRU as well as to check-in with the Camosun participants from the spring Institute. “Part of that check-in is encouraging people to continue, and part of it is ensuring that when faculty go to implement the model, they’re not setting themselves up for failure. We also want to remind them that if they are not quite ready for a full implementation, they can focus on the 4S activities and bring the rest in later.” And of course, they will also be planning for next year’s Institute.

Monique will also be joining a faculty member’s TBL class in the fall so she can see it in action at Camosun, and “possibly do some co-teaching in winter term with a business faculty member if the right courses get assigned,” while Derek himself is playing around with the idea of making his January online synchronous course TBL. “I’m wondering if I want to make that leap because I’ve taught it online without TBL and it’s gone well, and I’ve taught it in person with TBL and it’s gone amazing.” I guess I will be checking in with Derek next year to find out how it went!