TBL Online – Some Ideas

THIS PAGE IS CURRENTLY A WORK-IN-PROGRESS

Team-Based Learning is a flipped classroom model that has been traditionally applied to F2F courses. There has been growing interesting in applying some of the unique TBL pedagogical features to the online environment. I don’t have experience here – but will try to pull together all the resources I can to help you figure out how to implement TBL online.

As a reminder, TBL moves initial acquisition of basic knowledge outside of the classroom (typically with targeted readings), then checks and builds on that initial knowledge using a process known as the Readiness Assurance Process. Finally, having established a shared level of basic understanding, teams move to an application phase where to are asked to make decisions in applying what they abstractly learned to solve concrete problems and apply course content. This application of the abstract to concrete situations naturally highlights important contextual factor and analysis challenges. Many of the pieces of TBL are not new – readiness testing, team testing, the use of cases, and in class discussions – the power of TBL is the frameworks (RAP + 4S) that gives important structure to the progression of activities to create more powerful learning experiences. (Mainly activities you already know and use!)

There are 4 important sources of information on doing TBL online

  1. Michelle Clark’s and Bruce Leonard’s module on TBL online – https://www.unlv.edu/people/michele-clark-phd-rn-lmft
  2. Brain Dywer’s (Intedashboard) systematic approach to asynchronous online TBL – https://bit.ly/2KcRKN7
  3. Brain Dywer’s (Intedashboard) systematic approach to synchronous online TBL – https://bit.ly/2yM1kRC
  4. White Paper on TBL online developed by Team-Based Learning Collaboratives Online Community of Practice – http://www.teambasedlearning.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Off-to-On_OnlineTBL_WhitePaper_ClarkEtal2018_V3.pdf

You want to first decide if you are going to do online TBL using asynchronous tools or using synchronous tools. If you decide to do asynchronous online TBL then the tools found in most learning management tools will be sufficient.  If you decide to do synchronous online TBL then there is a collection of tools to choose from.

One change from typical TBL is online most often uses smaller groups of 3-4 students.

Next: Technology that can Help TBL