The Team-Based Learning (TBL) pedagogy strives to use learning teams to enhance student engagement. Content transmission is done largely outside the classroom via readings and/or recorded lectures, and teams apply the concepts inside class. TBL has several elements that accompany the flipped classroom that are essential to success, including but not limited to: permanent teams, individual and team quizzes to hold students accountable, specific design of in-class application exercises to require critical thinking and engagement with the material, and peer evaluations.
At Iowa State, in collaboration with many faculty across departments and colleges, we have lead of participated in several SoTL projects to develop new methods, processes, and instruments to improve the effectiveness of TBL in University instruction, including the following:
- A 2014-2015 Miller Foundation Grant to develop a team-based learning survey instrument to assess the effectiveness of TBL in the classroom in areas of critical thinking, self-efficacy, individual learning, team learning, and motivation to learn. We tested the survey on over 1000 students and submitted a journal paper.
- A 2015-2016 Miller Foundation Grant to develop an instructor survey to complement the student survey developed above. These two surveys will enable researchers and instructors to link the implementation of TBL pedagogy elements to individual student classroom perspectives and performance. Instructors will be able to identify specific pedagogical practices that enhance student learning and engagement.
- A 2016-2017 Miller Foundation Grant to develop peer assessment methodologies that minimize bias. Research suggests that women and students of color do not have the same classroom experience with TBL as their male and white counterparts. TBL practitioners have little guidance on how to create peer assessments that are fair for all students.
- MS student Ben Jacobson conducted an evaluation to establish the impact of video viewing habits on learning at the introductory university level and the implication for TBL in introductory engineering classes. We quantified the learning degradation at accelerations ranging from 1.8x to 3x speed.
- Dr. Michael Dorneich was named a 2016-2017 SoTL Scholar . We will analyze existing peer assessment data from 21 courses to investigate the extent to which bias (e.g. gender, race) affects peer assessment scores.
Team-Based Learning at Iowa State University (Michael Dorneich)
Revived IMSE product design course emphasizes teamwork web article.
Attend a program of Team-Based Learning Teaching and Learning Community
Dr. Michael Dorneich
ACSL Director
Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering
Human Computer Interaction
Aerospace Engineering
Ben Jacobson, M.S.
Alumni student
Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering