Team-Based Learning™: Small-Group Learning's Next Big Step

Editors: Larry K. Michaelsen, Michael Sweet, and Dean X. Parmelee
Preface: Larry K. Michaelsen and L. Dee Fink
Publisher: Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

This volume of New Directions for Teaching and Learning is dedicated to Team-Based Learning™ (TBL).  The articles address three questions:

1. What are the essential elements of TBL?
   
2. Why are these elements essential to TBL?
3. What do faculty members need to do to implement these essential elements in a variety of different contexts?

Team-Based Learning™ (TBL) is a unique form of small-group learning designed in and for the college classroom. TBL's special combination of incentives and corrective feedback quickly transforms groups into high-performance learning teams, with no time taken from the coverage of course content. In this issue of New Directions for Teaching and Learning, the authors describe the practical elements of TBL, how it can look in the classroom, and what they have learned as it has grown into an interdisciplinary and international practice. Importantly, TBL is not about teaching but about learning. Several articles in this volume illustrate this emphasis by using TBL students' own words to reinforce key ideas.

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Team-Based Learning™ for Health Professions Education: A Guide to Using Small Groups for Improving Learning

Editors: Larry K. Michaelsen, Dean X. Parmelee, Kathryn K. McMahon, and Ruth E. Levine
Foreword: Diane M. Billings
Publisher: Stylus Publishing, Sterling VA

“Education in the health professions is placing greater emphasis on “active” learning–learning that requires applying knowledge to authentic problems; and that teaches students to engage in the kind of collaboration that is expected in today’s clinical practice.

Team-Based Learning™ (TBL) is a strategy that accomplishes these goals. It transforms passive, lecture-based coursework into an environment that promotes more self-directed learning and teamwork, and makes the classroom come “alive.”

This book is an introduction to TBL for health profession educators. It outlines the theory, structure, and process of TBL, explains how TBL promotes problem solving and critical thinking skills, aligns with the goals of science and health courses, improves knowledge retention and application, and develops students as professional practitioners. The book provides readers with models and guidance on everything they need to know about team formation and maintenance; peer feedback and evaluation processes, and facilitation; and includes a directory of tools and resources.

The book includes chapters in which instructors describe how they apply TBL in their courses. The examples range across undergraduate science courses, basic and clinical sciences courses in medical, sports medicine and nursing education, residencies, and graduate nursing programs. The book concludes with a review and critique of the current scholarship on TBL in the health professions, and charts the needs for future research.”

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Team-Based Learning™: A Transformative Use of Small Groups in College Teaching

Editors: Larry K. Michaelsen, Arletta B. Knight, and L. Dee Fink
Publisher: Stylus Publishing, Sterling VA

“This book is a complete guide to implementing TBL in a way that will promote the deep learning all teachers strive for. This is a teaching strategy that promotes critical thinking, collaboration, mastery of discipline knowledge, and the ability to apply it.

Part I covers the basics, beginning with an analysis of the relative merits and limitations of small groups and teams. It then sets out the processes, with much practical advice, for transforming small groups into cohesive teams, for creating effective assignments and thinking through the implications of Team-Based Learning™.

In Part II teachers from disciplines as varied as accounting, biology, business, ecology, chemistry, health education and law describe their use of Team-Based Learning™. They also demonstrate how this teaching strategy can be applied equally effectively in environments such as large classes, mixed traditional and on-line classes, and with highly diverse student populations.

Part III offers a synopsis of the major lessons to be learned from the experiences of the teachers who have used TBL, as described in Part II. For teachers contemplating the use of TBL, this section provides answers to key questions, e.g., whether to use Team-Based Learning™, what it takes to make it work effectively, and what benefits one can expect from it–for the teacher as well as for the learners.

The appendices answer frequently asked questions, include useful forms and exercises, and offer advice on peer evaluations and grading. A related Web site that allows readers to “continue the conversation,” view video material, access indexed descriptions of applications in various disciplines and post questions further enriches the book. The editors’ claim that team-based instruction can transform the quality of student learning is fully supported by the empirical evidence and examples they present. An important book for all teachers in higher education.”

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