Teaching.IU

Context

One of the consistent findings in online education research is the risk of student isolation (Lewis & Abdul-Hamid, 2006; Ortiz-Rodriguez, et. al, 2005). Students in online courses are more likely than other students to feel disconnected from content, other students and the instructor. Therefore, researchers (Chickering & Ehrmann, 1996; Gaytan & McEwen, 2007) encourage instructors to provide opportunities for student-student interaction as well as student-teacher interaction. However, simply assigning students to “post replies to five people’s posts” does not help students develop connections and may feel like busy work. The challenge is to create meaningful interaction that also engages them with the content of the course. One solution is team-based learning.

Team-based learning, created by Larry Michaelsen, is somewhat formulaic. However, more than ten years of using this strategy has taught me that the closer assignments follow Michaelsen’s steps and checklists (see Michaelsen, Knight, & Fink, 2002), the better the learning outcomes for students. The method can be used with any content reflecting information, principles, or skills students need to learn and a way for them to “practice” the information by applying it to some kind of group project, case study, or problem.

Step-by-Step Implementation

Michaelsen’s team-based learning consists of three types of work: individual preparation, small group interaction, and whole class comparison.

1. Individual Preparation:
   1. Reading/watching a lecture video: I give them a set of concepts from the textbook to study. I find this more effective than telling them to read a set of pages/chapters.
   2. Quiz/Assignment: (the first two steps are called the readiness assurance process – more specifics are available from Michaelsen, Knight, and Fink, 2002): an online quiz over the concepts preparing them for group work.
   3. Individual posting of initial answer to group problem/case study/project: students are asked to answer the question: “What should X do next?” about a case study concerning an interpersonal interaction, conflict situation, etc. Their answer can only be a phrase or a sentence. However, they then must provide support, citing specific ideas/concepts (with page numbers) from the text. Students post their individual answers by the opening day of the discussion. This assures that some students do not get credit for coasting along and agreeing with the work other students are doing and also that the discussion gets off to a strong start.
2. Small Group Work: Discussion forum to reach decision about case study/problem: Students discuss the case study and must reach consensus about the specific action to be taken by X. Again, the answer can only be a phrase or sentence, so they cannot just incorporate everyone’s original ideas, they must discuss!
   1. Same Problem: all groups work on the same issue so they can compare answers later in a meaningful way;
   2. Specific choice (word, phrase, or sentence): when students must reach a specific decision (i.e. yes/no, the two best solutions are, the person should do this), they cannot easily split up the work but must talk through the application of the concepts and reach a decision; their work must be focused; and groups will be able to easily identify differences in their answers during the whole class discussion;
   3. Simultaneous reporting to the class: groups cannot “change their mind” after seeing another group’s answer (Michaelson, Knight & Fink, 2002, p. 61).
   4. Class Work: Discussion forum to compare group answers: I move the final answers from the group to a “debate” forum where students are encouraged to question the answers of other groups. They look for errors and omissions or they comment on perspectives they had not considered. I award extra credit for the debate “winners” (those who best defend their answers). Even after dealing with a case study individually and in small groups, students still have more to say and learn in the whole class discussion forum. In the Spring 2010 semester, the debate forums had another 70-90 posts (from about 20 active students) during the three days of the debate in each unit.

Using this process assures that each student works with the content in five ways: individually in reading/listening to the material, taking a quiz, and applying it the analysis of the case study/problem, in a small group to talk the problem through with their peers, and, finally, as an entire class to see how other groups applied the concepts to the assignment. Besides this multi-step learning process, team-based learning has several other benefits: 1) it requires meaningful interaction with other students to reach a decision; 2) it has both individual and group accountability; and 3) it offers the opportunity for interaction with the instructor.

Depending on the content and the students, instructors can be very active in the process or maintain a facilitator-when-needed role. Fairly early in the group discussion, the instructor can be very active in the process or maintain a facilitator-when-needed-role. Fairly early in the group discussion, the instructor should give each group feedback about how their conversation is progressing, whether they are misunderstanding a key idea, etc. Of course, the instructor provides a grade and comments for each of the groups’ final answers. Since instructors grade just the group answers, there is time to provide meaningful comments. Individual grades for group discussion are based on having the initial post up on time and participating meaningfully in the conversation (i.e., five content posts – something more than “I agree”).

Effectiveness

Team-based learning accomplishes the goals of learning and helping students feel engaged with the course, the instructor and their peers. Students in my Fall 2020 COM 212 course reported an average 4.3/5.0 when asked about applying the concepts in the discussion and 4.75/5.0 for instructor presence in the course, which comments like, “I liked the group discussions and being able to see things through my peers perspective” and “got a lot of great views on interesting topics.” Team-based learning is a very useful tool for both learning and student engagement in the online course environment.