Danny McLaughlin (SME), together with Geeta Hitch (University of Sussex) and Shihab Khogali (University of Dundee) recently presented a pre-conference masterclass on Facilitation and Peer Evaluation in Team-Based Learning ahead of the Active Learning Conference at the University of Sussex. Here Danny tells us more about TBL and what the masterclasses have to offer.
Team-Based Learning (TBL) is a special form of active and collaborative learning that uses a special sequence of individual work, group work and immediate feedback to create a motivational framework in which students increasingly hold each other accountable for coming to class prepared and contributing to discussion. The method was originally devised by Larry Michaelsen in the late 1970s/early 80s and has been adopted by hundreds of teachers worldwide, across an enormous range of disciplines. TBL is most visible in colleges and universities in the USA and Canada, but does have several exponents in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. It was this growing interest from European educators that prompted Dr Simon Tweddell from the School of Pharmacy at Bradford to establish the European Team-Based Learning Community (ETBLC) in 2016, a subgroup of the Team-Based Learning Collaborative (TBLC; www.teambasedlearning.org).
The ETBLC Board currently has representatives from eleven UK HEIs and two in the Netherlands. Its vision is to disseminate TBL to educators and educational institutions across Europe, creating a continental TBL network made up of local communities of practice. The recent ETBLC Masterclasses that took place at the University of Sussex on 4th June 2018 were the ETBLC’s first full foray into providing training for TBL practitioners, whether they are complete newbies or more experienced practitioners. The masterclasses, which had approximately 30 participants, covered the basics of TBL (TBL 101), methods for facilitating TBL sessions and student peer evaluation processes, and more advanced TBL hints and tips, and were run by seven members of the ETBLC Board.
If you are interested in TBL, please visit the TBLC website, email the ETBLC on etblc@teambasedlearning.org, or email me directly on danny.mclaughlin@ncl.ac.uk for more information. Beware – I will try to convince you to introduce TBL to your programmes of study!
Prof Danny McLaughlin, SME