Engaged Learning in the Classroom through Team-Based Learning

Student engagement is frequently driven by the effort expended by a student before class to be prepared for the class. Truly mastering a concept though takes time, and in a lecture-based classroom, concepts that are introduced in class for the first time are harder to completely understand. Faculty sometimes assumes that students will have understood that concept and may have the courage to immediately ask a clarifying question. As anyone who has learned how to swim or ride a bicycle knows, it takes many sessions of trial-and-error to finally master those activities. Someone who has mastered those activities long ago, may have trouble understanding why it is taking so long for someone to learn that activity. Similarly, students who are learning a concept for the first time in class may not be able to immediately ask questions and apply it on homework problems. Team-Based Learning (TBL) provides students with the scaffolding to learn and apply the concept in the classroom with their peers and faculty. In this talk, I will introduce TBL and share lessons learned from the various courses I have taught over the last 9 years using TBL.