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Registration Now Open – TBLC Regional Workshop in Chicago

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The Team Based Learning Collaborative (TBLC) is offering a unique opportunity to experience team-based learning at the regional workshop in Chicago, Illinois on Saturday, September 30, 2017.

This all day session will offer 2 workshops:

TBL 101
This is the single best introduction to TBL. It is conducted in a TBL format, participants must prepare ahead, take an IRAT, and engage actively with their assigned team members. The structure, process, and essential characteristics of an effective TBL module are emphasized.

At the end of this workshop, the participants will be able to:

  • Describe the fundamental principles that foster active learning in small groups
  • Identify the key elements of TBL
  • Appreciate the value of “backward design”
  • Define the 4S approach to effective in-class applications
  • Identify barriers to implementation and strategize solutions

Creating an Effective TBL Module
This workshop is for educators who have completed the introductory workshop on Team-Based Learning™ – TBL 101. The entire workshop is conducted in a TBL format and there is an advance assignment.

Participants will practice and develop skills for creating effective Team-Based Learning modules by participating in the following activities:

  • a clarification of the process and importance of readiness assurance
  • a differentiation of the levels and types of application exercise questions
  • an opportunity to practice writing objectives for an application exercise writing an application exercise and comparing and contrasting the application exercises of others

These workshops will be led by Amy Lin, Abbas Hyderi, and Hugh Clements-Jewery. For more information or to register, please click here.

TBLC – Featured Module: The Manager’s Job

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This month’s featured module is The Manager’s Job. The Module was developed by Dr. Mark Harrison, reviewed, and published to the Resource Bank in the Winter of 2017. The Manager’s Job module was designed for a course in Management at a liberal arts college. The primary focus is on critical thinking and communication skills, which have priority over technical knowledge and skills. The course serves as part of a broader effort to do Writing Across the Curriculum. This module is traditionally taught in small sections of 15 – 20 students of traditional age. These students have negligible prior exposure to Management, but they have read Harrison (2012) Note on Decision Cases Situation Analysis.

The Module focuses on three learning goals. The Learning Goals are:

  • Think critically and analytically; communicate clearly (both orally and in writing)
  • Apply managerial theories to realistic business situations; specifically, to apply Mintzberg’s ‘ten roles of a manager’ to the situation of Jessica Gonon in the case “Mommy-Track Backlash”.
  • Perform a situation analysis on a realistic management situation and make a reasoned recommendation for a course of action.

The Manager’s Job module includes a nine question RAT and two Application Exercises.

This module and many more can be found in the TBLC Resource Bank. Click here to log in to the Member’s Site.

Did you know that you can submit your own module to be peer reviewed by fellow TBLC members and included in the TBLC Resource Bank? Click here to download the Resource Bank submission form and e-mail it to resources@tblcadmin.org.

Save the Date – 2017 Regional Workshop

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The Team Based Learning Collaborative (TBLC) is offering a unique opportunity to experience team-based learning at the 2017 regional workshop in Chicago, Illinois on Saturday, September 30, 2017.

This all day session will offer 2 workshops: TBL 101 & Creating an Effective TBL Module. These workshops will be led by TBLC’s Certified Trainer-Consultants Amy Lin, Abbas Hyderi, and Hugh Clements-Jewery. Registration will be open at the end of May, so be sure to keep an eye on your email!

There’s still time to register for the TBLC-sponsored workshop, “The Basics of Team-Based Learning in a Day” at the 2017 IAMSE Meeting in Burlington, Vermont! If you’d like to attend, please be sure to visit www.iamseconference.org to register today!

We hope to see you there!

TBLC – Featured Module: Exploring Potential New Treatments For Alzheimer’s Disease

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This month’s featured module is the Exploring Potential New Treatments For Alzheimer’s Disease module. The Module was developed by Dr. Leanne Coyne, reviewed, and published to the Resource Bank in the Winter of 2014. The Exploring Potential New Treatments For Alzheimer’s Disease module was used in a neuropharmacology course to introduce students to the challenges in treating Alzheimer’s disease. This course is taught to pharmacy students in their second semester of pharmacy school. All students have a bachelor’s degree or equivalent and prior education in biology.

The Module focuses on three learning goals. The Learning Goals are:

  1. Explain what is currently known about the underlying pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease.
  2. Identify potential drug targets based upon our current understanding of Alzheimer’s disease pathophysiology.
  3. Predict systemic effects that may occur if a potential drug target is modulated.

The Exploring Potential New Treatments For Alzheimer’s Disease module includes a five question RAT and three Application Exercises.

This module and many more can be found in the TBLC Resource Bank. Click here to log in to the Member’s Site or you can click here to join the TBLC today.

Did you know that you can submit your own module to be peer reviewed by fellow TBLC members and included in the TBLC Resource Bank? Click here to download the Resource Bank submission form and e-mail it to resources@tblcadmin.org.

Featured Member – Patricia Gwirtz

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Field of Instruction: Physiology
Type of Institution: Health Science Center, graduate level instruction
Location: University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, Texas

My TBL Experience: I have attended several workshops and conferences to gain knowledge about Team Based Learning and how to implement Team Based Learning into my teaching. Dr. Wayne McCormack first visited the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth in 2011. After his workshop, I had the pleasure of going to dinner with him and learn more about Team Based Learning (TBL). I have been attending the Annual TBL Conferences since then. I took the lead at our institution in helping other faculty learn about TBL technique, how to write TBLs, and how to use them in the classroom. Most of the faculty was skeptical and since I do not mind being the first to try out new teaching methods, I was the first faculty at UNTHSC to use TBL in medical school classroom (student size of 230). Many other faculty attended just to see how it can be done with such a large class because they just knew it was going to be a failure, especially with such a large class. It was a great success. We have been using TBLs in our classrooms ever since. The medical school has modified them and calls them Team Learning Modules. I have created several TBLs that have been used in our graduate physiology course (there will be 7 TBLs in the course this spring) and for a physiology course I teach to physical therapy students.

Mentoring Experiences: Since 2014 I have been invited to conduct TBL workshops and to mentor faculty on incorporating TBLs into the teaching programs. I have presented workshops several time to the faculty here at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, Texas. I was honored to present three workshops to the faculty and administration at Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry in Moscow, Russia (Department of Pathophysiology and the entire faculty and administration), University of Puerto Rico at Cayey, St. Mary’s University in San Antonio School of Science, Engineering and Technology), Texas, and Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas (along with Dr. Ruth Levine – I think I learned more from her than I contributed). I have been advising and mentoring several faculty at the University of North Texas Health Science Center and I also work with a faculty member at Moscow State University by helping her develop her TBLs for a pathophysiology course. This has proven to be an interesting and rewarding experience. The TBLs I developed must be translated into Russian and that can prove to be amusing at times.

Research: Incorporating TBLs into the graduate physiology course was an important component of the Quality Enhancement Program for accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. I am in the process of analyzing data examining the improvement in higher order thinking skills of our student and the role TBLs played in any improvement. Once this data is completed, it will be written up for publication.

TBLC – 2017 Meeting Archives Now Online

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The 2017 TBLC Meeting Archives are now available on the TBLC website! The 2017 Meeting was held March 2-4 at the Orlando Airport Marriott Lakeside in sunny Orlando, Florida.

To access the Meeting Archives, visit the TBLC website (www.teambasedlearning.org), go to “Events” in the top menu bar, and then click on “Conferences” from the drop down menu. Here, we have listed the previous TBLC meetings including the 2017 meeting. Clicking on “2017 – Orlando, Florida” will take you to information on the 2017 meeting.

If you have any questions, concerns, or problems accessing the archives, please email Danielle Inscoe at danielle@tblcadmin.org.

We look forward to seeing you at next year’s meeting!

TBLC 2017 Grant Recipient

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The Team-Based Learning Collaborative (TBLC) would like to congratulate the 2017 TBLC Grant Recipient. We received many high quality grants this year. There were 8 submissions, and we are happy to congratulate Christopher Eidson from the University of Alabama at Birmingham on his grant titled, “Development and Preliminary Validation of the Team-Based Learning Student Outcomes Measure (TBL-SOM)”

Grant submissions were open to all TBLC Members. Received grants were peer reviewed by three members of the TBLC Scholarship Committee. If you would like to submit a proposal for a TBLC grant for 2018, keep your eyes peeled for the email later this year!

Featured Member – Ed McKee

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Discipline: Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology, Medical Genetics

Institution: College of Medicine, Central Michigan University
Mt Pleasant, MI 48859, USA

TBL Experience: I was recruited to the recently formed College of Medicine at Central Michigan University as the Founding Chair of Foundational Sciences. I now serve as Senior Associate Dean – Research, and Professor of Biochemistry and Medical Genetics. Prior to this appointment, I directed and taught courses in medical biochemistry and molecular biology as well as medical genetics at Indiana University School of Medicine – South Bend. I developed and used Team Based Learning extensively in these courses from 2006-2011. I moved to Central Michigan University in 2011 and have worked here to incorporate TBL into an innovative and integrated curriculum. I have been active in the Team-Based Learning collaborative since 2007 serving as treasurer 2012-2016, and as a member of the Executive committee from 2010-2016. I have also served as treasurer and past Vice-President and a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of Biochemistry Educators (2009-2015), (ABE), a group dedicated to supporting and enhancing the teaching of Biochemistry in medical, dental, and pharmacy schools. I have given workshops on Team-Based learning for the TBLC “Train the Trainers” Program and at National and International meetings as well as at Universities and Medical Schools.

Mentoring experience:

Years of TBL Teaching: 11

I have mentored several medical school basic science faculty in the TBLC Train the Trainers program and have served informally by providing TBL modules and mentoring to many faculty, mostly in medical science education who are interested in using TBL, especially to teach biochemistry and medical genetics. I have been closely involved in mentoring faculty at my present institution in TBL.

Adaptions: We have developed a technique at Central Michigan University College of Medicine in which Case-based learning is used as pre-work for the TBL, which it turn serves as an assessment of the Case-based learning. We have submitted one of these to MedEdPortal for review.

Research: I have not conducted any research in TBL, but have published four TBL modules in MedEdPortal.

Assisting members as a TBL-Trainer:

  1. I have experience in providing workshops on many aspects of TBL; including, TBL 101, Designing Modules, Peer Evaluation, and Facilitation.
  2. I have specific experience in developing and sharing modules in Medical Biochemistry and Medical Genetics and have given workshops and mentored faculty in these disciplines using these modules as examples.
  3. I have more recently gained experience at a new medical school in developing TBL modules in an integrated medical school curriculum, in which faculty from different disciplines work together to develop TBL modules, many of which are coupled with Case-Based Learning.

How has the TBLC assisted me?

I became interested in TBL in 2004 and received my initial exposure by visiting Wright State Boonshoft School of Medicine and becoming a member of a student team in Dr. Paul Koles’ pathology class. This was a wonderful experience and got me started. However, it was membership in TBLC and attendance at subsequent TBLC meetings that aided me greatly in filling in important details. Here I learned the importance of peer evaluation and how to design peer evaluation instruments. Here I learned to improve my facilitation skills, and how to mentor other faculty in improving their facilitation skills. Lastly, membership in the TBLC and attendance at meetings provide an important outlet for educational scholarship and an opportunity to develop networks of support.