For those who missed this article in our most recent newsletter, we would like you to know that the European TBLC members have been expanding the TBLC community in Spain. Three different TBL Masterclasses have been presented throughout Europe. As well, a number of publications, conference presentations and awards have been disseminated highlighting the effectiveness of this teaching practice. We are very excited to report on the work of Oscar Urmeneta who is utilizing TBL as a means to shift lecturing to active learning at Fundación Educación Católica in Spain.

Striving to further develop the TBL framework: the experience at Fundación Educación Católica (FEC)
Oscar Urmeneta, MSc
Fundación Educación Católica, Spain

Fundación Educación Católica (FEC) is a multi-site school federation that brings 21 state-sponsored schools across Spain together, with 1,500 teachers in total. Its renewed Institutional Education Project is strongly committed to a paradigm shift from traditional didactic lecturing to active learning. In the face of the usual failure of Spanish public efforts of school reform to effectively transform classroom teaching practices, FEC has decided to pilot TBL as the key driver for delivering a change in pedagogic culture in Baccalaureate. This crucial decision is the result of a piece of research conducted at the University of Oxford: Driving educational change at school federation level: a case study of Team-Based Learning (see poster). However, adopting this research-based approach to organizational decisions has entailed confronting a high degree of uncertainty as the literature on TBL presents some remarkable limitations.

To read Oscar’s full piece explaining the necessary steps the  Institutional Education Project is taking to assist higher learning institutions in Spain to use TBL as a teaching strategy, click here.