First day of class activities

This activity presumes no prior knowledge on the part of students. The activity is most appropriate for students who do not have prior experience in a TBL class, though it is a useful reminder for students at introductory and advanced levels who have participated in TBL courses before. This activity works equally well in small and large classes. The activities and debriefing take a total of thirty minutes.

Overview

Two activities for the first day of class to motivate work on application exercises. The activities draw heavily from material in
Peter Balan, Michele Clark, Gregory Restall, (2015) "Preparing students for Flipped or Team-Based Learning methods", Education + Training, Vol. 57 Issue: 6, pp.639-657, https://doi.org/10.1108/ET-07-2014-0088

Expected Student Learning Outcomes

SLO
Upon successful completion of this exercise, students will be able to explain why using out-of-class preparation time to acquire facts and basic knowledge and using in-class time with teams working with TBL application exercises leads to a high level of learning about introductory economics.

Information Given to Students

For these first-class activities, after forming teams, having student teams introduce themselves to one another, and explaining a bit about how TBL works, students first think individually to form a judgment about which of three different types of learning is most important while viewing the following slide:

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Individually, think about three areas of learning.

1. Getting information (learning facts, principles, concepts)
2. Learning how to use and apply information and knowledge in new situations
3. Developing life-long learning skills

Which single area of learning is most important?
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Next, teams consider the question while viewing the following slide:

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Activity 2: Which single area of learning is most important?

A. Getting information (learning facts, principles, concepts)
B. Learning how to use and apply information and knowledge in new situations
C. Developing life-long learning skills
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(Note that Activity 1 was filling out a team information sheet found in team folders right after team formation.)

After considering the types of knowledge and the importance of each type, students are asked to think individually about which types of learning can be achieved in individual study and which type of learning would best be accomplished by interacting with peers and professor while viewing the following slide:

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Individually, think about three areas of learning.

1. Getting information (learning facts, principles, concepts)
2. Learning how to use and apply information and knowledge in new situations
3. Developing life-long learning skills

Which area of learning could be accomplished well during individual preparation time?
Which area of learning would best be accomplished by means of in-class discussions with peers and prof?
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Next, teams consider the question while viewing the following slide:

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Activity 3: Which area of learning should be emphasized in class?

A. Getting information (learning facts, principles, concepts)
B. Learning how to use and apply information and knowledge in new situations
C. Developing life-long learning skills
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For the first activity (Activity 2 above) this will be the first report from team members and you will have to explain the reporting and debriefing process to the class. (I give teams all the activity points as long as the team reporter can provide the reasoning behind the team answer and produce any required support from the reporter's own notes. I take away points from the entire team if a reporter ever says "I don't know." or "We just guessed." or "My teammate can explain." I explain this before this first activity. My reporting process involves selecting a student reporter at random AFTER the team has come to a consensus answer and I need to explain this beforehand as well.)
Team answers are usually distributed heavily on possibilities B and C, though some teams choose A. There is not a "correct" answer and a fairly short (5 minutes) debriefing session is all that is necessary. Instructor summary comments can be as simple as the following sentence, "All three areas of knowledge are important, now let's think about which types of knowledge can be acquired on one's own and which types of knowledge would best be gained by in-class work."
For the second activity (Activity 3 above) team answers tend to cluster on B. Let a few team reporters explain their answer and then discuss the nature of individual and class work for each TBL module in the course.

Team performance is assessed at three points in the semester. A team ground rules development exercise (formative) in week 3 out of 14 in the semester, a practice teammate evaluation (formative) in week 7, and a teammate evaluation (summative) administered with the final exam.

Peter Balan, Michele Clark, Gregory Restall, (2015) "Preparing students for Flipped or Team-Based Learning methods", Education + Training, Vol. 57 Issue: 6, pp.639-657, https://doi.org/10.1108/ET-07-2014-0088
The authors have developed an elaborate kit for the first two periods of TBL classes and invite all instructors to participate in an ongoing research effort that is worth considering.