Effective team formation in TBL is based on the following conditions:
- TBL teams need to be balanced and diverse (teams should include a mix of student strengths, backgrounds, and experiences)
- TBL teams need to be selected by the instructor (this is a critical, but often overlooked point)
- TBL teams need to be large (typically 5-7 students)
- TBL teams need to be permanent
How to Form Teams
A key issue for TBL instructors is selecting balanced and diverse teams in a way that is perceived by students as being fair. Instructors can employ a variety of methods to accomplish this task.
One simple method is to have students line up in a row around the classroom based on one or more criteria relevant to the "balanced and "diverse" condition listed above and have them number off according to the number of teams your class size will permit.
Jim Sibley provides a variety of examples of how to form effective TBL teams, including sample questions to sort students, a video illustrating the process, and frequently asked questions.
Let's say that you have 36 students in your course. You might plan to form six teams of six students each. During the first week of class you might ask students to first line up in a line around the classroom perimeter according to one criterion (birth sex, e.g., in a class with both male and female students) and then within that criterion, to line up on the basis of another criterion, say, prior experience with the subject, degree discipline, math background, cultural background, etc. Next, have each student in the line number off 1-2-3-4-5-6-1-2-3-4-5-6... With enough diversity and a large enough class, each team should include a diverse and balanced mix of students.
- Create teams publicly in the classroom to build student trust.
- Be transparent about the way that you are forming teams - explain the process and the reasons for it.
- Some instructors do not form teams immediately after the course starts in order to take into account early attrition and to learn about students. In this method instructors can create teams more likely to be diverse by skill level, ethnicity, gender or other criteria.
- When possible women or minority groups should not be the only representative of that group on a team. Doing so can lead to stereotype threat [add citations]
Intentionally Building Effective Team Skills
It takes time for students in permanent groups to develop the necessary skills for working effectively as a group. To promote the development of students' teamwork skills, it is useful to include one or more activities early in the course directly focused on this outcome. One approach to building team skill development is to assign a reading, TED talk, and/or podcast on the subject in the second or third week of the semester – once students have had some experience working in a team - and then have teams work in class to develop ground rules for working together as a team.
See Michaelsen, Knight, and Fink (2004) and Sibley and Ostafichuk (2014) for more detailed discussions on developing team effectiveness.
Google's report on its team effectiveness research offers a convenient set of materials that can be mined for material to assign students in advance of an in-class activity to develop team ground rules. Before class, students can offer positive and negative experiences from their work in groups in other settings by means of an online discussion forum or as a JITT assignment. A portion of a class can then be devoted to team development of ground rules for the remainder of the semester.
This worksheet provides a way to share prior experiences and to draft ground rules for the semester.
Teams can report results in a gallery walk; alternatively, the instructor can gather the output from all the teams in a handout in a subsequent class and give teams some time to borrow additional ground rules from other teams. Ground rules that emerge in nearly every team include "everyone come to class prepared," "give everyone a chance to speak before deciding on the best answer," and "listen when others talk." Each team's ground rules should remain in their team folder for the duration of the semester.
Student Accountability for Team Learning
Student accountability for team performance is developed through both formative and summative peer evaluations that ask students to assess their teammates' contribution to the team's performance in the class.
Formative Assessment
One or several times during the semester, students should have the opportunity to provide each other formative feedback on their performance as team members. Each student provides each team member comments and, perhaps, a numerical rating of some form on various aspects of performance as a team member (but NOT on knowledge of the subject matter under study). Students have the remainder of the semester to improve their work on the team, if necessary, based on peer feedback.
This sample worksheet asks students to rate each other on
- preparation (Were they prepared when they came to class?),
- contribution (Did they contribute productively to group discussion and work? Did they regularly offer and explain possible methods and important considerations as the team considered RAP questions and AEs?),
- promoting learning (Did they work to promote discussions that foster learning? Did they move tRAP work away from voting and toward discussing economic concepts?),
- respect for others' ideas (Did they encourage others to contribute their ideas? Did they listen well?), and
- flexibility (Were they flexible when disagreements occurred?)
The comments and summary ratings are then provided to students but do not count toward any grade.
See Michaelsen, Knight, and Fink (2004) and Sibley and Ostafichuk (2014) for discussions of various numerical rating systems.
This process can be automated through TBL-specific tools like
CATME or
InteDashboard or through course management system functions.
Summative Assessment
At the end of the semester, student assign numerical ratings to team members that can count toward the final grade. For example, tRAP and AE components of the final grade can be inflated or deflated based on team members' ratings.
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