Team-Based Learning in STEM and the Health Sciences

Abstract

Team-Based Learning (TBL) is a collaborative learning pedagogy in which students work in permanent teams during class time to solve discipline-relevant problems. TBL has been shown to improve scores on measurements of student learning in both professional and undergraduate STEM fields, with the greatest number of studies in the health sciences. More research is needed in undergraduate contexts. In the author’s undergraduate physiology classes, students show large conceptual gains across the semester as well as conceptual gains during individual class periods; they retain much of what they learned in the first semester of a two-semester sequence over the summer, are enthusiastic about the method, and engage in positive out-of-class learning behaviors such as reading the textbook. Ongoing work suggests that the quality of problems and questions given to students to solve is a critical aspect of success using this approach. Overall, TBL is a straightforward way to implement many of the practices that have been shown to improve student learning: active participation of students, immediate feedback on performance, collaborative learning, and accountability for preparation outside of class and performance in class.

“Teaching is leading students into situations in which they can only escape by thinking.” –Spencer Benson