Oral presenters, if you are looking for presentation instructions please click here. Abstracts are listed in alphabetical order. For the full schedule, click here. 

A Journey of Mentorship and Collaboration towards TBLC Certification

Neal Carter, Brigham Young University Idaho
David Fuentes, University of Portland

This oral presentation outlines the process for the three levels of certification in the Team-Based Learning Collaborative (TBLC) and provides reflections on the process from the presenters, who recently completed (Carter) or are currently in the process (Fuentes). In addition, Carter is a member of the Training and Certification Committee. The presentation will address the following issues: 1) Fundamentals Certification a) logistics b) reflections on its purpose and benefits; 2) Practitioner Certification a) logistics b) purpose and benefits c) what we wish we had known; 3) Trainer/Consultant Certification a) logistics b) purpose and benefits c) what we wish we had known; and 4) tips on successful completion. Since 2019, 27 people have been practitioner certified, and 7 have certified as trainer/consultants. Our goal is that sharing the experience that both mentors and mentees have during the process of navigation the certification processes may encourage more members to pursue this level of mastery in their professional growth and development.

Implementing TBL on a Scriptwriting Undergraduate Programme

Dee Hughes, Bournemouth University

Traditionally script writing has been seen as a solitary role within a larger collaborative process. The view of the writer working alone is further supported by the single writer’s name being a familiar part of the credits. This situation may still exist, but the industry is changing, in part due to the arrival of streaming services. The showrunner/writers room model requires a different approach and one that traditional teaching doesn’t serve well. A writer looking to succeed in the world of streaming requires discussion, critical thinking and problem solving. All these tools can be found within Team-based Learning (TBL).

My decision to implement TBL into the teaching of scriptwriting was born of my desire to better prepare my students for the industry. I wanted to discover if using TBL would provide my students with the necessary skills required to become a writer in the modern media world.

I designed five individual script modules around the intended learning outcomes of an existing scriptwriting unit. The cohort of thirty students completed a module a week over the course of five weeks. On completion I carried out semi-structured interviews with six students with a view to garnering their thoughts and feelings on TBL and its application to scriptwriting. The results were very positive across all the interviews with one student who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s expressing their preference for TBL as they believed it provided a more comfortable way of learning for their condition.

From the design and research I have carried out, TBL offers a progressive and favourable approach to the teaching of scriptwriting. It is my intention to continue to design and deliver scriptwriting modules across the syllabus I teach.

TBL in Executive Education: Innovating Medical English Training for Doctors in Vietnam

Daniel Ruelle, VinUniversity

TBL has long been used in medical education with countless positive effects on learners' mastery of content and skills. However, outside of the higher education classroom environment, TBL has not seen as much implementation in non-traditional educational settings. This presentation outlines how the author implemented TBL in an innovative setting, namely an executive education course to help doctors in Vietnam improve their medical English language and communicative competence. The course was a blended design with doctors spending some time during the week on guided independent learning and coming together in a synchronous live online workshop held in TBL mode. The workshops utilized LAMS and Microsoft Teams and offered doctors a chance to consolidate independently-learned medical English and apply it in a variety of different communicative application exercises. This presentation will outline how this innovative program was developed, the unique challenges that participants and instructor faced, lessons learned from the course, and an exploration of how innovations like this course can expand the reach of TBL into non-traditional educational settings such as executive education. Attendees will leave the talk with a better understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities for TBL in online executive education and how non-traditional learners grapple with TBL in their first experience of it.

Using TBL to Foster Inclusion and Optimal Learning for All

Rachel Wood, University of Bradford

Background
Team-Based Learning (TBL) is proven to raise attainment, engagement, and attendance, when adopted in Higher Education (HE). There is early evidence of how it can reduce attainment gaps. For many learners with SEND, and specifically for those with social and communication differences, the ability to work in a group presents difficulties. Often, collaborative learning can be quite a negative experience for these learners. This means, they potentially miss out on optimal learning that is only achieved by bespoke processing of information when learners learn collaboratively. This raises a conundrum for TBL advocates: how to ensure the positive impact of TBL on learners is made accessible to all. This could be a ‘game changer’ for inclusion in mainstream secondary schools.

Description
My Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis is providing a specific learner perspective to collect significant new insights into the success of TBL as a pedagogy. A revised framework will be co-created by the idiographic characteristics of the study (experiences of HE students collated via semi-structured interviews and experiences of secondary school students explored via focus groups) and then considered by two sets of academic peers to ensure it is inclusive, specific to the fundamentals of TBL and actionable in the classroom. In addition to my research, I have my own experiences of using TBL as: -a specific social communication intervention in schools -curriculum-based workshops -skills-based workshops -professional development workshops

Results/Conclusions (So Far!)
Learners find TBL enjoyable and inclusive. It has been noted that a sense of safety and belonging in teams develops quickly and that the benefits of TBL (and how it supports intrinsic load and germane load) outweigh challenges (in the form of extraneous load).

Comparing Student Perceptions of the Impact of Peer Feedback in Team-Based Learning and Other Student-Centered Learning Activities

Cortny Williams, University of Western States
Emily Boggess, University of Western States
Cecelia Martin, Clark College

Objective
The purpose of this study was to explore student perceptions about the peer feedback process among team-based learning (TBL) and non-TBL student-centered activities.

Background
Co-regulated learning is a strategy that capitalizes on interactions between learners, educators, and peers to achieve learning goals. Evaluative judgement is the ability to critically assess one’s own performance before making decisions about the quality of other’s work. Development of evaluative judgement reinforces co-regulated learning skills to promote life-long adaptive learning.

Methods
An instrument was developed to assess the impact of peer feedback on evaluative judgement and co-regulated learning. All students enrolled in degree-seeking programs at the university were invited to participate and 19.6% (222/1,131) responded. Fifty-five percent of respondents participated in TBL. Comparisons were made between participants who experienced TBL and those who did not. Mann-Whitney U tests were computed on Likert-scale items. Qualitative responses were analyzed using the constant comparative method with reference to Likert-scale items.

Results
Quantitative analysis revealed significant differences between respondents who experienced TBL and those who did not. TBL-experienced respondents were more likely to seek help from their peers and were better prepared for class activities when they had to provide feedback. Respondents who did not experience TBL were more likely to plan their part of a group assignment and had less trouble making plans to reach their goals. There was no significant difference between the groups in items about the responsibility of providing peer feedback and enhancing reasoning skills. Qualitative analysis revealed that despite challenges surrounding social conflict, the peer feedback process strongly prepared them for professional careers by improving communication and self-reflection skills.

Conclusion
Peer feedback provided students the opportunity to develop evaluative judgement and co-regulated learning. Participants valued activity-specific parts of the peer feedback process including planning, preparation, responsibility, and improving reasoning skills.

European Secondary Students Perceive Benefits to Learning with Team-Based Learning

Simon Tweddell, University of Bradford
Stephen Casterton, International Baccalaureate Global Centre
Stella Darby, University of Leeds
Nuala Harding, Technological University of the Shannon
AnneMarie O'Brien, Technological University of the Shannon
David O'Hanlon, Munster Technological University
Gemma Quinn, University of Bradford
Oscar Urmeneta, Fundación Educación Católica

This paper presents research on secondary school students’ experience of learning through the Team-Based Learning method in schools in Ireland, Spain and the UK. The Erasmus-funded TALENT Project trained 23 secondary teachers in Ireland, Spain and the UK in the Fundamentals of TBL. 247 of their students completed a survey about their experience of TBL in class. Due to ethical and practical concerns, the surveys were administered by teachers, and students were selected through convenience sampling for anonymous, voluntary participation in the survey. The majority of the 247 students surveyed (71%) preferred TBL to traditional lecture-based learning. There were some negative responses, with the most common being a dislike of other students’ performance affecting an individual’s marks or grades. Through the survey, students’ positive responses indicate benefits of TBL in secondary education including: 1). increased student engagement and active participation; 2). enhanced quality of learning, including improved critical thinking and understanding of content; and 3). increased opportunities for skills development through collaborative learning activities. These findings are consistent with the large body of research on TBL in higher education, as well as with the findings of the few articles published so far about the use of TBL in secondary education. The authors recommend further research and promotion of Team-Based Learning in secondary education because of its benefits to student engagement, quality of learning, and skills development.

Evaluation of Submitted Rationales During Application Exercises to Assess Development of Critical Thinking

Kristina Medlinskiene, University of Bradford
Stella Darby, University of Leeds
Gemma Quinn, University of Bradford

Background
A key component of Team-Based Learning (TBL) is application exercises (AE), which facilitates learners to apply new concepts to solve problems in their teams. At the University of Bradford, as well as submitting answers to AEs, teams also submit rationales for their selected answers. This project aimed to evaluate whether critical thinking was evident in teams’ rationales for their AE answers.

Description
We evaluated the rationales submitted for AEs by Year 2 (Y2) pharmacy students (18 teams) and post-graduate pharmacy learners (36 teams). Four AEs were selected from each cohort covering a 6-month period. The most conceptually complex AEs were selected from different classes. The SOLO taxonomy (Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes) was used to evaluate the quality of students’ understanding and responses to complex tasks or questions. It specifies five levels of cognitive complexity (pre-structural, uni-structural, multi-structural, relational, extended abstract). During analysis, each team’s rationale was allocated a score 1-5 based on the taxonomy.

Results
The SOLO taxonomy scores average (range) for Y2 student teams was 3.9 (3.1-4.7) and for post-graduate learner teams 3.8 (3.5-3.9). The average scores improved over time for Year 2 teams but remained similar for post-graduate teams. In the Year 2 cohort, 14/18 (56%) teams scored higher on the last AE than the first and 2/18 (11%), lower. In the post-graduate cohort, 11/36 (31%) teams scored higher on the last AE than the first and 14/36 (39%), lower.

Conclusions
Most teams’ rationales displayed evidence of critical thinking skills, as they identified several relevant aspects and some teams drew connections between multiple aspects of the presented problem. Analysis highlighted that some AE questions could be fine-tuned to require or encourage more higher-order thinking skills.

The Effects of "Ungrading" Individual Readiness Assurance Tests: A 2x2 Crossover Study

Zachary Noel, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy

Objective Individual readiness assurance tests (iRATs) are frequently graded in team-based learning (TBL) classrooms, with the goal of incentivizing pre-class preparation. The objective of this study is to determine whether shifting to an ungraded iRAT process affects student preparation and learning, as measured using assessment scores, as well as task-specific achievement goals for pre-class foundational content. Methods Using a 2x2 crossover design in a second-year pharmacotherapy course, students were assigned to one of two iRAT grading sequences: graded/ungraded (G/UG) or ungraded/graded (UG/G). In the G condition iRATs were graded based on correctness and in the UG condition based on completion. Students were aware of the iRAT grading condition before entering each study period. Each period included four iRATs, one summative examination, and the Achievement Goal Questionnaire. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to test within-subject differences of mean iRAT and examination scores across grading conditions, as well as differences in achievement goals. Bonferroni correction was used for post-hoc testing. Results All students (N=91) across 16 teams were included in the analysis. There was a statistically significant main effect for iRAT grading condition on assessment scores, F(2,88) = 3.851, Wilk's ? = .992, p = .025. Univariate analysis demonstrated a significant difference only in iRAT scores, with the mean score higher in the G condition (72.51% versus 67.99%; p = .011). Examination scores (81.07% versus 80.32%, p = .397) were similar in the G and UG conditions. There was not a statistically significant difference in achievement goals across iRAT grading conditions. Conclusions Students demonstrated a modest reduction in iRAT scores when it was "ungraded"; however, examination scores remained markedly similar. Changes in iRAT grading condition did not influence students’ task-specific achievement goals for completing the pre-class foundational content.