Team-based learning has two distinct usages. It was a term first popularized by Larry Michaelsen, the central figure in the development of the TBL method while at University of Oklahoma, to describe an educational strategy that he developed for use in academic settings[1]. The second usage describes a process for teaching and developing people in the workplace.
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The main features of the team-based learning approach are the following:
(1) Permanent (term-long) and instructor-assigned groups of 5-7 students with diverse skill sets and backgrounds
(2) Individual accountability for out-of-class work such as reading and preliminary homework being done prior to the first class meeting of each course segment - a division of the course generally based on a theme and lasting from one to three weeks. This accountability is ensured by what is called the Readiness Assurance Process (RAP) in which students (a) take a short (5-15 multiple choice question) individual readiness assurance test (iRAT), (b) immediately afterward take the same test again with members of their team working on a single answer sheet (tRAT), (c) students, who have already received their individual and team RAT scores make written appeals on any questions that the team missed on the tRAT, should they find statements in their assigned reading that supports their view, and, (d) the instructor takes questions from the class on any of the questions or themes brought up by them.
(3) Incentive for working effectively together as a team by giving significant credit (course points) for team activities (such as the tRAT), the subsequent in-class activities (application exercises) that are the hallmark of team-based learning, longer term team projects, and team-member given points for "team maintenance", essentially points given to recognize contributions made to team efforts and withheld when a team member is acting as a freeloader or in some other way not pulling his or her weight.
(4) In class application exercises that are (a) significant (correlated to important course objectives, meaningful to the future work that the course might prepare a student for), (b) the same for all teams in the course, (c) about making a decision – providing a simple answer – based on complex analysis of data or application of course principles, (d) simultaneously reported to the whole class and evaluated then and there by the instructor.
Team Based Learning has been suggested to help students who seem disinterested in subject material, do not do their homework, and have difficulty understanding material. Team based learning can transform traditional content with application and problem solving skills, while developing interpersonal skills [2]. Team based learning in education can also be important for developing skills and abilities that are useful for businesses, organizations, careers, and industries where many projects and tasks are performed by teams. Learning how to learn, work, interact, and collaborate in a team is essential for success in this kind of an environment[3]. Many of the medical schools have adopted some version of Team Based Learning for several of the benefits listed above, and also for greater long-term knowledge retention. According to a study done by the Washington University School of Medicine, individuals who learned through an active team based learning curriculum had greater long-term knowledge retention compared to a traditional passive lecture curriculum. [4]
A later developed usage of the term describes a process for teaching and developing people in the workplace. It is a set of developmental principles and routines embedded into the day-to-day processes of a work team such that team members continuously learn and develop. The developmental activities are not new, e.g., coaching, stretch assignments, review of lessons learned. However, such developmental activities are typically conducted in an irregular and inconsistent way. The benefit of Team-Based Learning is that everyone on the team participates in the developmental activities on a consistent basis, because the activities provide other benefits that motivate the team to use them. That is, the team not only develops its people but also functions better.
Team-Based Learning was jointly developed by Duke Corporate Education and PricewaterhouseCoopers. In 2005, Judy Rosenblum, then President of Duke Corporate Education, and Tom Evans, Chief Learning Officer of PricewaterhouseCoopers, began to explore the learning environment in teaching hospitals and its possible transferability to corporate environments. They studied several teaching hospitals, principally Johns Hopkins Hospital. Teaching hospitals develop doctors (interns and residents) in the course of providing health care to patients. This is not classroom education. Rather it is teaching the practice of medicine while treating real patients with real diseases. The learning is embedded in the work.
Rosenblum, Evans and their associates spent two years understanding how teaching hospitals work and exploring how those processes could be applied to business teams. They identified four principles and five routines to carry over to the business world.
The mission of teaching hospitals is to develop doctors. While businesses earnestly espouse a desire to develop their people, such activities are too often seen as separate from work and something that interferes with getting work done. Businesses are not as motivated as teaching hospitals to develop people on the job. For that reason the transfer of teaching hospital based approaches to a business context might have failed if not for the fact that the new processes create side benefits that motivate the business team members to do them.
Senior team members need to spend extra time mentoring junior team members, however that time is more than made up by the increased productivity of the team derived from successfully driving tasks to lower levels. Such delegation frees up senior people’s time. Junior people enjoy taking ownership of projects (with support) and are more motivated in their jobs. The net result is that the team gets more work done, junior people are developed more quickly, and team morale is higher.