Background: I am teaching CS 2200 (Systems & Networks) for the first time this spring. Instead of doing the traditional "Lecture" format class (Sage on the stage) I am using Team Based Learning.

The basic idea is that students are assigned readings for a module, and on the first day of the module they participate in both an individual, and a team based "Readiness Assessment Protocol" to judge their readiness to begin the module. This is basically a multiple-choice based reading test, that the students do individually, and then repeat as a team. The students who did not do the reading (or have trouble learning from a book) do not score as well as those who are prepared, but during the team based test, the entire team discusses the questions and answers, and hopefully the students who do not know the correct answers will learn what they are, and why they are the correct answers. [This is the first bit of team based learning.]

After the RAP on the first day of the module, the teams do several days of application activities, which are problem solving sessions based upon problems that capture the specific skills we want the students to learn. So instead of telling the students what they need to know (lecturing) we give them problems. If they are able to solve the problems, they must know what we want them to know, and are able to apply the knowledge.

Of course, if a significant percentage of the class gets a RAP or Application Activity question wrong, I know based upon the clicker scores, and give a very short targeted explanation as to why the correct answer was correct and the wrong answer was not correct...you can think of this as only lecturing on the topics that students are actually having problems with. (I will also answer student questions during class.)

If you want more information about TBL, you can read the two books I did: http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Started-Team-Based-Learning-Sibley/dp/1620361965/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425692049&sr=8-1&keywords=getting+started+team+based+teaching and http://www.amazon.com/Team-Based-Learning-Transformative-College-Teaching/dp/157922086X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425692035&sr=8-1&keywords=team+based+teaching

So, now that you know what team based learning is about, where did I learn about it and why did I decide to try it out with CS 2200? Last semester I was part of the CETL Class of 1969 Teaching Scholars program, which focused on promoting student engagement in large classes. One of the (many) techniques they talked about was TBL. At the time, I was sitting in on Kishore's lecture of CS 2200 learning the material and seeing how he teaches it. I noticed that almost all of the learning objectives for the CS 2200 class could be measured by giving students small problems to solve that all had very specific correct answers. These types of problems are exactly what TBL specifies as the right format for the application activities, so I felt that if any class was "right" to try TBL out on, CS 2200 was it! Also, making a TBL class takes a lot of prep work. I spend easily 2-3 hours of work for every hour in class, preparing reading guides, RAP tests, application activities, and doing paperwork involved with team appeals of RAP questions. Preparing a new lecture based class also takes a lot of work. I decided that since I had to prepare to teach CS 2200 for the first time, I may as well put that work into the TBL format instead of the lecture format. (If I were to teach the class a 2nd time, it would be a lot less work the second time...but compared to a lecture based class, I think I would be doing a bit more work with all of the bookkeeping and paperwork involved.)

Now, to answer your second question, about how do I think it's going: The first test I gave was based closely upon the format of Kishore's TEST1's from past semesters, but it was slightly harder in two places. The students in the class averaged an 78%, which is actually better than the TA's were expecting given the extra difficulty on the exam, and very much in line with the performance of students in the past "traditional lecture based" semesters. So it looks like student learning is on par with, if not better than in the normal lecture based offering of the class, and I am only doing 5% of the lecture time. [This is the difference between lecturing and teaching...you can teach by lecturing, but just because you are lecturing doesn't mean you are teaching unless the students are learning. Kishore and Bill are both excellent lecturers, and students learn a lot from them, so I believe the TBL course is performing quite well in comparison, with very little lecturing. Students are still learning, but in a different way.]

That being said: Of course most students prefer the traditional lecture format. It is familiar, and people like what is familiar. Especially in the eyes of 19-22 year olds, who have a very "black or white" world view, either something is what they think is "right" or it is "wrong". Some people do better in a lecture based class, while others do better by practicing skills, discussing the material in a group, and learning from their peers. Team Based Learning requires more engagement from students, challenges them with required readings and problems they need to learn how to solve on their own, and is novel and sometimes scary when first introduced. [Incidentally, the two books I linked to above have multiple chapters about how initial reactions to TBL from students will be negative, and predicted almost all of the complaints and criticisms that were raised.] For example, the entire first week of class was an example of how TBL actually worked, giving students a chance to get used to the system (or change their registration!) before we actually started the CS 2200 modules. I have done some initial sampling of the class to pinpoint the major issues, and plan on doing an anonymous in-class clicker survey to collect a statistically significant sampling in a week or two. By the end of the semester I should be able to quantify things a bit more robustly.

Depending upon how it goes, I am seriously considering doing a section of CS 1301 as TBL in the fall, and being able to compare it directly to a few regular Lecture based CS 1301 sections offered in the same semester. [Although I actually think that the learning objectives for CS 2200 are a slightly better fit for TBL than those of CS 1301.]