Gabriella Cagliesi, Mahkameh Ghanei and Francesco Guidi
The silver lining of the recent pandemic experience has been the removal of physical boundaries in teaching as students are not confined to a location and now join from four corners of the world, allowing teaching without boundaries. This acquired flexibility can be successfully used in a team-based learning (TBL) approach which was historically designed for in-class group interaction learning. Although TBL can be offered remotely online, its steps and structure will remain the same: students are still asked in advance to prepare for the session and to demonstrate their personal understanding of the topic area before joining their teammates for group activities. A substantial body of empirical evidence in different disciplines has shown that through TBL’s collaborative working on a real-world scenario(s), students will deepen their knowledge and understanding of the topic. With an effort to address the issues of inclusivity and award gaps, we decided and successfully applied TBL to in-person, online and blended sessions for a core module of a final year undergraduate economics degree and a postgraduate economic course, for classes of around 40 to 50 students. This is due to the nature of the TBL activities which enable students to engage effectively even from remote locations, for instance by using: Zoom break-out rooms; Microsoft Teams; Canvas quizzes; Kahoot competitions; and recorded videos.
More importantly, TBL also caters for students with special needs, who with the aid of appropriate technology can join and fully contribute to their respective teams’ activities.
What is TBL and what did students do?
Students participated in the following three TBL phases (see Table 1 below):
i. Phase 1: they got ready by reading, watching videos and completing homework in preparation for the next session’s activities and exercises.
ii. Phase 2: they tested their knowledge with an individual in-class quiz (iRAT – individual Readiness Assurance Test) consisting of ten multiple choice questions (MCQs), re-tested the same quiz in an in-class team (tRAT ‒ team Readiness Assurance Test) by working and collaborating with their teammates.
iii. Phase 3: they applied their knowledge by finding solutions for different real-life scenarios during in-class exercises which were specifically designed for students to carry out numerical and analytical exercises and other related technical activities.
Table 1: Structure and delivery of team-based learning (TBL)
What did we do?
We did the following:
i. We created teams/groups which were as diversified and inclusive as possible, based on ability (i.e. second year grades), gender and ethnicity (see below).
ii. We created team-bonding activities (i.e. the ‘Escape Room’) to introduce and strengthen group bonding. Each team was asked to book a session with this company and collectively complete the activity and report back about their individual and group experience (see the picture below). This experience was supported and financed by the Faculty.
iii. We designed appropriate interactive activities around each topic area to achieve the desired learning outcomes. In the educational literature this approach is referred to as ‘backward’ design.
iv. We facilitated teamwork in class by observing, listening and prompting discussion within each team (see the figure below).
v. We provided timely feedback: for individuals, teams, and overall class feedback by comparing groups’ solutions.
vi. We created assessments: all TBL activities throughout the term were viewed as formative assessments except the last week’s exercises which counted as a summative to replace the traditional end-of-year examination.
What was achieved?
i. Tutors’ perspective
- more engaged students
- higher TBL grades compared to previous non-TBL teaching (statistically significant: higher averages and lower standard deviations)
- reduction of achievement gap for gender and ethnicity
- gratifying experience by getting closer and more connected to students in being part of their learning experience.
ii. Students’ perspective
Students’ feelings and views were recorded in the following two ways:
- Students’ anonymous feedback to each other (using ‘Teammate’ – see table below)
- hardworking, contributing to the team, being a good listener, having high energy and motivation, etc.
- Students’ anonymous feedback to tutors (regular ‘Mentimeter’ questionnaires – see figures below)
- This is the most progressive class, it was very interesting, interactive. Useful and relative.
- The change in the delivery of the subject has made a big difference.
- An opportunity to work in a group, it has changed my perspective on group work.
- The class is very interesting and time flies.
Can TBL teach a class without boundaries?
In conclusion, our experience reaffirms the validity of TBL as a very engaging and effective teaching method for economics and other complex topic areas such as medicine. Our results are in line with the findings of other studies indicating that TBL has a positive impact on students’ performance and learning experience. It has proved to be flexible to be successfully used in an online remote environment. Recent evidence also shows that TBL has been successfully implemented by a number of reputable universities; for example, University College London (UCL); University of Manchester; and Nottingham Trent University.
Based on our experience, we believe that TBL is a successful teaching method in a class without boundaries and as such, universities should start exploring the possibility of using it in their Online Distance Learning (ODL) courses and/or programmes.
For more detailed information about our TBL experience, please refer to our blog and published paper. We do welcome your comments and suggestions.
References
Cagliesi, C. and Ghanei, M. (2021) ‘Team-based learning in economics: promoting group collaboration, diversity and inclusion’, Journal of Economic Education, doi: 10.1080/00220485.2021.2004276
Parish, C. W., Williams, D. S. and Estis, J. M. (2021) ‘Integrated online team-based learning: using synchronous engagement and asynchronous flexibility to implement TBL online’, New Direction for Teaching & Learning, 165, pp. 91–105, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tl.20439
Takemoto, J. K., Parmentier, B. L., Merritt, T. and Sharpton, R. A. (2018) ‘Exploring virtual reality as a platform for distance team-based learning’, Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning, 10(10), pp. 1348–1390, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1877129717304513?via%3Dihub
Team-based Learning Organisation: http://www.teambasedlearning.org/
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43LImRytazc
Blog: Advance HE – ‘Mend the gap’,
Gabriella Cagliesi is professor of Economics at University of Sussex. Before this post she was a Principal Lecturer at the Faculty of Business of the University of Greenwich (UoG). Before this post she was an assistant professor at the University of Rutgers in New Jersey (USA). Gabriella has a collection of reputable publications, and she has collaborated with the UK Behavioural Team of the Cabinet Office, the Greenwich Council and Job Centre in Woolwich in London in a study on youth unemployment. Her research interests and publication record span the fields of applied international macro-finance, applied behavioural economics and finance, labour market and educational choices and policies. She worked on a research project, funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), to investigate participation into postgraduate studies. She was the coordinator and the survey principal investigator of the project, and she gained relevant and significant experience in designing online questionnaires on Students’ and Alumni’s views of postgraduate studies. Her scholarly background on econometric and statistical analysis of financial models and educational decisions. Gabriella holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, and she is a member of the International Association for Research in economics Psychology (IAREP) and of the British Educational Research association (BERA).
Mahkameh Ghanei is a principal lecturer in the recently formed School of Accounting, Finance and Economics in Greenwich Business School. She is a Senior Fellow of the HE since 2018 and has mentored number of staff for Associate and Senior Fellowship for HE. She has also been a TEF lead for her previous Department (Economics and International Business). She has an extensive experience in teaching Economics at four different Universities in the UK. She is specialised in teaching Microeconomics; Business Economics; Industrial Economics, Organisational Theory, Macroeconomics and Dissertation for under- and post-graduate courses. Her main area of research in Small Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs), focusing more specifically on local economy and inner London manufacturing businesses. In the last five years she has also focused her research on teaching pedagogy (Team-Based Learning – TBL); assessment and feedback (feedback loop and feedforward); and student performance using different innovative teaching pedagogy. With the main intention of closing the performance, gender, and ethnicity gaps. She has published the results of her work in the Journal of Economic Education (JEE). Also, presented papers and ran workshop with different colleagues at various conferences.
Francesco Guidi is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Greenwich Faculty of Business. He graduated from the University of Manchester (UK), with a MSc in Economics and Econometrics and completed his MSc and PhD in Economics at the University of Ancona (Italy). Francesco holds a Post-Graduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCertHE) awarded by the University of Greenwich (UK). Francesco has been teaching economics, financial economics, and quantitative modules within a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes (BA International Business, BA Business Economics, BSc in Economics, MSc in Business and Financial Economics, MSc in Economics, and MBA International Business). He has been serving as an International Link Tutor for several international partnerships such as ERCI Singapore, HKMA Hong Kong, LSBF Singapore, SEGI Malaysia and ZCAS Zambia. His research, focusing primarily on financial markets, has appeared in a number of academic journals, such as the Journal of Emerging Markets Finance, Applied Financial Economics, International Review of Financial Analysis, Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions, & Money, and International Journal of Economics and Finance.