11 Individual Pre-class Preparation

Most classes require students to complete some amount of independent preparation prior to the synchronous class time. Interestingly, many students have become accustomed to the pattern that the content in their assigned readings is then covered during class, resulting in as few as 17-27% of students completing their preparations (Gammerdinger & Kocher, 2018).

In TBL, students are accountable for completing the assigned preparation as the module content is not covered by the instructor in its entirety. During this phase of a TBL module, students are exposed to the content in various forms at the lower cognitive levels of learning that involves remembering and understanding. These materials can take the form of traditional readings, study guides, class notes or a pre-recorded lecture (Michaelsen & Sweet, 2008; Sibley & Ostafichuk, 2015).

It is important that the pre-class materials and resources should be carefully selected to support your module learning outcomes as outlined in the section on outcomes based design, without overloading the students’ time and mental bandwidth.