1 Why Should I Use TBL?

Evidence shows that TBL is an accepted pedagogical format that is effective at meeting learning outcomes and engaging students across all disciplines, including medicine, nursing, accounting, biological sciences and computer programming (Arcila Hernández et al., 2020; Branney & Priego-Hernández, 2018; Christensen et al., 2019; Joshi et al., 2020; Shannon, 2020).

Critical Thinking and Application

TBL makes use of the flipped classroom and shifts the instructor role from dispensing information in a lecture to managing the overall instructional process and supporting students as they work through relevant problems to construct their learning. This process moves the synchronous class focus to application of conceptual and procedural knowledge by immersing students in carefully constructed profession or vocation based situations (Michaelsen & Sweet, 2008). During this time, the instructor is able to facilitate and support critical thinking as students venture into application, analysis and evaluation activities relevant to the field of study.

Functional team process

One would be hard pressed to name a profession, trade, vocation or job that does not require some degree of interaction with other people. It is often assumed that graduates innately possess the skills required to be a functional team member.

Despite this, the term “group work” is often universally reviled amongst students and instructors alike in the educational world. Group work is fraught with dysfunctional interpersonal dynamics, scheduling conflicts, accountability issues and the ever-dreaded grade allocation.

TBL uses longer group lifecycles, authentic team activities, frequent formative assessment, group and individual accountability, and group work facilitated during class time (Christensen et al., 2019). Research indicates a potential but significant impact on individual and team performance (Thompson et al., 2015).

COVID-19 and the New Norm

In early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the world to a grinding halt. In education, this meant a temporary pause, followed by a radical shift to implement remote learning. Educators found themselves scrambling to conceive of ways to meet learning outcomes and then implement them through learning management systems (LMS). The video conferencing platform, Zoom became a proprietary eponym. The pandemic imposed process changes which in turn have become structural changes for faculty and students alike (Pham & Ho, 2020; United Nations, 2020). And while many people are waiting for things to return to normal, there are those who feel that COVID-19 merely accelerated a change process that was already underway and it is likely that education will never fully return to the way it was (Tesar, 2020).

This presented a unique, en masse pedagogical experiment that some have taken advantage of. TBL practitioners seized the opportunity to determine if the foundations and principles of TBL could be effectively maintained remotely. Despite endless confounding factors, recent studies have shown that TBL can be effectively delivered remotely and achieve benefits of the format that have been well established by the in-person modality (DeMasi et al., 2019; River et al., 2016; Wong et al., 2020).

Limitations of TBL

TBL is a noted departure from the traditional lecture format of classes. As such, adaptation is labour intensive and should be undertaken with consideration and intention.

While TBL has been shown to meet learning outcomes, foster critical thinking and application, the literature is equivocal as to whether measureable performance is improved in comparison to other, more traditional teaching methods and formats. In many cases, student performance as measured by exam scores were not significantly different, but qualified by several limitations (Branney & Priego-Hernández, 2018).

Instructors implementing TBL in their classes could expect an increase in engagement, team process and application abilities, but not necessarily a magic bullet that will result in academic excellence.