The in-class part of a team-based learning session differs from other pedagogies and requires the person leading the session to play a different role than in a lecture or workshop. During the in-class session, the leader functions primarily as a facilitator of discussion between the teams and students. Occasionally, the leader will have to answer questions, clarify information or provide guidance for how to arrive at the correct answers to the questions.
When students arrive at the in-class session, they will already know on which team they are a member and where their team sits in the classroom. The first step for the session leader is to call the class to order and start the students on the readiness assessment quiz. Recall that students will first take the quiz as individuals. They can write their answers to the questions on a piece of paper or record them on their phone, iPad or computer. Students should be given about 1 minute per questions to finish the quiz.
Next, the students will work on the same questions in their teams. The teams should be given more time to finish the quiz to allow for opportunities to discuss the questions and arrive at a consensus answer. The teams will use the scratch-off cards to receive feedback on whether they have arrived at the correct answer.
After the teams have finished the quiz, the session leader will hold a discussion with the teams of each question. The goal of the discussion is to ensure that the teams and students understand the why one answer is correct or the best response for each question. Because the teams will use the scratch-off cards when answering the questions, all of them will arrive at the correct answer for each question. During the discussion, it's important to give teams the opportunity to explain their rationale if they first selected an incorrect response.
Following the discussion of the readiness assessment quiz, the teams will answer the application questions. Because these questions are more complicated than those in the readiness assessment quiz, the teams should be given more time to answer each of the application questions. Teams will discuss a question and select the answer they think best. After the discussion has ended, teams display their selection to the class by holding up a card that has the letter associated with their selection.
In this section, the session leader will facilitate a discussion amongst the teams of the application questions. The goals are to allow teams to explain their logic for selecting a particular answer to an application question and for the session leader to correct any misunderstanding of content or faulty reasoning. Teams should be given ample opportunity to explain their answers, both correct and incorrect. Before revealing the correct answer, the session leader should allow teams that have selected the incorrect answer to explain their choice. Teams that have selected the incorrect answer will be more forthcoming in their explanation if they still think their response is correct. During this part of the discussion, the session leader can correct any misunderstanding of content or faulty reasoning that led a team to select an incorrect answer.
Next, a team that has selected the correct answer explains its rationale. After the team has finished, the session leader can invite other teams to add to or clarify the first team's explanation. The session leader can also add or clarify points that were missed by the teams.
Lastly, the session leader should summarize the major take-home points from the question and subsequent discussion. Because the discussion can cover a lot of content and ways of thinking, it's important to remind students of the key concepts and logic that allows one to answer the question correctly