**Information for Non-VIU Guest Registrants**
August 14-16, 2019 | Vancouver Island University | Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada
Tine Reimers and Bill Roberson of Vancouver Island University, and Jim Sibley of University of British Columbia will be your facilitators for the Institute. As users of Team-Based Learning (TBL) and authors of numerous TBL publications, they have coached hundreds of post-secondary instructors in the use of the TBL model, throughout North and South America, as well as in Asia.
The Vancouver Island Team-Based Learning Institute is an opportunity for faculty in post-secondary institutions to conceive and (re)design one of their courses using the Team-Based Learning (TBL) model. Developed by organizational behaviour specialist Larry K. Michaelsen, TBL is a teaching method that fosters greater student independence and personal responsibility for learning. In any discipline and with any content. The key is a simple, coherent set of instructional protocols that, when adopted consistently, ensure that all the forces for engagement are aligned for high-level learning and critical thinking. For a brief summary of TBL, please visit our web page on the TBL Method.
Participants in the Team-Based Learning Institute will learn reliable ways to ensure student buy-in and productive interactions. TBL practices are specifically designed to eliminate the most common types of less-than-productive student behaviour, such as failing to prepare, social loafing, reluctance to participate or dominance by strong personalities during discussions.
What are Faculty saying about Team-Based Learning?
- “For the first time my students are consistently coming to class prepared.”
- “It’s fun to set students loose on a problem, then stand back and watch them go at it.”
- “I used to hate teaching this course because the content was so dry. Now I’m enjoying it, and my students are really getting into it.”
- “The other day I went 20 minutes over the scheduled class time, and NO ONE said anything, they were THAT engaged!”
- “The most interesting change in student behaviour was the fact that every day that I arrived they had already organized the tables into teams and were studying together.”
- “My students tell me I’m like a new teacher. My whole outlook on teaching has changed!”
Registration Page
To make a request to participate in the Vancouver Island TBL Institute, please visit our registration page.
What will happen in the TBL Institute?
Participants will…
- Experience a live TBL classroom. Day One of the Institute simulates the student experience in a TBL course
- Design and begin planning a course based on the use of TBL protocols and practices
- Experience and analyze examples of TBL-type classroom activities
- Practice designing TBL-type classroom activities
- Learn tools for and techniques for managing a TBL course
- Re-design a course outline (syllabus) for a TBL course, including appropriate policies and grading schemes.
- Receive feedback on draft TBL teaching plans
By the end of the events on August 14-16, you will have in your possession major components of your redesigned course, for the purposing of implementation in the Fall 2019 or Spring 2020 semester. You will also have a toolbox of key practices, and a reliable template for course outlines and assignments where students consistently take ownership of their learning.
A limited number of seats are available for guests (i.e., higher education teachers not currently faculty of Vancouver Island University).
Guest fees are $375 (CAD), which cover the two-day workshop (8:30 AM – 3:30 PM), materials, a light breakfast and lunch for the two workshop days, consultations and feedback on course design by veteran TBL practitioners, and a copy of Getting Started with Team-Based Learning (Sibley, Ostafichuk, Roberson and Franchini).
Schedule of Events
- Before August 14: complete a selection of readings, which will be distributed electronically
- August 14: Day One, face-to-face workshop: 8:30 AM – 3:30 PM
- August 15: Independent work (3-5 hours) to begin designing a course using TBL (at a location of your own choosing–space will be available on VIU campus)
- August 16: Day Two, face-to-face workshop: 8:30 AM – 3:30 PM
Steps
- Once we receive your request to participate and your registration information, we will follow up with you if we have questions, and to take care of administrative details.
- If you require accommodations for staying in Nanaimo during the workshop, check out this page with a list of hotels that are convenient to campus, as well as to ferries and seaplanes arriving from the city of Vancouver.
- Meanwhile, if you have questions about travel or administrative details, please contact Stephanie Didsbury at stephanie.didsbury@viu.ca or at (250) 740-6167
Questions
- If you have questions about the application process, or about the program, itself, please contact Tine Reimers at tine.reimers@viu.ca or Bill Roberson at bill.roberson@viu.ca
Photo Credit: Photo by Courtnie Tosana on Unsplash