Team-Based Learning for Health Professions Education: A Guide to Using Small Groups for Improving Learning

Education in the health professions is placing greater emphasis on “active” learning–learning that requires applying knowledge to authentic problems; and that teaches students to engage in the kind of collaboration that is expected in today’s clinical practice.

Team-Based Learning (TBL) is a strategy that accomplishes these goals. It transforms passive, lecture-based coursework into an environment that promotes more self-directed learning and teamwork, and makes the classroom come “alive.”

This book is an introduction to TBL for health profession educators. It outlines the theory, structure, and process of TBL, explains how TBL promotes problem solving and critical thinking skills, aligns with the goals of science and health courses, improves knowledge retention and application, and develops students as professional practitioners. The book provides readers with models and guidance on everything they need to know about team formation and maintenance; peer feedback and evaluation processes, and facilitation; and includes a directory of tools and resources.

The book includes chapters in which instructors describe how they apply TBL in their courses. The examples range across undergraduate science courses, basic and clinical sciences courses in medical, sports medicine and nursing education, residencies, and graduate nursing programs. The book concludes with a review and critique of the current scholarship on TBL in the health professions, and charts the needs for future research.

Larry K. Michaelsen is Professor of Management at Central Missouri State University and is David Ross Boyd Professor Emeritus at the University of Oklahoma, a Carnegie Scholar, a Fulbright Senior Scholar and former Editor of the Journal of Management Education. He is active in faculty and staff development activities and has conducted workshops on teaching effectively with small groups in a wide variety of university and, corporate settings. Dr. Michaelsen has also received numerous college, university and national awards for his outstanding teaching and for his pioneering work in two areas. One is the development of Team-Based Learning, a comprehensive small-group based instructional process that is now being used in over 80 academic disciplines and on over 200 campuses in the US and in eight foreign countries. The other is an Integrative Business Experience (IBE) program that links student learning in three core courses to their experience in creating and operating an actual start-up business whose profits are used to fund a hands-on community service project.

Dean X. Parmelee is Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Wright State University's Boonshoft School of Medicine. He has fostered the use and development of Team-Based Learning throughout his school's curriculum, conducted numerous faculty development programs on TBL around the country, and was appointed 2006-07 Chair of the TBL Collaborative.

Ruth E. Levine is the Clarence Ross Miller Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch, and the Inaugural Director of UTMB's Academy of Master Teachers. As a national consultant for the Team Based-Learning Collaborative, she has assisted numerous faculty in a variety of disciplines develop and establish team-based learning programs.

Kathryn K. McMahon is Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock Texas. She is active in teaching and oversight of the medical curriculum with particular emphasis on teaching basic sciences to health care professional trainees. She presents workshops and presentations on teaching modalities and curriculum issues at national and international conferences. Dr. McMahon is a past-Chair of the Team-Based Learning Collaborative, a national organization of health professional educators who use Team-Based Learning.

Diane M. Billings is Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus, Indiana University School of Nursing, Indianapolis.