UTILIZING TEAM BASED LEARNING TO IMPROVE STUDENT’S ENGAGEMENT AND CRITICAL THINKING IN PHYSICAL GEOLOGY LECTURE

The Florida Gulf Coast University Whitaker Center for STEM Education, in collaboration with the Lucas Center for Faculty Development, has developed the SPARCT Program through NSF funding. This is a chance for faculty to participate in a STEM professional academy to reinvigorate the culture of teaching. As a result of this program lectures in an introductory general education course, Physical Geology, were modified through team base learn to become more interactive and student-centered. Although team base learn is a way of teaching, not an activity to be used in one class, the use of this method was chosen to help students better understand the different types of metamorphism. The classroom was set up with round tables to promote group interaction. Due to this room set up, students had numerous chances to work in groups before the team based learning exercise was given to them. Students were assigned a reading from their textbook as a homework, they also had to complete an on-line quiz previous to coming to class. Once in class, each student had to take a multiple choice quiz to assure their individual readiness (iRAT). After completing the quiz, students took the same quiz as a group (tRat). Once the groups were finished, they had time to appeal and the instructor had the opportunity to clarify any misconceptions through a mini lecture. During the appeal process students, as a group, could write a document that makes a case, supported with evidence, explaining why the answer for a specific question might not be right. Once this first phase of the iRAT was complete, all groups were given a topic related exercise to complete in-class. Than they had to report and defend their answers to the entire class. A few classes later, students were individually tested on the subject and provided with closure and reinforcement of all that was learned. The results of their grades show an improvement from iRAT to the test. Greater interactions between the students and increased discussion during class were also observed as a result of this exercise. Next step will be to teach team based learning for a whole semester to this course hoping to increase the development of student’s critical thinking and engagement during class.