This teaching strategy is based on the book Team-Based Learning: A Transformative Use of Small Groups in College Teaching, edited by Larry K. Michaelsen, Arletta B. Knight, and L. Dee Fink (Stylus Publishing, 2004).

This website and online videos explaining what team-based learning is all about. This is the website of the authors of Team-Based Learning: A Transformative Use of Small Groups in College Teaching at Oklahoma University.

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As explained by the Oklahoma University group, two features distinguish Team-Based Learning from other forms of teaching with small groups and make it an especially powerful form of teaching and learning:

"TEAMS" are distinct from and more powerful than "GROUPS"

• When a teacher initially puts students into a group, the students are a "group," not a "team."
• As the students begin to trust each other and develop a commitment to the goals and welfare of the group, they become a team.
• When they become a cohesive team, the team can do things that neither a single individual nor a newly-formed group can do.
• Team-based learning starts with groups and then creates the conditions that enable them to become teams.

The elements of the TBL STRATEGY are mutually self-supporting; hence, the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts

• Appropriately forming teams ensures that they will have the resources needed to complete assignments that are difficult enough to produce significant learning.
• Using an appropriate grading system provides incentives for individual pre-class preparation and for expending time and effort on behalf of their team.
• Using the Readiness Assurance Process ensures that students will complete pre-class assignments so that they are prepared for in-class team work.
• Using effective application-focused team assignments both builds team cohesiveness and rewards students for taking responsibility for their own pre-class preparation.