Promoting Adoption of Team-Based Learning Pedagogy in College Economics Classes

Pacific University, Forest Grove OR

Investigators

Abstract

This project will increase the use of Team-Based Learning (TBL) teaching practices in introductory economics courses. Team-Based Learning has been successful at improving student learning outcomes in several other STEM disciplines, but has had limited use in economics. One key project focus is to study the impact of this approach on the learning outcomes of underrepresented minorities and first-generation college students. The project will train faculty members to implement TBL via face-to-face and online active-learning workshops; empirically test the efficacy of TBL pedagogy in a variety of institutional settings, including public, private, four-year, two-year, and minority-serving institutions; and importantly will create an online library of TBL Application Exercises (AE) that economics instructors can freely adopt or adapt for use in their classrooms. The TBL Application Exercises and tools promoting their classroom use will be part of a new pedagogic module in the existing "Starting Point: Economics online pedagogic portal" previously created in collaboration with the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College with NSF support. In the second year, the project will focus on outreach. Assisted by its advisory board, the project will conduct webinars, regional workshops, and conference presentations to introduce economics instructors to TBL methodology and promote contributions to the AE library at the Starting Point site. The PIs will continue to manage the Starting Point site and AE submission process after NSF support for the project ends. Undergraduate level TBL pedagogy has been used for several decades in other disciplines, achieving increased student learning and engagement, particularly by women and under-represented minorities. TBL is generally used as a whole-course pedagogy that overlaps with other active learning strategies. It employs techniques that embody recent research findings in cognitive psychology about how students learn best, including engaging students actively with the material under study, requiring frequent retrieval of recently acquired information, spacing out study, and encouraging a growth mindset. TBL is particularly promising for economics classrooms because of the potential to engage students in predicting future trends, diagnosing current problems, and making policy recommendations. TBL experts serve on the advisory board, including the TBL founder, and will provide valuable feedback on project initiatives and progress. The Science Education Resource Center (SERC) is a partner in the project; SERC has extensive experience supporting web-based NSF projects. The project includes a development team representing a wide array of higher education institutions, including one HBCU and five two-year colleges. The project also builds on previous NSF-funded projects led by the project co-PIs (Awards 0088303, 0411037, 0817382, and 1245802) promoting evidence-based teaching in economics and NSF-funded projects led by one of the co-PIs (Awards 1043245, 1238279, and 1522234) supporting community college instructor use of these practices in economics.