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Team Based Learning: For Teachers (Setting Up) - NEW UI

Julia
Updated

This article talks about a BETA version of the tool. If you're not a part of an institution that participates in the testing, please refer to the other article.

If you want to create a Team Based Learning activity, keep in mind that our TBL tool only facilitates two steps of the Team Based Learning method: the iRAT and the tRAT.

Introduction

In this article, we'll walk you through how to set up Team Based Learning from the perspective of a teacher.

If you'd like more information on how this tool works, check out:

 

Tool In Action

How this article is structured

Setting up an activity now follows three stages, shown in the bar at the top of the activity whenever you're in edit mode:

  1. Build activity — get an overview of your activity and add or remove steps.

  2. Edit steps — configure each step one at a time (instructions, feedback criteria, how students evaluate each other, anonymity, and visibility).

  3. Setup activity — set what applies to the whole activity: deadlines, grade weighting, and group settings.

This article follows that same order. Everything below describes what you can configure before the activity is published — students cannot access the activity at this stage. You can still edit some settings after publishing; however, once students start making progress, certain options lock to protect their work and data. Wherever that applies, we'll note it.

Note: When you open a published activity, you'll land on the Active Assignment view by default. To return to setup, click Edit in the upper-left corner. See the Active Assignment article.

Accessibility

We're devoted to making our tools as accessible as possible for all learners. To read more, see Accessibility: Within FeedbackFruits Tools.

 

Stage 1 — Build activity

This is your starting point. Here you see every step in the activity in order and can shape the activity before configuring the details.

Fig. 1: Build activity overview: Team Based Learning

A default Team Based Learning activity contains:

  1. Instructions (Read instructions)

  2. Individual Readiness Assessment Test (iRAT)

  3. Team Readiness Assessment Test (tRAT)

Adding steps. Use the learning-steps panel to add optional steps such as Interactive Study Material, or Group Member Evaluation. Click a step to add it, or drag it into the activity.

When your steps are in place, move to Edit steps to configure each one.

Stage 2 — Edit steps

Here you set up the activity step by step. Each step shows its own settings and a Student preview so you can see what learners will see. Collaboration settings live on the feedback step, so it's clear what each choice applies to.

Step 1: Instructions

Write the instructions students see when they open the activity. Type directly into the instructions field; the student preview updates alongside.

Fig. 2: Instructions step

 

Step 2: Individual Readiness Assessment Test (iRAT)

Within this step, add the questions you want students to answer. Click Start creating questions to begin. Only multiple choice questions can be added here, in line with the TBL method.

For each question, add the question text and all answer choices, then select which answer is correct.

Fig. 3: Individual readiness assessment test step

 

Step 3: Team Readiness Assessment Test (tRAT)

Continue adding all desired questions to complete the iRAT. Once all questions have been created, they're automatically added to the Team Readiness Assessment Test (tRAT) step, since students answer the same set of questions there.

During the iRAT, students answer the questions and the correct answer is not revealed. During the tRAT, all questions are automatically placed in scratch-off mode: students see whether their answer was correct, and if incorrect, are given another chance to answer — continuing until they select the correct answer.

Fig. 4: Team readiness assessment test step

 

Scratch-off mode

When scratch-off mode is enabled, multiple choice questions reveal only whether the selected answer is correct after submitting. This is also known as the Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique (IF-AT), a technique fundamental to the Team Based Learning pedagogy.

The pedagogy of scratch-off mode

If a selected answer is incorrect, this is revealed to the student, but the remaining answers stay veiled. This gives the student limited information that challenges them to carefully reconsider the false assumptions behind their previous choice. The student can retry with another answer but loses half of the available points; if correct, they keep the remaining 50% of the score. If they miss again, they lose half of the remaining score again, and so on, until the options are exhausted — no points are awarded for the last remaining answer, since choosing it is no better than guessing. This grading approach is known as decremental scoring and is integral to scratch-off questions.

Decremental scoring preview
 Fig. 5: Decremental scoring preview 

Decremental scoring creates an incentive structure that encourages students to be careful and deliberate in their judgment, while also motivating continued engagement after an initial wrong answer — unlike traditional multiple choice, where there's little incentive to keep engaging after a mistake. It rewards the skill of learning from failure and an attitude of willingness to change one's mind based on new evidence — skills considered critical for today's fast-paced job market and information economy.

Stage 3 — Setup activity

The final stage gathers the settings that apply to the whole activity — the ones you'll most often revisit. On the left you keep the step overview; on the right you set activity-wide options: Deadlines, and Grade weighting.

Fig. 6: Setup activity overview

Deadlines

Enable Steps have end dates, then set an end date per step in one place — the give-feedback deadline and the read-received-feedback deadline both live here. Leaving a deadline blank keeps that step open indefinitely.

Grade weighting

Enable Steps have grade weighting to assign a weight to each step (e.g. Read instructions, Take individual test, Take team test). Weights must total 100% — the panel shows a running Total grade weighting.

Additional grading options in Advanced settings:

  • Grade type — publish the grade as a Percentage or Pass/fail.

  • Require participation to receive a grade — if enabled, only students who open the learning activity receive a grade.

  • Schedule grade publish — automatically publish grades at a selected date, or auto-publish after completing graded steps (publishes a student's overall grade once they complete all graded steps).

  • Group Contribution Grading — for how this works, see Group Member Evaluation | Group Contribution Grading | Group Contribution Factor.

For more on the configurable grading module, see this article.

Groups

Because Team Based Learning is inherently a group activity, group selection matters: choose the group set and which groups participate here via the Group activity setting. For configuring groups inside Blackboard, Brightspace, or Canvas, see this article; if you can't sync groups from your LMS or you're using the platform directly, see this article.

Reminder: collaboration options (how students give feedback and to whom) must be set before students participate. Once a student makes progress, those configurations can't be changed.

When everything looks right, Save and publish.

 

Benefits when applied in Team Based Learning

Answering questions in teams brings valuable social dynamics. In regular multiple-choice settings, a dominant member often drives decisions, sidelining quieter members and their insights — limiting the team's full expertise. Enabling scratch-off mode turns initial failures into chances to rethink the process, encouraging quieter members to share their ideas. Dominant members learn to listen more and facilitate group input, while more introverted members gain confidence to contribute.

When team members are emotionally attached to their beliefs, the IF-AT format helps them practice changing views based on new evidence, reducing confrontation and encouraging open discussion. In Team Based Learning, this fosters teams where being right matters more than being polite. Over 20 years, Michaelsen (1989) found that 99.95% of TBL teams outperformed their best member, by 14% on average.

FeedbackFruits values flexible mindsets — such as changing opinions in light of new evidence — as vital to a healthy democracy. This focus on critical thinking is why we invest in Team Based Learning and include scratch-off questions across our tools.