TBL Fridays: Using team-based learning to engage in policy debates in an introductory class

Abstract

Team-based Learning (TBL) has sound conceptual and empirical backing and is seeing growing partial and full adoption in economics. However, perceived implementation costs and risk remain high for many instructors wary of fully implementing TBL. Additionally, common economics problems are often ill-suited for TBL application exercise criteria. The author of this article describes partial implementation (one day per week) of TBL in an introductory class. Application exercises are built around policy questions that align with TBL question criteria while still working effectively in the economics classroom. The partial implementation and readily available resources offer instructors a low-cost way to experiment with TBL.