“The cooperative nature of TBL inspires medical students to develop their communication and partnership skills, providing a beneficial learning experience.” ²

“There are 2 important realities in medical education: differentiating subtle differences between 2 diseases and being able to quickly diagnose the correct form of that disease suffered by a patient.³ These concepts translate directly to pharmacy education, as students need to recognize subtle differences among medications in pharmacotherapy practice and quickly apply that information to a patient.”

“In traditionally structured pharmacokinetics courses, the content is typically taught in a lecture-based format, with students subsequently using the content in either an applied pharmacokinetic course, therapeutics course, or during experiential training. Delaying students’ opportunity to learn how to use the content does not fit well with how adults learn best.³Adults tend to learn what is most immediately important to them because it is relevant and has high value; they consequently will pay minimal attention to information not perceived to be valuable based on lack of immediate relevance.⁴ Authentic problem-solving is one of the well-supported instructional techniques to promote critical thinking, as are step-by-step guided practice, structured collaboration, communication, and formative feedback.⁵ These are all components of team-based learning (TBL).”

“According to a 2011 survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the top 5 skills desirable to future employers are verbal communication skills and the ability to make decisions, solve problems, plan and organize work, and obtain and process information.⁶ The 2010 survey tool included work ethic, initiative, interpersonal skills, and teamwork within their top 10 skills. These findings are congruent with the beliefs of pharmacy educators⁷ and current accreditation standards. TBL is 1 strategy that may facilitate student development of the skills necessary to meet the needs of the job market. This strategy also may address the aforementioned modalities to learn calculations, estimations, and concepts.”³

“Key benefits to this pedagogy are student engagement, improved communication skills, and enhanced critical-thinking abilities. In most cases student satisfaction and academic performance are also noted.”¹

“As practitioners and faculty members responsible for teaching an endocrine course to third-year pharmacy students using a lecture-based approach, we became dissatisfied with the students' ability to think critically and apply information to patient cases during class and to live patient interactions during their advanced pharmacy practice experiences. We were concerned that we were developing passive learners dependent on faculty members to evaluate, synthesize, organize, package, and deliver information for them. How was this approach going to develop the “lifelong learners” required in the ACPE Accreditation Standards.”

“TBL advocates self-directed learning of course content and student application of this new knowledge within small collaborative teams and full classroom discussions; thus, promoting both low and high-level learning.⁸ TBL requires constant student preparation, attendance, and participation and gives students the opportunity to learn from their peers as well as how to work and negotiate within a team using features such as self- and peer evaluation.”

“Overall, students performed similarly or better on unit examinations and achieved higher grades in the course as a whole when it has been delivered in the TBL format. Notably, there were higher percentages (23% in 2006 compared to 9.5% for 2003) of students earning a letter grade of A and no students with failing grades (D or F) in the course after transitioning to the TBL format.”⁴