FROM MEDICINE TO ENGINEERING, TO HUMANITIES AND BEYOND: A SHARING ON HOW TO DISSEMINATE AN INNOVATIVE PEDAGOGY TO THE WHOLE UNIVERSITY, ONE COURSE AT A TIME

Team Based Learning (TBL) is the pedagogy of choice at the newly created Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine) of the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

Right at the outset, it was the remit of LKCMedicine to be the incubator of innovative pedagogies, and to share these innovations with the rest of the university. TBL, after being tried out from academic year (AY) 2013, was deemed ready to roll out in phases to the rest of the university from AY2015 onwards.

The university took on 2 approaches simultaneously, a top-down approach, where specific programmes were targeted for conversion to Team Based Learning; and a bottom-up approach, where any professor from any discipline and who is interested is encouraged to convert to TBL. In both cases, support in terms of pedagogical training, and in deploying online resources. As the top-down approach has specific and higher targets, more support is provided.

Currently, TBL is being used in modules as diverse as Leadership, Languages, Research Methods, Astronomy, Education, etc. across at least 10 different schools, centres and programmes.

This paper tackles the challenges, strategies, success factors and outcomes of our experience in disseminating the pedagogy amidst a diverse disciplinary landscape.