Implementing Interprofessional Team-Based Learning

High quality clinical care is most optimally delivered not by individuals but by teams (e.g. nurses, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, physicians, social workers, etc.) where good communication and team facilitation is achieved.  Unfortunately, clinical education, including nurse practitioner education, tends to focus on individual performance such as testing.  Team-based learning (TBL) is an innovative teaching method which allows students to apply concepts rather than just learn about them.  This teaching methodology shifts the role and function of the students from passive recipients of information to active learners responsible for application of knowledge to a variety of problems.  TBL promotes active participation through out of class preparation and team discussion.  Furthermore, the TBL method allows a single faculty member to conduct multiple small groups simultaneously to a large group of students in the same classroom.  TBL also allows for assessment of both individual and team performance.  This presentation will focus on a basic overview of TBL and our experience with incorporation of this teaching modality into our nurse practitioner program.  We incorporated TBL sessions into a 70 student, blended applied-pharmacology course.  Our TBL sessions were also conducted to our regional campuses through our real-time, distance-learning technology.  The TBL sessions were conducted in an interprofessional manner (i.e. nurse practitioner, physician and clinical pharmacist), to promote a more realistic view of teamwork and collaboration.  Lastly, we will share the results of our study findings of student perception and satisfaction of this learning modality in the nurse practitioner curriculum.