Combining Media and Team-Based Learning Application Exercises to Engage Students

This article shows ways in which media (podcasts and videos) and Team-Based Learning (TBL) application exercises can be combined to engage students and provide real-world applications in both principles of microeconomics and environmental economics courses. TBL is a student-centered teaching strategy that harnesses the power of peer learning through permanent teams (Michaelsen & Sweet, 2004). Within TBL, 4-S application exercises are used to attain an in-depth understanding of course materials. Teams work on the same and significant problem, faced specific choices, and report their choice simultaneous. These problems typically include multiple defensive answers that are assessed based on the argumentation and on how students use economics to defend the choice. These exercises result in diverse choices that spark great discussions as teams or students defend their choices. While these application exercises are typically used in a TBL context, they can be employed within other teaching styles and can be completed individually. In this article, I show how these TBL exercises can be designed around media such as podcasts (e.g. NPR Planet Money and the Indicator), and videos (e.g. TED Talks) in both principles of microeconomics and environmental economics to demonstrate the applicability of economics and its connections to relevant current events and students’ lives. I offer evidence that these media have been well-received by students from end-of-the-semester official and anonymous course evaluations.