Relinquishing Control

Here are some thoughts from 2011, 2.5 months into the grand TBL experiment:
Team-based learning is not for every faculty member. It takes a certain temperament. Faculty who are comfortable with students, who are willing and able to speak and act informally in a classroom setting, will find the transition to team-based learning relatively trouble-free. Faculty who already have their students work in groups during class will find team-based learning simply allows them to give more emphasis to collaboration.
Perhaps fifteen years ago, I taught for the first time in a computer lab staffed by an educational technologist (at another institution). I had to get accustomed to the presence of a non-student, a colleague who would be there listening to me as I taught, who would at times step in and assist students during class. With team-based learning, I have had to make another adjustment. There are times when the students are working productively in teams, and I have (dare I say it?) nothing to do. Well, not quite nothing--I keep tabs on the teams, ready to visit them when they have questions that no one in the team can answer. Often I work on handouts for the upcoming weeks or the next readiness assessment test, mainly so that I can keep busy while I wait for the students to finish teaching one another.
Like all faculty, I have a territorial instinct when I am teaching, that old this-is-my-classroom, this-is-my-class-period feeling, and only a certain amount of tolerance for straying off-topic/off-purpose. But team-based learning is teaching me to loosen up.