Comparing the Effectiveness of Lecturing vs. Team-Based Learning for Teaching Introductory Criminology

As college classroom sizes increase and teaching resources, especially teaching assistants, decrease due to nationwide budget constraints in higher education, faculty are increasingly challenged with how to impart higher�]order learning skills on upper�]class college students in order to adequately prepare them for the workforce. The default technique for teaching under such conditions is to lecture, where the majority of class time is spent listening to the professor convey content with limited input from students (unless there are associated discussion/recitation sections). Critics of this approach argue that lecturing limits student�fs abilities to actively engage with the course material. In response, many large lecture classes incorporate personal response systems (�gclickers�h), two�]minute response papers, or �gthink�]pair�]share�h discussions to improve student engagement (Fies & Marshall, 2006; McKeachie, 2010; �gMonstrous Class Sizes Unavoidable at Colleges,�h 2007).