Facilitate Like a Jazz Musician: 3 Improvisation Skills for Navigating Complex TBL Session

Vanesse Tang Jia Yi

Sep 16, 2026 • 3min read

No matter how carefully you plan a Team-Based Learning (TBL) session, the discussion will not always go as expected.

A few students may dominate the conversation. Teams may agree too quickly. An interesting question may take the discussion away from the intended learning objective.

In these moments, facilitators need to decide when to step in, when to ask another question, and when to simply let students work through the issue themselves. Interestingly, this is an aspect of TBL facilitation that’s similar to jazz.

Jazz musicians may improvise in the moment, but they do so by drawing on practiced techniques, careful listening, and experience. TBL facilitators can develop these same skills to navigate the complexities of classroom discussion.

In this blog, we’ll explore three improvisation skills that can help facilitators respond more effectively to what happens in the room.

Improvisation Skill #1: Build Your Repertoire

Jazz musicians do not improvise from nothing. Over time, they build a collection of familiar musical ideas or “licks” that they can draw on and adapt depending on the moment.

TBL facilitators can build a similar repertoire of techniques for guiding discussion. The TBL Facilitation Grid offers one way to do this by organizing different facilitation moves around three broad stages of discussion: Discovery, Examination, and Commitment.

TBL Facilitation Grid (By Loretta Whitehorne, Larry Michaelsen and Jim Sibley)

Rather than following the grid from beginning to end, educators can use it to consider what the discussion needs at a particular moment.

Do students need help exploring an idea more deeply? Is it time to examine and challenge their reasoning? Or do they need support connecting different ideas and arriving at meaningful takeaways?

The goal is not to use every technique in every session, but to build a broad enough repertoire to respond effectively to different facilitation challenges as they arise.

The grid gives facilitators a range of possible moves for each of these situations. Over time, educators can become more familiar with these techniques and draw on them more instinctively as different facilitation challenges arise.

Improvisation Skill #2: Develop Your Own Educator Voice

In jazz, different musicians can perform the same piece, or even play the same instrument, and still sound completely different. Over time, each develops a distinctive voice, shaped by how they interpret, respond, and make choices in the moment.

The same is true for TBL facilitation. There is no single “right” way to facilitate a discussion. Some educators may naturally be more comfortable asking probing questions, while others may be particularly good at summarizing ideas, drawing connections between teams, or challenging assumptions.

The goal is not to copy another facilitator’s style, but to understand your own. You can consider which behaviors on the TBL Facilitation Grid already fit naturally into the way you teach, and which ones may require more deliberate practice.

Expanding your repertoire in this way can help you develop a facilitation style that feels authentic while giving you more ways to respond when discussions become challenging.

Improvisation Skill #3: Learn to Accompany, Not Always Lead

In jazz, the musician who is not soloing still plays an important role. Good accompaniment means listening closely, supporting the lead musician, and knowing when to contribute without taking over.

TBL facilitators can take a similar approach. Rather than stepping in with an explanation every time students hesitate or ask a question, educators can create space for teams to work through their reasoning themselves.

This might mean listening for misconceptions, asking a follow-up question, inviting another team to respond, or simply allowing a discussion to continue a little longer before intervening.

The key is to stay actively engaged without becoming the main voice in the room. Sometimes, the most effective facilitation move is knowing when to step back and let students lead the learning.

Keep Developing Your Improvisational Skills

Like jazz, effective TBL facilitation is something that develops with practice. The more educators build their repertoire, become comfortable with their own facilitation style, and learn when to lead or step back, the more confidently they can navigate the unexpected moments that arise during discussion.

To explore these ideas in greater depth, you can watch the full Jazz and TBL: Improvisation Skills for Facilitating Great Sessions workshop recording below. You can also join the InteDashboard TBL Community, where 700+ fellow TBL educators connect to exchange ideas, share classroom experiences, ask questions, and learn from one another.

Testimonials

Dr. Julie M Estis Associate Professor University of South Alabama

"Outstanding tool for face-to-face, web-blended and fully online TBL courses! We've been using InteDashboard across several TBL classes at the University of South Alabama and are consistently impressed with the tool as well as the exceptional support from the team. We look forward to increasing utilization of InteDashboard through our campus-wide project."

Dr. Sandy Cook Professor Emeritus, TBL Consultant, TBLC-APC Committee Chairperson Formerly from Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School

"The administrative challenges behind TBL are often viewed as a major barrier to effective implementation. InteDashboard is the only technological solution that puts it all together, allowing the faculty to focus on creating the learning environment - not fumbling with papers, grading and pulling data from different sources."

Dr. John Chapman Assistant Professor Southern Virginia University

"I'm convinced, and I've done a fair amount of looking over the past few years to identify an online quizzing/survey tool that allows for individual question submission and real-time feedback (especially for the TRAT). InteDashboard really is the premier solution in this category. Bar none. Hands down."

Dr. Jennifer Styron Assistant Professor Eastern Virginia Medical School

"Ability to get real-time data on RAT test items during teaching and save this information (i.e. scores on assessments) has made the tool an essential element to my everyday online teaching."

Dr. Judy Currey Professor Deakin University

"I love having real time access to my students performance data and knowing exactly what concepts have or haven’t been understood while they complete their IRATs and TRATs! InteDashboard has significantly enhanced the ease and effectiveness with which I prepare for, and teach in, my TBL classes at Deakin."

Dr. Tom DeWitt Professor Michigan State University

"Overall, I’ve been really pleased with how InteDashboard has elevated the ability to engage students in Team-based learning."

Victor Holmes Assistant Professor University of North Texas Health Science Center

"The InteDashboard platform is unique in what it offers for educators and learners. The ability to interact, work with the quizzes easily, and general functionality of the program are key features not to miss. I have been able to create a more experiential learning environment allowing learners to immediately dive into experiences that simulate real clinical challenges. It was also easy to integrate into Canvas, and students enjoy having the computer version for their groups."

Dr. Sarada Harichand Bulchand Lead Associate Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School

"InteDashboard is a fantastic and very useful platform to conduct classes in a team-based learning setting, probably because it has all the features that team-based learning requires. The features on InteDashboard are so nuanced that they help in enhancing the learning of students, which is the core objective that the educators try to achieve from TBL methodology."

Matthew Robson Senior Learning Designer Macquarie University

"The feature which we find most valuable is the automated grading and item analysis dashboards. They effectively provide staff and students within information that help inform what the clarification session should address. Also, the InteDashboard team provides great support. The team has been responsive to our feedback when we have asked for a possible enhancement to their tool in the past!"

Dr. Chitra Pai Professor Touro University College of Osteopathic Medicine

"The support staff was prompt when we were in the initial phase of integrating it into Canvas. It provided the benefits of graded IRAT and TRAT and was really a seamless way to provide active learning in an online environment."

Tanya Bomsta Curriculum Project Manager The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy

"Tech support is great, the software is easy to use and learn, online TBL is awesome (and helpful in this time of the pandemic), and the ability for easy peer review is stellar."

Dr. Grady Campbell Professor Nova Southeastern University

"Student evaluations were higher the semester we used InteDashboard than the previous semesters we held TBL in in-person setting."

Russell Marcus Department Chair & Associate Professor Hamilton College

"The great advantage of InteDashboard is that it is a single platform for RATs, peer evaluation, and 4S activities."

Hillel W. Cohen, Dr.P.H. Professor Associate Director of Curriculum, Clinical Research Training Program Albert Einstein College of Medicine

"InteDashboard allowed a seamless transition from paper-pencil response forms to electronic response."

Michael E. Woods, Ph.D. Associate Professor Pathology & Director of Research Laboratories Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine

"InteDashboard gives me the ability to run online TBLs with ease. The interface is intuitive for faculty and students and matches what we would have done in the classroom."

Paul Mcdermott Senior Lecturer University of East Anglia School of Pharmacy

"I have recommended the product to many people already. It is a very versatile product with features that can be applied across a wide range of pedagogies. I have presented this tool to my school not just as a TBL tool but also a way to collect and analyse MCQ data and as a way to facilitate group learning and peer evaluation."

Steve Schneid Managing Director University of California

"I just want to say I love InteDashboard, and it is an integral part of my teaching!"

Dr. Simon Twedell Professor of Pharmacy Education University of Bradford

"It’s more sustainable now – there's less printing, less admin work, and saves a lot of time."

Dr. Gemma Quinn Associate Professor in Clinical Pharmacy University of Bradford

“InteDashboard has made a huge difference. We could have gone back to the way things were before we started using the software, but it would have been an absolute nightmare. The platform is great – it’s all in one place!”

Dr. Steve Cayzer Director of Studies in Mechanical Engineering University of Bath

"I think the real-time dashboard is just really, really, good. It just works. Recently, I used the histograms and answers feature that you can present to students during the RAT debrief – I found that a very useful way of presenting the results!”

Dr. Zachary Noel Assistant Professor University of Maryland School of Pharmacy

“Because InteDashboard is entirely built for TBL, you don't have to fiddle with a lot of settings and multiple softwares, so that certainly saves time. And now that we're in our third year of using InteDashboard, we're able to copy the activities from the prior years and use those, so that has certainly saved time as well!"

Dr. Suzan Kamel-ElSayed Associate Professor in the Department of Foundational Medical Studies Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine

"It was very, very easy for us. When comparing what we did before using InteDashboard, with what we have now with InteDashboard - it has been really easy for us. Everything is available on one platform!"

Elias Villarreal, Jr., DMSc, PA-C, DFAAPA Associate Dean & Founding Program Director, Professor of Family Medicine University of California San Diego

"InteDashboard has been invaluable to our TBL process!"

Theresa C. Stowell Director for Phase 1 Program / Director for Curricular Design and Innovation SUNY Upstate Medical University

"InteDashboard is a great tool and we look forward to continuing to work with you. We appreciate working with the InteDashboard team and how well you have responded to our feature requests."

Gastón Mousques Chair of Software Engineering Universidad ORT Uruguay

"Intedashboard, in general, took my experience of teaching using TBL to another level, especially in hybrid classes. I really like the real-time information it provides about students, immediate responses, the orderly management of clarification requests, and the e-gallery mode for application exercises."

Daniel Moraga Profesor of Physiology University of Tarapacá

"I really like Intedashboard because its software is the perfect blend of a user-friendly environment and robust enough to fully manage all stages of teamwork using TBL. It's also highly stable and has enough space to manage all TBL materials."

Diane Webb Deputy PG Team Lead and Programme Leader – Specialist Mental Health Pharmacist Pathway Associate Professor in Pharmacy Practice (SFHEA) University of Bradford - School of Pharmacy

"I love InteDashboard’s instant report, and details of how students have performed. The flexibility of ability of providing synchronous and asychronous learning is what I need for distance learning students."

Carolyn Williams Assistant Professor of Law University of North Dakota - School of Law

"What I love about InteDashboard is that it allows me to administer individual readiness assurance tests (iRATs) without students seeing their score, while still letting them view their individual responses during the team test (tRAT). This feature has made a significant difference in how my students engage during team discussions. When I used other learning management systems like Canvas, DTL Brightspace, and Blackboard, students could always see their scores immediately after the iRAT—even though they couldn't see which answers were correct or incorrect. This often led to high-scoring students simply sharing their answers during the team test, which short-circuited the deeper, collaborative learning process that team-based learning is designed to support. With InteDashboard, students come to the tRAT ready to discuss and defend their reasoning, which leads to much richer conversations and better learning outcomes."

Danna Young Director of Academic Support and Bar Success Services University of Arkansas Little Rock - William H. Bowen School of Law

"It is fairly easy to navigate. Most of all, however, I have been completely impressed with how responsive the support staff has been to students and to instructors. I have had a fantastic experience with the software."

Brandy Fentress Assessment and Evaluation Coordinator Belmont University - Thomas F. Frist, Jr. College of Medicine

"The customer service at InteDashboard is superb; they are super responsive to emails, and all difficulties we have had have been resolved quickly and efficiently. The reps are also very willing to receive feedback about new features that would be helpful."