ADAPTING TEAM-BASED LEARNING IN A MATHEMATICS COURSE FOR COMPUTER ENGINEERING STUDENTS Birgit R. Krogstie, Kirsti E. Berntsen and Anette Wrålsen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) For computer engineering students, mathematics is fundamental. However, it is a subject with a high failure rate, and mathematics anxiety is common, also in STEM. To provide students with a working knowledge of mathematics valuable for a computer engineer, learning experiences should promote conceptual understanding of mathematical ideas and the ability to discuss mathematical problems and solutions. Collaborative learning may promote such learning outcomes. In this study, we investigate the use of a modified team based learning (TBL) approach in a second year mathematics course. The implementation aimed to promote collaborative learning through group work, but did not include formalized peer assessment and competition between groups. Six students were interviewed in depth about their experiences from the course. The study sheds light on the balance between providing flexibility to accommodate students’ individual needs and preferences, and imposing the structure needed to achieve the intended collaboration. Issues of preparation, attendance and freeloading are discussed. As an implication for higher IT education, we propose the use of TBL in mathematics courses to encourage students’ conceptual understanding through structured group work. We provide a set of lessons learned as advice for such implementation. 1 INTRODUCTION For computer engineering students, mathematics is fundamental. However, some students approach it with apprehension, and the failure rate is high. Even in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) study programs, mathematics anxiety is found to be common, with no clear correlation between mathematical performance and mathematics anxiety (Dowker et al. 2016). To provide a working knowledge of mathematics valuable for a computer engineer, we tried out a novel approach in a mathematics course in the autumn of 2016. With several approaches to collaborative and active learning to choose from, and a student group used to the format of traditional lectures followed by exercises, we chose a modification of Team Based Learning (TBL). The goal was to achieve learning experiences that would promote conceptual understanding of mathematical ideas and the ability to discuss mathematical problems and solutions. While the TBL approach has proven itself over several decades especially in the medical disciplines, it is less common in mathematics. This paper reports on our exploratory approach to trying the modified TBL in a six-week discrete mathematics module in a mathematics course for computer engineering students. The lecturer wanted to try out flipped classroom along with the preparation tests and the group activities of TBL, with the objective to promote discussions and active learning in class. Our research objective was to answer the question: How will the students respond to an adapted version of TBL in mathematics? We approached this on the basis of students’ responses to a short survey, interviews with 6 students and the lecturer’s notes on the experience. The lecturer is one of the authors of this paper, but she did not participate in our data gathering. Further guiding the research were a set of issues that the lecturer was uncertain about at the outset: ● How would the students collaborate in their new groups? ● Would the students see collaborating on mathematics problems as an unnecessary overhead, with the result that they just divided the work between them, working separately rather than together? ● Would a fairly structured teacher-led design like this be perceived as restrictive with respect to their usual work process, as the students are used to more autonomy? ● Would the tests lead to negative stress rather than the intended motivation to prepare? ● Would it be possible to design group activities that work well with the TBL setup, while also achieving the desired learning outcomes? The paper is organized as follows. In Ch2 we provide some background on collaborative learning, challenges to organizing learning in groups along with the orthodox (evidence based) version of TBL and give an