Dear Karla, I'm trying to overcome this kind of problem by placing a lot of stress to the students in terms of the process being as valuable (if not more so) than the end result. We also struggle with the Friday afternoon placement, but I want them to be able to see that getting points shouldn't be the only motivator. By stressing what they're getting - critical thinking skills, overview of relevant concepts (that are of course examinable), basic communication and team interaction skills, etc., it seems to be possible to move - at least some of them - past the "I'm not getting points therefore I won't do it" type thinking. In our Microbiology course, the TBL is a small, 5%, contribution to their final grade. During the TBL sessions, the students first work-through a case-based exercise, where they have to order virtual lab tests to help with the diagnosis, followed by a second exercise. From the second exercise they are required to submit material to the course management system - be it a concept map, poster-mockup, table in MS Word, etc. I then review the submitted material from the 56 teams and post the top five submitted items for the class to see. The incentive of being identified as "the best" seems to help with the motivational aspect. The class also identified "regular attendance" as part of the peer evaluation which additionally helps. In a class of 395 students, our attendance for the TBL sessions is probably close to 100%. Joanna ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ J.C. Rayner, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Microbiology Department of Microbiology, School of Medicine, St. George's University, Grenada, West Indies. Tel: (00) 1 473 444 4175 Ext. 2100 Fax: (00) 1 473 439 1845 Email: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________