Another suggestion to add on: When the students do an end-of-unit assessment, does it assess their application skills? If the RATs show when students are ready to move on to working on applications, and if applications are the important part of the course learning, then end-of-unit assessments where they show evidence of their application skills will reward those who stayed to work on their application skills in class. The first end-of-unit assessment can be very instructive about what they need to "practice" to be ready for their assessments. Hopefully, fewer of them will choose to "go out for ice cream" after the RATS. Kathy kathy ross instructional technologist center for teaching, learning, and assessment indiana university kokomo 2300 s washington kokomo, in 46904-9003 765.455.9392 [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> From: Team Learning Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kubitz, Karla Sent: Monday, July 21, 2008 3:10 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Advice? Hi all, You've probably seen an e-mail or two from me about my Friday afternoon (1-3:40pm) class. I'd had trouble with them leaving after the RATs. Anyway, I'd like to ask for some advice. I'm considering two options related to that class. The first would be to continue as it's presently set up... RATs, followed by minilecture, followed by application exercises all in one afternoon. I have 9 RATs. I also have 3 classes w/o RATs that are for integrative application exercises. It takes the whole class period for those. The change would be that I'd put some points on the application exercises (where I didn't before). The other option is to restructure... fewer RATs (maybe 6), bit longer reading assignments, bit longer RATs (they were 12 questions) and then give more integrative assignments on the other days and give points for those. Any suggestions will be appreciated. Karla Karla Kubitz, Ph.D., FACSM Department of Kinesiology Towson University 8000 York Rd Towson, MD 21252 410-704-3168 (ph) 410-704-3912 (fax)