Dear Friends, I have a question about absent team members. In the past I've always given students the tRAT score from their team when they missed a RAT day and a 0 for the iRAT. I'm teaching the same 100 students in their second round of TBL and notice the same guys tend to skip class as the last time. My students had a tendency to be quite lenient on their peer evaluations, so the skippers got the team points and still got pretty good peer evaluations last year (with a few brave members commenting "you should come to class more" but still not lowering their scores much). I'm beginning to wonder if I should step in and say that absent students won't get the team score for the tRAT. The tRATs are what saved a few of them from failing last year. Am I teaching them that it's OK to be lazy and let your team take responsibility for it? Or should I be looking at the bigger picture that says, "See team! You have the power to let them sink or save them. It's up to you."--which is then teaching them the responsibility of being part of a team and what the real world is like. Hmmmmm. . . Please let me know what you think. Thanks! Christine -- ******* Christine Kuramoto, Assistant Professor: Medical English Kyushu University, Department of Medical Education Faculty of Medical Sciences 3-1-1 Maidashi, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka, 812-8582 Japan Phone: (+81)92-642-6186 Fax: (+81)92-642-6188 E-mail: [log in to unmask]