Allyson,

I have a couple of suggestions to address your issue:

- Stress the importance of attendance and on-time arrival as it relates to the group, not the individual. Remind them that the group depends on their attendance and contributions to help ensure their success.
- Reward on-time performance with points. I found that my attendance and late arrival problems nearly disappeared once I dedicated 5% of the student grade to on-time class arrival (not attendance, as late students would be included). I project the full-screen view of the time provided by timeanddate.com on the screen prior to the beginning of class and check off students as they arrive. Once the time for the beginning of class appears (e.g., 8:00 a.m.), I announce that it's time to start class and I stop recording who has arrived.
- If students don't take the IRA or are absent for the day, they receive a '0' for both the IRA and the TRA, unless they have a medical excuse, as students should not get credit for something they didn't participate in. If they have a medical excuse, I allow them to retake the IRA, but exclude the TRA from their grade calculation.

I hope this helps!

Cheers, Tom

On 9/2/2011 6:52 AM, Brown, Allyson wrote:
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I plan on teaching an Algebra 2 course using the TBL model in a high school setting.  Students are generally very good about coming to class; however, they occasioanlly miss class because of illness.  How should I handle these students?  Should I not give them team points for the day?  I don't think I can give them the quiz after the fact as they are prone to "help" each other out on these sort of make up assessments.
 
I am also looking for some help from any other high school math teachers that may have done this with their kids.  What sort of group assignments did you give?

I am very excited to try this.  I have been teaching the same way for 17 years and I think a little shake up is needed...
Many thanks in advance.
Sincerely,
Allyson


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