Rich,

To address your first question, I'm not sure how you avoid preventing students from waiting until 24 hrs before a RAT to prepare. I'm afraid that procrastination is just the nature of the beast and the amount of preparation that you've asked of them may be significantly more than they are accustomed to in their other classes. You may want to reformulate your modules, so that the preparation load is decreased. Perhaps 7 - 8 modules, rather than 5. Alternatively, I found that providing review questions to guide their readings or viewing of videos combined with open notes RATS helps to reduce the incidents of people coming unprepared or trying to prepare at the last minute. This also helps to reward good study habits. I can recall students flipping through textbooks prior to class before I instituted this practice, but now students come with their notebooks filled with copious notes based on the review questions. I also remind students that the questions on the RATS come directly from the review questions, so their is even more incentive to use the review questions when preparing for class. I've found that if properly written, the questions on my RATS yield results similar to others using TBL (70% for individuals and 90% for teams).

As for your second question and having taught at 8 a.m. for many years, I have a few suggestions that may help you:

- Make your activities meaningful and enjoyable. I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but I think it's important to make a conscious effort to create activities that students appear to be actively engaged in and look forward to. My students are constantly questioning how the exercises relate to their individual project or the objectives of the course. Make sure that yours do and that you explain that relationship.

- Assign a point value and grade in-class activities. It's amazing how a few points get student attention. I can almost guarantee you that the students who are not regularly attending class have convinced themselves that they've attended the classes that really matter - those that directly impact their grade. It's worked in their lecture based courses, so why not here? I think you'll find that if a significant portion of their grade (20 - 40%) is given to in-class team exercises, you'll definitely get their attention and attendance. It makes practical sense as well, as you're signaling to them the importance of the time and effort spent on these activities, rather than the importance of cramming for an exam during a single class period. In addition, make sure that they understand that they understand that they will only receive points for the team exercise if they arrive prior to the beginning of the exercise, not a minute or ten minutes later.

- On time performance. When students come into my class they see an open grade book page on the screen at the front of the class. As they enter the room I note their attendance by entering a '1' in the column next to their name. When the class time arrives I enter a '0' next to the names of all the students who failed to arrive on time, not a minute before or a minute later. I then close the grade book and start class. The message that I send to the students is the importance of arriving on time, whether it's to class or at work. At the beginning of the semester I ask them how many times they think they could show up five minutes late to work before they get fired. Most people say two or three times. We also talk about why that is. Generally it gets around to the fact that people are counting on them. I emphasize that similarly, their team mates are counting on them as well, and if they arrive late, it's likely that their teammates will need to explain the exercise they are working on and thus impact the team's performance. I then reiterate that their success in the 'real world' will depend on their ability to put the needs of others (customers, employees, peers) before their own and their experience in the course is their opportunity to learn that lesson first hand.

I hope this helps!

Cheers, Tom

Tom DeWitt, Ph.D.
Director
Office of Applied Learning Experiences (ALEX)
University of Hawaii at Hilo

www.hilo.hawaii.edu/ALEX

phone: 808.987.6551

email: [log in to unmask]

On Thu, Jun 6, 2013 at 5:22 AM, Richard Woodward <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I've used a TBL structure for my environmental economics class three times and would like to consult the group regarding two difficulties I've been having.

First, students are not preparing well enough for the RATs. My class is divided into 5 modules, each of which starts with a RAT. Students are required to watch 2-3 videos I've prepared and read several chapters prior to each RAT. I find that students are entirely unaccustomed to this and, as seen in the analytics of the videos, they tend to try to do all of their preparation within the 24 hour period prior to each RAT. Obviously they see the consequences of this in their grades and I am constantly reminding them to get started early; but their tendency to not prepare early seems to show little if any improvement as the semester goes on.

Second, my class is offered at 8:00 a.m. and late arrivals and absences are a problem. To instill a greater sense of responsibility, I require the teams to create a contract at the beginning of each semester and I have them take care of their own attendance. But unless there was a RAT or test, by the end of the semester about 50% of the seats were empty at 8:00. While the early arrivers complain and comments do show up in the peer evaluations, peer pressure does not seem to be sufficient to have much effect.

My idea to address both of these issues is to have 5-minute team quizzes at the start of each non-RAT class. The quiz would cover either the material for a class (usually a short reading) or a very easy question over part of the material for the next module to keep them on schedule with their readings.

I would greatly appreciate suggestions on alternative solutions or comments on my proposal.

Rich Woodward

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Richard T. Woodward, Department of Agricultural Economics

Texas A&M University, 2124 TAMU

College Station, TX 77843-2124

Office #: AGLS 210M   e-mail:[log in to unmask]

Phone #: 979-845-5864   Fax #: 979-845-4261

Homepage: http://agecon2.tamu.edu/people/faculty/woodward-richard/,

http://resourceeconomics.tamu.edu/

Assistant: Michele Zinn 979-845-2333