• I, like others have suggested, did a practice RAP on the syllabus during the first week of classes. It helped students to realize the power of the team and to correspondingly set the iRAT weight lower than the tRAT weight - though section A2 had a lengthy conversation with one particular team who thought it inappropriate for marks to be impacted by their colleagues. I'll need to unpack that team a little later in the term...
• my reading guide is phrased such that the objectives can be used as practice questions. In addition, we have picked out the questions in the textbook for students to practice if they wish in preparation for the RAT

I think Ron touched on what my difficulty is: pitching the RAT such that it is picking up on the big concepts that I want students to focus on. I have tried to do that with the reading guide, but I do think that my actual quiz questions are too detailed. This is something I have struggled with since starting to use TBL in 2011 (this term is my 5th or 6th use of TBL as the instructional strategy). I believe it was Laurie who best articulated the problem I am having - developing an iRAT that is checking for reading comprehension vs a tRAT that generates discussion. Nawww.... my problem is that my questions are simply too detailed....

So I think that is my work as the instructor - produce better RAT questions.

But I do think that there are students who simply need to develop their reading and note-taking abilities and as Dee and others pointed out, this is the big work of first term of first year courses. A question I have is how do we best scaffold our students' development as self-regulated learners? Somehow it happens over four years. But it seems to happen without my being explicit about it. I give advice as needed when the issue comes up. But I wonder if there is a better strategy that helps to ladder students from being passive to active learners, especially in these all important first weeks when they are excited and interested and have not yet been weighted down by assignments and other deadlines? We'll see if the example of my senior students makes an impact tomorrow.