If a student is not prepared, he or she may not participate in the discussion. According to Matthysee, this simple checking encourages students to prepare ahead of time and prevents the group from depending on one or two people to do all of the work. In the groups, the students discuss and point out the flaws in different proposed solutions. Occasionally an entire group may meet over the weekend to discuss and work on the problem further. Group papers are due on Monday.
Students count eight of the eleven problem scores.
This flexibility also allows Matthysee to drop an entire problem if it does not work out well in the groups. At the end of the semester, students choose their best eight scores on the eleven problems. Matthysee also encourages creative thinking and risk taking in problem solving by providing the opportunity for students to earn bonus points. Bonus points are given to the whole group and are added after I figure the final grades. Examples of topics examined in previous courses include AIDS, Recombination, Cancer and the Biological Effects of Electric and Magnetic Fields.