Your TBL team, your study groups, your community.
There are three layers of peer learning in this course. Knowing how each one works, and how they connect, will save you a lot of effort and a lot of grief. Lean on all three.
Each layer has a different purpose.
This course intentionally builds three layers of peer support, each with a different role in your learning. Use all three.
Layer 1 · Assigned
Your TBL team
5 to 7 students, balanced by a brief week 1 survey, kept the same for all 8 weeks. You are graded together on the tRAT and discuss application questions together. This is your home base.
- Assigned by Dr. Rennie in week 1
- Stable across the term
- Graded as a unit on the tRAT
Layer 2 · Voluntary
Outside-of-class study groups
You form these. Can include your TBL team or be entirely different. Meet outside class hours to drill structures, run cases, and prep for lab exams. Not graded.
- You choose who and when
- Meet anywhere, any platform
- Pure learning support
Layer 3 · Peer-led
Community Rounds
Class-wide review sessions you organize for each other. Open invitation, posted in Canvas. Hosting and attending count toward Path B Scholar Points (the 18-hour community engagement bonus).
- Whole class, open invite
- Self-organized, self-reported
- Path B Scholar Points pathway
How teams work, at a glance.
- How teams are formed
- Dr. Rennie assigns teams during week 1 based on a brief survey on background, schedule, and prior coursework. The goal is balanced teams with varied strengths. You do not pick your team.
- How long teams last
- The full 8 weeks. Teams are rarely changed, and only for a serious reason. Plan to invest in your team for the duration of the term.
- What is graded together
- The tRAT (10 points per TBL, 1x weight). Application questions during TBL are not graded but everyone is expected to participate and be able to explain the rationale if called on.
- What is graded individually
- The iRAT (30 points per TBL, 3x weight), all lab practical exams, the cumulative lecture exam, the lab quizzes, and your individual contribution to outside-class prep. Your individual preparation drives most of your grade.
- Communication expectations
- Respond to team messages within 24 hours. Use the comms platform you agree on as a team. If you go silent, your team suffers and so does your tRAT.
Four moves to make before you leave class.
You will meet your team during week 1. By the end of class on day one, your team must agree on a communication platform and exchange contact info. This is not optional.
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Exchange contact information
Email, phone numbers (if comfortable), and any other preferred point of contact. Share your typical availability so teammates know when you are reachable.
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Choose one communication platform
Options: Canvas messages, group text, Discord, WhatsApp, GroupMe, Slack, or other. Pick one that works for everyone, including teammates without smartphones or with limited data plans. Use just one platform to avoid scattered conversations.
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Confirm response expectations
The standing rule is 24-hour response. Each team can adjust this within reason (faster if everyone agrees, never slower). Set expectations for evenings and weekends explicitly.
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Designate roles loosely
Optional but useful: who keeps track of upcoming due dates, who organizes group study time, who checks in on quiet teammates. Roles can rotate.
Different from your TBL team, often more powerful.
Your TBL team is your assigned group. Study groups are different. You form study groups voluntarily, with whoever you want, to meet outside of class hours and reinforce material.
Study groups can be:
- Your full TBL team meeting outside class
- A subset of your TBL team
- Students from other TBL teams entirely
- You and one study buddy
There is no enforced format. There is no grade attached. The point is to leverage active recall and peer teaching, both of which beat solo re-reading.
What to actually do in a study group
The mistake is meeting up and then individually quietly studying in the same room. That is not a study group, that is a co-working space. To get the benefit of the group, do things you cannot do alone.
Lab ID drilling
Cover a structure name, point to the structure on a model or atlas, peer says the name. Reverse roles. Race the clock.
Teach-back
Each person picks one concept and teaches it to the group for 5 minutes. Teaching exposes the gaps in your own understanding.
Differential debate
Take this week's case differential options. Each person argues for a different option. The group picks the winner based on anatomic discriminators.
Workbook walkthrough
Compare answers in your research workbooks. Where do they differ? What did each of you find that the others missed?
Spiral review quiz
Make 10 questions covering material from earlier weeks. Quiz each other. Spiral review is what makes structures stick.
Practical run-through
Set up a station-based practice exam using printed images or models. Time it. Score each other.
The third layer: class-wide peer learning.
Community Rounds are peer-led review sessions open to the whole class. They are not your TBL team and not your private study group; they are the broader class community helping each other.
Examples of Community Rounds:
- A Saturday Kahoot game covering this week's structures, hosted by one student, open to anyone in the class.
- A Sunday evening Zoom session running spiral lab ID drills.
- An in-person meet-up in the SCC library to walk through a tough TBL case together.
Community Rounds are self-organized and self-reported. Dr. Rennie does not schedule, host, or monitor them. You post your session in the Canvas "Community Rounds" discussion thread, attendees reply with a one-sentence reflection, and the thread itself becomes the artifact.
Scholar Points connection (Path B)
Hours spent hosting or attending Community Rounds count toward Path B of the Scholar Points bonus. Log 18 hours or more of community engagement across the term (hosting or attending) to earn the full 2.0% bonus. The bonus is all or nothing at semester end; under 18 hours earns zero. Full rules on the Grading & Assessments page.
Why this exists. Healthcare careers run on community. You will work in primary care teams, broader unit teams, and inter-professional collaboratives. Building the muscle of organizing peer learning now is itself a clinical skill. Community Rounds is your training ground.
Common patterns, and how to handle them.
Sometimes teams struggle. The most common patterns:
- One teammate goes silent. They miss messages, miss class, do not contribute to tRAT. Reach out kindly first. If the silence continues, let Dr. Rennie know.
- One teammate dominates. They speak over others, refuse to consider alternative answers, or position themselves as the "right" voice. Address it directly with them, then with Dr. Rennie if it continues.
- Personality friction. You disagree on study style or pace. Negotiate a working agreement. You do not have to be friends. You do have to function professionally as a team.
- Schedule mismatch. Some teammates can only meet evenings, others only mornings. Use asynchronous communication (the team chat) for most things; schedule rare synchronous meetings around shared availability.
Bring it to Dr. Rennie before it escalates. If your team genuinely is not working, contact me through Canvas or email. Do not wait until the situation has festered for three weeks. Early intervention is far easier than late repair.
You are also learning to work in teams.
You are not just learning anatomy. You are learning to function as a healthcare professional, which means learning to work in teams under time pressure with imperfect information. The TBL structure is intentionally designed to mirror that.
By week 8, you will know:
- How to prepare independently and contribute strongly to a team discussion.
- How to negotiate disagreement with peers professionally.
- How to organize peer learning for yourself when no instructor is in the room.
- How to teach a concept clearly enough that another person understands it.
- How to ask for help before a problem becomes a crisis.
These skills travel. They will serve you in nursing program clinicals, in board prep, in a hospital nurses' station, and in every team you join after this course is over.
Show up for each other. The course is built on the assumption that you will. Hold up your end, and your team and your class will hold up theirs.
Meet your team, open the rhythm.
The course is built around your team and the weekly rhythm. Both are explained in detail in How This Course Works.
How this course works