Moving beyond check-the-box attendance: a token-based approach to encouraging meaningful UTA session participation
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article describes a future-oriented token system used to encourage meaningful participation in undergraduate teaching assistant (UTA)-led review sessions in a large undergraduate physiology course. Rather than awarding points for attendance, students earned limited-use tokens by actively participating in two sessions. The approach shifted the incentive away from check-the-box attendance and toward proactive help seeking, repeated engagement, and collaborative learning.
Author: James T. Davis
Institution: Indiana University School of Medicine
Language: English
Topic: Innovative Teaching Methods
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7203678394