Team Teaching: Lessons from the classroom

Being a part of a team-taught course is something akin to handling a beehive.  If you do it well, the reward can be professionally nourishing and provide students with an enriched experience.  However, if you fail to approach it respectfully and carefully, the end result can sting quite a bit.

It seems to me that team-teaching at its best is a dynamic, responsive partnership among all instructors in the course.  It is not to be confused with sequential teaching where instructors take turns in course responsibilities; nor with co-teaching where although instructors share all responsibilities (e.g., teaching, planning, grading, etc.) students are divided into groups with single instructors each taking part of the class.  True team-(or collaborative) teaching means shared direct interaction among instructors, the class remains a single group of learners and decision making is shared, all working towards a common goal.

Study after study shows that a well-structured team-taught course can help students develop higher-order thinking skills because they must learn how to interact with instructors who have different perspectives and/or areas of expertise.  Team-taught courses can also provide students with living examples of collegial behavior, collaboration, and even how to navigate professional disagreement.   Beyond this, an instructor partnership that works well has twice (or more depending on the number of instructors) the potential to ignite students’ interests in learning and subject area; it can motivate across the diversity of students we typically encounter.

Research shows that if we are open to being self-reflective, team teaching done well can also deepen instructors’ skills.  It can promote professional growth because it provides us with a living laboratory in which we may be forced to confront our own assumptions about student learning, how we create course structures, craft assignments and assess learning outcomes effectively.   In a single-instructor course, it’s easy to miss or misinterpret these elements when no one is there to place the mirror in front of you.  However, in a team-taught course, even among instructors who may share teaching philosophies, the need to present a cohesive partnership to the students means that uncomfortable conversations are more likely.  Such dialogue may force faculty to try new methods or refine old ones; to learn from each other.

Studies show at least six different basic models for team-taught courses; regardless of format the most successful are those where the team self-selects.  Five years ago, Deborah Farmer, Ph.D., (Gerontology) and I (Sociology) developed GER/SOC 3303, Society, Health & Aging, a junior-level, interdisciplinary course. Dr. Farmer and I decided that an equal partnership would work best for us and for our students.  We had been research collaborators and friends for a long time before proposing the course.  This meant that to some degree we knew each other’s teaching style, philosophy, and work ethic.  However, even this degree of familiarity does not guarantee a seamless partnership in pedagogy.

Here are some of the lessons and strategies that we have learned along the way.

• Recognize that intentionality, flexibility, and communication are key to instructional design

• Start by defining your teaming approach.

• Plan ahead, check in weekly, and debrief at the end of the semester.
  1. Team teaching is harder than it looks. Give yourself time to map out the details, e.g., who will deliver what material, how you will handle grading and student concerns, etc.  For example, we decided it would be simpler for students if one instructor would be the point person for student emails.  The other instructor would be copied on responses.
  2. We also met weekly to go over the coming week and student progress.
• Collaboration is smoother when all instructors are present for every (or nearly every) class.
  1. We knew which material had been covered, in what way and what questions it generated.
  2. It made it easier to build connections into course content and structure between class lessons.
  3. It was easier to strategize about, reflect on and communicate about course and individual student progress.
  4. Being there in tandem provided additional support to address student questions and concerns, facilitate group work, and monitor progress. It also meant that we could call on each other to add a discipline-specific perspective to the topic under review.
• Give students a voice. Ask them for feedback throughout the semester. 
  1. We have found it useful to give students an opportunity to express their concerns about the team-teaching aspect of the class early in the semester. On the first day, after we have introduced ourselves, we ask students to work together in small groups and identify pros and cons of team taught classes.  At the end of the first week we ask them to complete an individual guided reflection about this as a team-taught class.  Once we have analyzed these data we address the class’ concerns at the beginning of the second week.
  2. We ask CITI to come in to do a midterm assessment plan, providing us with another opportunity to address student concerns.
  3. Another guided reflection at the end of the semester gives us more data to improve the course going forward.
• Respect each other publicly.
  1. Students can spot team-teaching conflicts. They can and likely will sense and respond accordingly when things don’t run smoothly.  Be intentional about situating each team member’s expertise and/or contributions to the course content & structure and, in his/her field.
  2. Whatever may happen outside of the classroom, inside the class answer students with one shared voice.
• Recognize that TT is an opportunity for instructors to engage in active learning.

Unlike the one-time nature of peer evaluations and classroom observations, the shared power structure of team teaching offers an incubator for ongoing feedback from the instructional partner as (s)he moves around the room collecting real-time data from student responses.  We can then take this learning back to our individual classrooms

The chances are that instructor-partners will have different teaching styles, expectations and experiences.  What team-teaching calls on us to do is to set aside our individual egos and create a blended experience for students.  Processes and procedures that might be taken-for-granted in a single-instructor course must be clarified and delineated ahead of time and adhered to for the sake of stability in a team-taught course.  However, a course that is truly team taught can be richly rewarding for both students and instructors giving each multiple perspectives.