Psychological research sheds light on many important ways instructors can promote positive learning outcomes for their students. One growing approach to help undergraduate and graduate students prepare for their future careers is team teaching, collaborating with one or more co-instructors to plan and teach a course.
While the goal is the same—to enrich student learning—team teaching can take different forms. Some professors adopt a “divide and conquer” approach in which each instructor handles a specific portion of the syllabus. Other professors work together in every class, co-lecturing, facilitating discussions, and grading assignments and exams.
Team teaching can be especially effective in large, introductory-level classes. Karenna Malavanti, PhDopens in new window, senior lecturer and undergraduate program director in the psychology and neuroscience department at Baylor University, is part of a team-taught, 300-student section of introductory psychology. The semester class is broken into four units taught by a neuropsychologist and cognitive, developmental, and social psychologists, so students learn from experts in each area. “Hearing the nitty-gritty details from someone who is doing that kind of work is very helpful and brings the research alive,” Malavanti said.
Some professors work as teams, even with instructors out side of the psychology field. “My co-instructors and I often have different perspectives, which is a good way to encourage critical thinking in students,” said David S. Moore, PhDopens in new window, a professor of psychology at Pitzer College in Claremont, California, who has recently co-taught two courses, including a class about artificial intelligence and human intelligence with a philosophy professor and a class about nature and nurture with a historian.
In its many forms, team teaching can offer unique benefits to students and teachers alike. Instructors say a collaborative model can deepen students’ critical-thinking abilities and make classes more interesting and engaging. Professors can also improve their teaching skills and gain new insights into other disciplines with a collaborative model. “If done really well, it makes a course better in the same way working collaboratively with people on research makes a research project better,” said Bridgette Martin Hard, PhDopens in new window, professor of the practice of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University.
To reap the benefits of collaboration, instructors must ensure a cohesive experience for students, along with appropriately dividing responsibilities among team members. Here is advice from instructors with years of experience about how to maximize outcomes with a team approach.
Get buy-in
Team-taught courses are an investment, requiring support from key stakeholders. Brian Carpenter, PhDopens in new window, professor of psychological and brain sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, teaches a graduate-level course focused on interprofessional teams treating geriatric patients. Students studying social work, occupational therapy, psychology, and medicine learn from a psychologist, an occupational therapist, and a social worker. He teaches a similar course for undergraduates called “When I’m 64.”
“Whether you’re teaching with instructors from another department or another school at your university, make sure you have the support of your department chairs and other leadership who are willing to put technological, staff, and financial resources your way so your course can be successful,” said Carpenter. Different universities have different policies about teaching credits and salary, so you will want to iron out those nuts and bolts with your school’s administration ahead of time.
It is also important to feel confident in the support of your co-teaching colleagues. Even if you have different academic backgrounds, Carpenter emphasizes the importance of teaching with colleagues you get along with: You will be spending a lot of time together, and a solid working relationship will help you navigate the challenges collectively.
Define course objectives
Before a collaborative course begins, take plenty of time to plan course objectives with your co-instructors and then let the objectives guide the process. “Take a step back and think about the big picture of what you want students to learn,” said Hard. “Then, based on these goals, determine the best ways to design the course.”
Hard recommends defining basic teaching values and procedures in this phase—for example, whether you will adhere to strict deadlines or use a more flexible approach with assignments.
Malavanti’s teaching team of four instructors meets at the start of each semester to map out the class schedule and syllabus, which is largely inspired by APA’s Introductory Psychology Initiative (IPI). They agree on a learning pact that defines student and instructor expectations.
In Malavanti’s intro course, each unit professor creates their own exam. In the pre-semester meeting, the team determines the number of questions on each exam, the value of each question, and the overall difficulty level. “That way our students know what to expect on exam day, even if each unit is different,” she said.
Grading is a major consideration. One option is a grading rubric that encourages objective grading on assignments and papers. “You want to make sure one instructor isn’t grading more harshly than another,” said Moore.
It is also essential to meet regularly throughout the course to ensure you are in line with the goals you set. Carpenter, for example, meets weekly with colleagues to discuss upcoming topics and make sure their expertise is adequately represented in every class. “Our goal in these courses is to introduce the students to different disciplinary perspectives about working with geriatric patients, so we wanted to ensure the interprofessional perspective is represented in every session,” Carpenter said.
Work out the nuts and bolts
Details like who is making a PowerPoint may not seem as crucial as the course content itself, but lack of clarity on the details can quickly affect the coherence of a class. You will want to decide, for example, whether you are all going to attend every class, or if only the lead instructor will be there.
Hard co-teaches a course in which every instructor is responsible for certain days, but they are each in class, even when they are not lecturing. “We’re actively monitoring and giving feedback on lectures so we can improve them over time,” she said. For example, Hard said her co-instructors look for places in a lecture where she might need to give students a “pause”—an opportunity for active learning—or change her examples to be more accessible or inclusive for students.
You will also want to determine factors such as who will take attendance, post lecture slides and recordings, and serve as the main point of contact for communicating with students. “If those tasks don’t get addressed, that can negatively affect the student learning experience,” said Malavanti.
Use the right technology
Technology can also help streamline collaborative teaching. Malavanti’s team uses the learning management platform Canvas to organize course content for students. The department used a learning designer from the university to ensure the whole course looks cohesive to students, even though the units include very different content created by four teachers.
To keep things organized among themselves, Hard’s team uses a cloud-based file storage system in which they place teaching materials organized into subfolders. “We all have access to each other’s materials at all times, so if someone’s computer dies before lecture starts, I can pull it up on my laptop,” Hard said.
Hard’s team also created a PSY101 email address that all co-instructors can access. They take turns monitoring and responding to emails, which breaks up the workload. They also take time to see how the other instructors respond, so they can align their email behavior with each other and present a unified front.
They also use wikis, or websites that are editable by many different users, to facilitate team teaching. Hard creates a sample lesson plan for each week, and undergraduate teaching fellows who help lead discussion groups in large sections of introductory psychology can modify the pages with their own activities, discussion questions, and videos they want to share. “It’s more user-friendly because it looks more like a website, so you can read through and click on relevant hyperlinks rather than wading through folders,” she said.
Support each other
Collaborative instruction, like any team project, can pose its challenges. Sumbleen Ali, PhDopens in new window, an assistant professor of human ecology at the State University of New York Oneonta, co-teaches a consumer resource management class with two non-psychology professors. While each of the three instructors lends a unique expertise to the course, the team was concerned about student perception as well as potential conflict among themselves based on status.
“We didn’t want factors like a professor’s gender, race, age, and seniority to interfere with student learning, so we made sure we all sat together in class and referenced one another’s lectures in real time,” said Ali. “We all helped each other develop credibility among students through mutual respect.”
This atmosphere of mutual respect allows the team to help each other grow as instructors. Ali’s teaching team meets regularly to discuss how the classes are going (though, to save time, the group never meets synchronously when something can be accomplished via email). They regularly share constructive criticism about lectures and course content, which allows them to both improve their class and learn from one another’s expertise. They believe this approach is helping them all become more well-rounded teachers in the process.
In cross-disciplinary courses, professors may have different views based on their academic background, leading to differences of opinion. This is another reason mutual respect is so important. When Moore teaches with history and philosophy professors, it is not unusual for them to disagree during discussions. “Students sometimes arrive in these cross-disciplinary courses feeling like there’s no room for different ways of thinking,” said Moore. “Watching two professors who have been in their fields a long time disagree shows the students that knowledge is not set in stone, which encourages critical thinking.” Moore recommends working with a colleague you get along with to ensure productive exchanges even amid differing views.
Collaborate across classes
Instructors can also teach their own courses and collaborate closely with professors teaching other sections to ensure positive outcomes for every student. In 2012, the Missouri State University psychology department formed a core faculty team that oversees seven large sections of introductory psychology, totaling more than 2,000 students each year. To this day, the instructors work together to create a common syllabus, grading rubric, and exam format with a pool of questions they have all written.
Within 3 years, failure and withdrawal rates improved, dropping from 25% to 12%. Students also reported learning twice as much, thanks to the incorporation of best practices in the program, such as interactive polling, active classroom demonstrations, and a common syllabus. Students are also less likely to change to another section of the class because they think it is easier or better. “Every section of the course is designed the same way, with the goal of engaging students to improve learning outcomes,” said Danae Hudson, PhD,opens in new window a professor and graduate program director in the department of clinical psychology at Missouri State University.
The neuroscience program at Michigan State University (MSU) employs a similar approach to align curriculum and keep different courses feeling connected. Casey Henley, PhDopens in new window, an assistant professor and director of online programs for the neuroscience program, participated in a 2-year MSU fellowship with two neuroscience colleagues to develop a consistent curriculum that supports students in scientific thinking—reading graphs, analyzing data, and forming conclusions, arguments, and predictions based on evidence.
“From developing learning objectives to creating assignments, we’ve worked together to make sure our program is cohesive for students,” said Henley. The group continues to meet regularly to find ways to connect course content: For example, one professor might reference another’s lectures to reinforce key concepts or expand their own lesson.
Some professors also collaborate with all faculty at the university to share ideas and strategies to improve teaching across every department. MSU has a program called Learning Communities, which are small groups run by faculty. Henley co-facilitates a group about equitable pedagogy that is attended by around 20 faculty from across five colleges at the university. “We can all read about theories, but this type of collaboration helps us see what others are doing in practice to improve inclusivity on campus,” said Henley.
Find creative ways to co-teach
Even if your university has no model for team-taught classes, has no program for co-teaching, and cannot provide resources for collaborative technology, you can still find ways to reap the benefits of a partnering approach. For starters, you can enlist colleagues to attend your classes and offer feedback.
Hard also recommends infusing collaboration into your teaching by giving teaching assistants more responsibility. “Rather than just helping you with grading, the TA can sit in on your class and give you feedback on what would make your teaching better,” she said. You can also ask your students for feedback more often, to look at your course materials through a different lens.
See it as an investment
While team teaching can be more efficient in some ways—you may lecture less or grade fewer papers than in a self-taught class—it will not necessarily take less time than teaching on your own. You will need to plan out the details of your course and meet regularly with your collaborators. You may also need to adjust, as you clarify your goals as an instructor.
But like any investment, your hard work on the front end will pay off, from helping students learn to improving your own teaching practice. “By investing time and effort into co-teaching, you’re ultimately going to be a better teacher and hopefully a more efficient one,” said Hard.
