Co-teaching in higher education: Reflections from an early career academic

Abstract

Co-teaching has been regularly used as a pedagogical tool in K-12 and postsecondary learning environments for decades, yet its practice in higher education institutions has only recently started to grow in popularity. This paper builds on recent recommendations for effective co-teaching in tertiary teaching settings by offering critical reflections and suggestions for practice from an early career academic that specialises in academic literacies. Key concepts explored include developing coteaching norms and pedagogies through a community of practice, establishing two-way dialogue, diversifying strengths of teaching teams, and enforcing continual reflection and feedback. The paper also provides contextualised guidance notes, so that university educators and program managers have a clearer direction as to how co-teaching teams could be implemented across a range of higher education teaching programs.

Learning by Comparison: The Benefits of Co-Teaching for University Professors’ Professional Development

“…As to the specific learning processes generated by coteaching (RQ2), reflection, negotiation and transfer were the three key strategies that emerged from the co-teachers' diaries. As suggested in previous studies, it appears that co-teaching helped participants become more reflective about their own teaching choices and general style (Bacharach et al, 2008;Ferguson and Wilson, 2011;Kelly, 2018). Furthermore, there are many occasions in which participating faculty described the negotiation of various aspects of the teaching process in order to incorporate both instructors' ideas and find a middle ground (Murphy et al, 2015).…”

“…Professors' reflections also suggest that the occurrence of such constructive comparisons is by no means automatic, especially in the kind of station teaching contexts described in this paper. Indeed, instructors often admitted to not being fully aware of their partner's teaching style, strategies or materials, and insisted on the need of frequent, effective communication between co-teachers, not only to negotiate the choice and application of teaching and assessment materials and instructional methodologies, but to reflect on the teaching process itself (Holland et al, 2018), and incorporate student feedback as necessary (Kelly, 2018). They also highlighted the benefits of agreeing on which specific channels would be employed for out-of-class communication, as recommended by Kelly (2018).…”

“…Indeed, instructors often admitted to not being fully aware of their partner's teaching style, strategies or materials, and insisted on the need of frequent, effective communication between co-teachers, not only to negotiate the choice and application of teaching and assessment materials and instructional methodologies, but to reflect on the teaching process itself (Holland et al, 2018), and incorporate student feedback as necessary (Kelly, 2018). They also highlighted the benefits of agreeing on which specific channels would be employed for out-of-class communication, as recommended by Kelly (2018). On the other hand, faculty expressed the desire to witness their partner in action in order to learn from them, sometimes formulating a plan as to how to achieve this, such as watching a filmed class or planning a shared session.…”

“…Through working closely together, mutual observation, and negotiating all aspects of the course, both experienced and novice professors learn from their experiences and from one another (Murphy et al, 2015). This learning is often focused on PK, including developing and using new instructional strategies (Bacharach et al, 2008;Ferguson and Wilson, 2011) and becoming more reflective about their own teaching (Bacharach et al, 2008;Ferguson and Wilson, 2011;Kelly, 2018). However, studies also show that professors who coteach expand their subject or CK (Roth and Tobin, 2004;Bacharach et al, 2008), enhancing scholarly learning.…”