Evaluation of the use of team teaching for delivering sensitive content – a pilot study

Abstract

Many programmes in further and higher education contain sensitive areas of content, such as diversity, racism, power and privilege, breaking bad news, counselling, sex education and ethical decision making. Team teaching may be a useful method for delivering sensitive areas of course content. This article presents a pilot study that was undertaken on the use of team teaching to deliver the ethical decision-making component of a continuing professional development (CPD) module for trained nurses. The findings of the pilot study are presented and mapped against different models of team teaching from the literature, and they indicate that students found three key benefits of team teaching for this sensitive content area: the value of having differing perspectives; the way in which team teaching enhanced small group work during the teaching session; and the value of team teaching in the development of students' cognitive skills.

Influence of co-teaching on undergraduate student learning: A mixed-methods study in nursing.

“…Through the good exemplars demonstrated by the co-teaching instructors, the students became more comfortable in reflecting on their own practice that was reported in their peer-teaching reflections and in their second interviews. This appreciation and understanding of role modelling is supported by the benefits that trained nurses perceived of co-teaching in a continuing education context, i.e., hearing different perspectives enhanced group work and aided in the development of cognitive skills (Kerridge et al, 2009). This appreciation of diversity of values, philosophies, and experiences has been seen as a strength for some time as evidenced in the Floyd (1975) study.…”

“…A key advantage of co-teaching is to reflect the nature of the professional community of practice in which students begin to engage during their undergraduate program. Trained nurses participating in a continuing professional development course on ethical decision making supported the team teaching method used and noted several benefits (Kerridge, Kyle, & Marks-Maran, 2009). These benefits include hearing different perspectives, the enhancement of group work, and the development of cognitive skills.…”

“…The co-teachers in the course created the opportunity and modelled the reflective process as a means of helping students to learn about their learning. Kerridge et al (2009) provided evidence that the role modelling by co-teachers of a professional interpersonal relationship creates a context for learning that positively influences students' own ways of thinking, analyzing and arguing. As well as an enhanced learning environment, Mislang (2011) noted that team teaching provides an example of teamwork as a core value in nursing.…”

Fostering team teaching: Mapping out a research agenda for English-medium instruction at university level

“…It is at this stage when team teaching comes to the fore, as it could help to pave the way for language and content integration, despite the fact that I need to acknowledge that team teaching is hard to establish in a systematic way for a number of reasons including workload, expense, and the fear of being observed. For the present research agenda I define team teaching as collaborative work between a content lecturer and a language lecturer in an EMI programme in which the abilities of the team members complement each other to improve the learning results so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts (Kerridge, Kyle & Marks-Maran 2009: 93).…”

The Lived Experiences of Instructors Co-teaching in Higher Education

“…Co-teaching that involves simultaneous instruction in one classroom over a semester is not common, as compared to this practice in K-12 educational settings. From the literature (Kerridge, Kyle, & Marks-Maran, 2009;Minardi & Riley, 1991;Shepherd & Ashley, 1979), it is evident that there are advantages to co-teaching that contribute to the richness of the student learning experience. However, studies examining the practice of coteaching in higher education are in the early stages and often report on reflective accounts by faculty members (Seymour & Seymour, 2013).…”