Good Practice Case Study

Team teaching - School of Biological Sciences - Faculty of Science

Contributed by: Dr Wendy Russell

Abstract:

All undergraduate subjects in the School are taught by two or more academic staff working together. This broadens the student experience, and encourages communication and sharing between teaching staff.

Aims:

• to spread the skills of staff over several subjects, and make it easier to cover for individual staff during any periods of absence.
• to maximise the student experience - individual topics can be taught by expert staff engaged in research in the topic area, while maintaining broad core subjects.

Context:

The School of Biological Sciences has 15 full-time academic staff, and about 20 casual, part-time staff (demonstrators).

Outcomes:

• More communication on teaching issues and more informal mentoring within the School. Academic staff have stronger links and more opportunities to discuss and reflect on teaching styles. They are more likely to be exposed to diverse approaches, learn from each other and gain a `big picture` view of teaching in their School
• New academic staff are better supported; they are slotted into existing subjects and provided with lecture notes and materials as a starting point, making for an easier transition
• More flexible staffing
• Academic staff can often divide the session into blocks of time when they concentrate intensively on teaching, and blocks of time when they can concentrate on research
• Subjects have been designed to meet core areas of student need, while complementing the expertise of academic staff. Students thus gain a solid and broad foundation in Biology that is informed by the up-to-date knowledge of active researchers.
• Encourages benchmarking within the School and more rigour and consistency in assessment
• More attention is given to developing a solid, quality curriculum with clear links between subjects
• Students experience a variety of teaching styles, and gain understanding of the different research approaches of sub-disciplines

What was done?

History of team teaching

• Biological Sciences has been team teaching across most undergraduate subjects since about 1985 or 1986
• Teams of academics are formed around each subject. All undergraduate subjects in the school are taught by two or more academic staff working together

How team teaching works

• Teaching teams meet before the subject begins to work out their approach, assign responsibilities, agree on practicals etc
• The usual format is a block of lectures, tutorials and practicals presented by one academic, the next person presents the next block etc
• If there is an online discussion with students, the entire teaching team participates
• All members of the academic team accompany students on extended field trips
• During session, teams communicate on assessment tasks, marking, exams and any issues that may arise. Communication may be by email or by meeting for coffee etc. All assessment tasks are prepared collaboratively
• At the end of session, each teaching team meets for a wrap-up meeting to reflect on the session. The technical staff are part of these wrap-up meetings, and part-time teaching staff (demonstrators) may also be involved.

Key dates:

Team teaching has been in place since the 1980s, and is ongoing.

Critical success factors:

• Communication is critically important for team-based teaching. If there are problems, lack of communication will exacerbate them, so maintaining good communication is essential
• There needs to be a co-ordinator who takes primary responsibility for developing each subject. With several people involved, it`s tempting not to take responsibility and rely on others to fix things - but if this happens, subjects will stagnate. It`s important that someone has ownership
• Ensuring there is a fair distribution of teaching load so that most staff have exposure to first, second and third year classes and both large and small classes
• Supporting a diversity of approaches. The structure can be a disincentive for people to be creative in their teaching; it is important to allow academic staff to try new approaches

Review and improvement:

• At the wrap-up session, staff discuss: what worked very well and what didn`t; assessment issues, including how students performed relative to the previous year; the content and logistics of practicals; how to develop the subject for the future eg possible curriculum changes; and additional materials and resources that would be useful
• A number of web tutorials and other resources have been developed as a result of discussions at end of session meetings
• Feedback is sought from students through teaching surveys, WebCT evaluations and informally. As a result of comments about areas of difficulty in second and third year, additional instruction was designed for first year subjects to prepare them better for later years. Feedback from Nursing students and staff in this service teaching area has also led to changes
• The entire School comes together for an exam meeting each session. All papers are discussed in detail
• Once a year, the entire School comes together for a planning day. This includes discussion of curriculum and connections between subjects
• An external Faculty Advisory Committee also offers comments and suggestions.

Future plans:

• Focus groups with students would be valuable. These might include following a group of first year students through the course, and getting feedback at each stage on how it worked for them
• As well as distributing content across subjects, taking a more integrated approach to assessment and mapping generic skills across courses offered by the School. The team approach will assist this process
• Trans-disciplinarity, integration of different disciplines or subdisciplines, may receive more attention. This is particularly relevant to double degree students.