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Teaching is simultaneously one of the hardest and one of the most rewarding jobs in the world. We often say that students make it worth it, but there's something else that can make or break your happiness as a teacher: your colleagues.

In this article, " Research Shows Teacher Collaboration Helps Raise Student Achievement," researcher Carrie Leana writes about the missing link in school reform: teacher collaboration. In her study of over 1,000 4th and 5th grade teachers in New York City, Leana found that, "students showed higher gains in math achievement when their teachers reported frequent conversations with their peers that centered on math, and when there was a feeling of trust or closeness among teachers."

Collaboration begins with finding time to connect with colleagues, to share thoughts, and provide support. Here are 3 tips for successful collaboration:

1. Build Relationships: Teaching is emotionally draining, and the best colleagues can be there for you in all types of situations. A student erupted in anger? Go next door at lunch time and get a hug. A student said a wildly funny thing in the middle of class? Pop your head into a colleague's classroom and let your laughter loose.

Remember to ask your colleagues to share their trials and triumphs with you, too. Sometimes just asking fellow teachers how their day is going opens up the doors for productive and bonding conversations.

The relationships you build with colleagues aren't just good for your mental well being; they're also the foundation of collaboration that can result in increased student achievement. Just like building relationships with students lays the groundwork for academic success, building relationships with colleagues lays the groundwork for effective collaboration.

2. Find Time to Collaborate: Shared planning time allows teachers to collaborate during the school day. With shared planning time, teachers are able to make strides in planning rigorous and appropriate lessons for their students.

Ideally, your school provides you time within the school day to collaborate with colleagues. If this is not possible, consider lobbying to use some of your school's professional development time for grade level or department teams.

Consider ways that you can collaborate both in and outside school. Sneak a few minutes before or after school to check in with colleagues. Think about collaborating virtually using Google Docs, Skype, or email.

Watch these videos to see examples of collaborative teams in action:

Teaching as a Team Sport (Video Playlist)
Algebra Team: Teacher Collaboration
Leadership Teams (Success at the Core Learning Module)

3. Share Responsibility: The best teacher teams complement each other. Share the responsibility for planning by dividing tasks based on your strengths and interests. When deciding how to share responsibility, consider these questions:

What do I enjoy planning? What does my colleague enjoy planning?

How much time do we have?

What makes sense to plan together? What could we plan separately?

How can we share our plans and get feedback from each other?

Successful collaborations happen when teachers work together to share the workload instead of doubling their efforts. From the delegation of tasks, teachers are also able to learn more from each other as they come back together to review and assemble their separate assignments into a cohesive lesson plan.
Download a printable version of this blog. Lily Jones taught K/1 for seven years in Northern California. She has experience as a curriculum developer, instructional coach, teacher trainer, and is also a contributing writer for Teaching Channel.

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Teaching is simultaneously one of the hardest and one of the most rewarding jobs in the world. We often say that students make it worth it, but there's something else that can make or break your happiness as a teacher: your colleagues.

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Collaborative Team Teaching: Challenges and Rewards

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Veteran special ed teacher Marisa Kaplan shares the challenges and rewards of co-teaching, including the fun of having another adult in the classroom.

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Impossible. That was my first thought when I saw the class roster. In one of my ninth grade English classes, 13 of my 27 students had IEPs. Additionally, about one-third of the students had failed the class the previous year. I dreaded the first day of school. But then something wonderful happened: The principal assigned me a co-teacher, a special education expert to serve as another set of hands (and eyes and ears!) during this class every day. I was thrilled.

My co-teacher Sandie was a joy to collaborate with, but our relationship was by no means perfect, especially at the beginning. We often struggled to find planning time. Sometimes we disagreed about how to best help a particular student. However, we nurtured the co-teaching relationship and, in time, found a rhythm that worked for us-and for the students we served.

In the years since I co-taught with Sandie and other teachers, I've coached and consulted with dozens of successful and not-so-successful teams. Co-teaching, when done well, offers benefits for both students and teachers. When not done well, it can be confusing or downright frustrating for all involved. If you are or will be part of a co-teaching partnership, this post will show you some ways to make your partnership work beautifully.

What is Co-Teaching?

In a co-teaching relationship, also known as a "push-in" arrangement, a general education teacher partners with a specialist who may be certified in teaching English Language Learners (ELLs), students with learning disabilities, or some other special population. A co-teaching team works in the general ed classroom; for the majority of the time, students with special needs are not pulled out to receive services in another location.

For instance, a middle school social studies teacher may have an ELL teacher co-teaching with him during one class period because five students in that class are newcomers to the United States and speak only Arabic fluently. A high school teacher may have one or two sections of biology to which many students with IEPs for reading are channeled; a co-teacher who specializes in reading disabilities co-teaches in these classes. A 4th grade teacher may have two students with 504 plans and another three who have specific learning disabilities in her class; she works alongside a special education teacher daily during lessons in the four core academic subject areas.

For more background, download this Brief History of Co-Teaching.

Co-Teaching Structures

General education teachers working with specialists in a "push-in" model often work in one of the following structures described by Friend and Cook (1996):

One teach, one observe: One teacher delivers instruction while the other observes student learning. Usually the observer collects data on student understanding so that the co-teaching team can better plan future instruction. Sometimes, specific students are watched closely so that the teachers can determine new strategies to use with them.

One teach, one assist: One teacher takes the lead in providing instruction while the other moves around the classroom, assisting struggling students. This help is not limited to students with special needs; the assisting professional is there to serve whomever needs support.

Parallel teaching: The class is divided in two groups and the same material is presented simultaneously by both teachers. The teachers plan the two groups deliberately to maximize the success of all students; this is not simply a "pull-out" or intervention group sitting in the same room.

Station teaching: Both teachers are actively involved in instruction as students are divided into groups and rotate from one station to the next. There may be stations where students work independently or with a paraprofessional in addition to the two stations the co-teachers facilitate.

Alternative teaching: One teacher takes a small group of students and provides them more intensive or specialized instruction that is different than what the large group receives from the other teacher.

Team teaching: Both teachers teach the content at the same time in tandem or "tag team" fashion.

It is important to note that both teachers have equal status and equal responsibility in all six of these arrangements. In the co-teaching relationships that work best, at no time is one teacher seen as subordinate to the other. Both professionals are credentialed professionals, although each may have his or her specific areas of expertise.

How to Make the Most of a Co-Teaching Partnership

Researchers and practitioners have tons of advice about how to co-teach effectively, and as a person who has been "in the trenches" with several different co-teachers, so do I. The advice below sums up the most common recommendations.

1. Respect each other.

Not surprisingly, mutual respect is critical to the co-teaching relationship. You'll have to share ideas openly and do much of your work facing students together, so respecting each other is paramount. Sometimes you'll disagree, and that's to be expected. As co-teacher and ELL specialist Melissa Eddington says, it's fine to disagree with someone's ideas, but don't make the disagreement about the person.

Teachers in co-teaching situations that don't work well often report feeling disrespected. Amy* is an ELL specialist paired with a middle school social studies teacher. When they collaborate, Amy feels her suggestions for tweaking whole-class lessons are not taken seriously by her partner. "She respects me as a professional," Amy says of her co-teacher, "but I think because I'm not experienced in her content, she doesn't see my input as valuable."

Susan*, who is licensed in both secondary science and learning disabilities, works with two physical science teachers and one biology teacher. The physical science teachers welcome her ideas and eagerly adjust their lessons based on her suggestions. They are seeing a steady increase of students mastering the required standards in the classes Susan supports. The biology teacher, however, dismisses many of Susan's ideas and accuses her of "dumbing down" his content. Susan feels disrespected and finds it hard to even be in the room with the biology teacher because he constantly positions himself as "the expert" and places her in a subordinate role.

Words and gestures speak volumes. Take care to show respect for your partner in all you do.

2. Clearly define roles and responsibilities.

Co-teaching works better when the partners agree on who does what, when. Clearly defined roles and responsibilities prevent either partner from feeling the other has overstepped a boundary or shirked responsibilities.

Natalie Marston (2002-2015), an elementary special ed teacher, recommends co-teachers reach agreement on scheduling, classroom procedures and behaviors, classwork and homework policies, grading, and school/home communication together so they present a united front at all times.

Obviously this type of planning requires a great deal of time, ideally before school starts. If extended time is not available prior to the beginning of the school year, then the co-teaching team should expect to put in extra hours before and after school in the first few weeks so things get off to a good start.

My co-teacher Sandie and I did not have advance warning of our assignment. We found out about it on the first teacher workday, leaving us only a few days before the students arrived. For weeks, we both felt like we were playing "catch up and keep up," but found that having lunch together (and some happy hours together) helped us stay in sync.

3. Be flexible.

Innovation is difficult. That's why so many teachers find themselves falling back on comfortable (and even tired) activities and strategies. Co-teaching allows you to gain another person's perspective on how instruction might be improved, how students might be best assessed, what resources to use, and so much more. Sometimes this means one person has to put aside his or her favorite tried-and-true strategy and try something different.

When Susan suggested a tactile, quiz-like method for reviewing the periodic table to her physical science co-teaching partners, they were skeptical about the time and materials it might require. They initially felt it would be more efficient to simply give additional notes to their students and then pair students to quiz each other. However, they agreed to try the review Susan's way. The students loved the activity, and almost every student with special needs passed the chapter test two days later. All three teachers were thrilled and committed to using the activity in future years.

4. Plan together.

The co-teaching relationship brings together two people with wonderfully rich expertise and experiences. Special educators are typically skilled in individualizing curriculum and instruction based on children's needs (Dettmer et al., 2005; Volonino & Zigmond, 2007). General educators, on the other hand, tend to have broad knowledge of the curriculum, standards, and desired outcomes for the larger group. Therefore, when general educators plan lessons, they tend to aim for the masses (Dettmer et al., 2005). Both perspectives are important, and co-teaching teams need ample planning time to work through how to best utilize each one.

Lack of planning time can lead to territorialism. Without time to plan for a good balance of content and individualization, a general ed teacher may become protective of his subject matter, or a specialist may become protective of his students. Emma*, a high school special ed teacher partnered with two geometry teachers, has experienced this. One teacher often asks Emma to pull aside the five or six students with specific disabilities within his class and work only with them. He sometimes says to her, "You worry about your kids. I'll worry about geometry." The principal is now providing an additional hour of planning time for Emma and this teacher. An assistant principal who oversees the math department facilitates the meetings so Emma feels supported and the geometry teacher has another content-area expert to hash things out with.

Keep in mind that planning must include both instruction and assessment. Considering many students with special needs have legal accommodations for assessment (like being provided translation, extended time, or oral reading), it's best to include both partners fully in designing quizzes, tests, papers, and other high-stakes assessment tasks.

How much time is ideal? One study found that co-teachers desired, on average, 15 minutes to an hour each day for planning (Dieker & Murawski, 2003). This figure corresponds to what worked for my co-teacher and me, and it also confirms what I hear from many co-teachers in the field. Strive to find that time any way you can.

5. Don't take yourself too seriously.

Innovation requires failure. Many times, teachers feel they've failed somehow during instruction, and in reality, the students haven't even noticed. We are often our own worst critics. Revisiting or correcting something later in the day (or the next day) doesn't mean you failed earlier. It means you've learned something since. This is the kind of ongoing learning we want to model for our students.

And, as in most situations in life, a little bit of humor goes a long way. Laugh with your co-teacher. Allow students to see both of you laughing with each other and with them when something is surprising, silly, or just doesn't go the way you planned. In the words of Jennifer Wolf who co-teaches with Melissa Eddington, "Take the work seriously, but don't take yourself too seriously."

Eddington adds, "You gotta laugh at each other! Our job is hard, and if you're not laughing and making light of some things, then it's just not going to be a good place to be."

6. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Planning time is one thing; constant communication is another. Not only should co-teachers frequently plan for what standards will be covered, how material will be taught, and how students will be assessed, they should also regularly communicate in less formal ways.

Co-teaching teams have different methods to create and sustain that communication:

Eddington and Wolf use the Voxer app throughout the school day and on their drives home to send messages back and forth. Voxer works like a walkie-talkie and allows back-and-forth conversation in real time when two people are not physically close to each other. Melissa says, "We're constantly communicating. We're talking about specific students. We're looking at assessments to see what areas are lacking...different things we want to bring to the classroom, things we don't want to do..."

Some other teams I've worked with use texting and emails throughout each day to share updates. Voxer, texts, and emails can all work well, especially if one teacher has urgent information or an urgent question about a particular student.

Teams can use Google Docs or other shared documents to keep track of lesson planning and to share feedback with each other on how lessons went. Collaborative documents can also be used to provide each other with information about targeted students.

In addition to ongoing communication, Ariel Sacks (2014) reminds us to periodically check in with our co-teacher about how we are doing in general. She recommends asking your partner the following:

Are there management items we should clarify, such as when are students allowed to go to the bathroom?

Are we sharing airtime well?

Are we dividing grading in an equitable way?

Would different teaching formats better utilize the two of us in the classroom?

Finally, co-teachers need to present a united front when dealing with parents. Some partners go as far as to create a shared email address from which all communication flows. This may or may not be practical in your situation. At the very least, important parent communication about a student's progress should be drafted by both parties.

For more in-depth information about communicating and collaborating with your co-teacher, see Communicating and Collaborating in Co-Taught Classrooms (Conderman et al., 2009).

7. Seek administrative support.

Sometimes, teachers have been scheduled to co-teach by administrators but didn't have much advance notice. This is what happened with Sandie and me. We were able to find snippets of time during the school day to use for planning and checking in with each other, but we had no common planning period. If you and your partner don't have a common planning time when you can frequently collaborate, ask for it. Go to your principal with a couple of proposals about how this can work without too much disruption to the rest of the schedule.

Sometimes co-teachers may not understand fully why they are being asked to team. If this is the case, ask for a meeting with the principal and any others responsible for the assignment. Ask them why they thought the two of you would be a good fit and what they hope you will accomplish with students.

If you're already in a co-teaching partnership that's not working well, and you've tried to address this with your partner, turn to a trusted administrator next for advice. If you and your co-teacher have not recently been observed, ask the administrator to come sit in on part of a lesson. Tell him or her what you'd like feedback on or what feels like it's not working well. Debrief with the administrator, ideally with your co-teaching partner. When an observer offers data and feedback to both of you, it may feel different for your partner than when you share things from your perspective. (This co-teaching observation form can help.)

It's important not to go to other teachers with your concerns. Respect the collegial relationship you have with your co-teacher and don't do anything that might undermine it. And it should go without saying that you don't want students to perceive any problems within the co-teaching relationship. Be cognizant of your demeanor, tone, and body language. Students are quite perceptive and can easily spot trouble. They are also experts at "good cop/bad cop." Don't let students play you and your partner against each other. If your colleagues or students give you any evidence that they know the co-teaching arrangement is ineffective, head straight for that trusted administrator to support you. ♦

*These names have been changed.
References:
Conderman, G., Johnston-Rodriguez, S., & Hartman, P. (2009). Communicating and collaborating in co-taught classrooms. Teaching Exceptional Children Plus,5(5). Retrieved January 26, 2017, from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ967751.pdf

Dettmer, P., Thurston, L., Knackendoffel, A., & Dyck, N. (2009). Collaboration, consultation, and teamwork (6th ed.). Columbus, OH: Pearson.

Dieker, Lisa A., Murawski, W. M. (2003). "Co-teaching at the Secondary Level: Unique Issues, Current Trends, and Suggestions for Success." The High School Journal, 86(4). Retrieved January 26, 2017, from http://search.proquest.com/docview/220220652/13494E2D48D1DB506F0/8

Friend, M. & Cook, L. (1996). Interactions: Collaboration skills for school professionals. White Plains, NY: Longman.

Marston, N. (2002-2015). Six steps to successful co-teaching: Helping special and regular education teachers work together. National Education Association. Retrieved January 26, 2017 from http://www.nea.org/tools/6-steps-to-successful-co-teaching.html

Sacks, A. (2014, October 15). Blog post. Eight tips for making the most of co-teaching. Retrieved January 26, 2017, from http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2014/10/15/ctq_sacks_coteaching.html

Volonino, V. & Zigmond, N. (2007). Promoting research-based practices through inclusion. Theory into Practice, 46(4), 291-300.

Learn More

Angela Peery is the author of The Co-Teacher's Playbook, which will be available in September 2019.

Links to this book are Amazon Affiliate links. Cult of Pedagogy gets a small commission for all purchases made through these links.

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When done well, co-teaching offers benefits for both students and teachers. When not done well, it can be confusing or downright frustrating for all involved.

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Co Teaching Models: Strategies and Planning

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Key Elements for Effective Teacher Collaboration

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Get a definition of collaborative team teaching, also called co-teaching, and see a list of different co-teaching models.

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Joshua Landy, Lanier Anderson offer 'thou shalts' of the craft

Rod Searcey

Joshua Landy, associate professor of French and Italian, and Lanier Anderson, associate professor of philosophy, might easily have been rivals, said Michele Marincovich, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, as she introduced Landy and Anderson's presentation at the Center's "Award-Winning Teachers on Teaching" lecture series on Feb. 23.

The professors, both "rising stars in the humanities firmament," each arrived at Stanford in 1996, and both have been awarded the university's top teaching award, the Gores Award, as well as a Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching, she said. Both also have published in leading journals and have been awarded fellowships at the Stanford Humanities Center, she added.

But instead of competing with one another, the scholars have "converged in wonderfully productive ways," Marincovich said. Landy, an expert in Proust, and Anderson, a specialist in Nietzsche, are the architects of an initiative in Philosophical and Literary Thought, which offers students major tracks in interdisciplinary studies of literature and philosophy. In addition to team teaching a gateway course in philosophy and literature, Landy and Anderson teach interdisciplinary courses in the Introduction to Humanities Program, together and with other instructors. (As team teachers, "we're recidivists," Landy said.)

In their Feb. 23 talk, the professors demonstrated their teaching technique as they presented "The Challenges and Rewards of Team Teaching." Instead of standing at a lectern together-in Landy's words, "like some kind of two-headed president"-Landy took the lead as lecturer, with Anderson positioned at the center of the room as "kibitzer," setting up some of Landy's points and interjecting his own.

Both professors compiled the list of "Ten Commandments of Team Teaching," presented by Landy. The commandments are:
1. Thou shalt plan everything with thy neighbor.
"Plan a lot. Plan early and often. Co-design everything," Landy advised. Everyone on the team has to be prepared to stand behind every element, he said.

A coherent course framework is vital, because team teaching makes it a little harder to keep things under control, he said. "Reassure your students there is still a line around which you are drawing this arabesque."
2. Thou shalt attend thy neighbor's lectures.
A course that presents five weeks of teaching from one professor followed by five weeks from another really isn't team taught. "They're two different classes," Landy said. Participation by professors throughout a course not only increases its coherence but "raises the game" for the lecturing professor, he said. And it gives team members opportunities to learn new teaching strategies from each other, he said.
3. Thou shalt refer to thy neighbor's ideas.
Team teaching is not a zero sum game, where a stellar performance by one professor takes away from the stature of another in students' eyes, Landy said. When individual teachers are performing well, the whole course benefits, he said. "Make each other look good."
4. Thou shalt model debate with thy neighbor.
A team-taught course offers opportunities to model high-level debate between advanced scholars, "demonstrating how two equally competent people might legitimately disagree," Landy said. "It shows students what the range is of permissible disagreement. It's not the case that anything goes-everything has to be argued for-but it's also not the case that there is one monolithic approach," he said.

Professors should "use evidence that is emblematic of your discipline," Anderson added. Students then learn to "come from the strength of both disciplinary perspectives and step from one to the other," he said.

"You can really show by example what kinds of questions are susceptible of this sort of beautiful openness, that there are four or five possible approaches, none of which commands a privileged right to our attention," Landy added.
5. Thou shalt have something to say, even when thou art not in charge.
Have some view about the material, Landy said. "It may not come round to you, but your responsibility is to be ready."
6. Ye shall apply common grading standards.
It's time consuming and difficult, but important for a teaching team to be explicit about grading strategies and to find mutually agreed-upon standards, Landy said. Since grading standards vary from department to department, it may be that "one of you is going to have to go up and one has to go down," he added.
7. Thou shalt attend all staff meetings.
"It's vital to have regular meetings, which everyone should attend," Landy said. "Keep testing the pulse of the course."
8. Thou shalt ask open questions.
"Ask questions susceptible of multiple answers," Landy said. "See what comes back."
9. Thou shalt let thy students speak.
It's important to make it clear from the first few classes that student participation is valued and expected, Anderson said. Faculty have to guard against being too technical in their responses to each another, thus keeping students out of the discussion, he said. "Police yourselves and keep things at the level of the class."
10. Thou shalt be willing to be surprised.
Team teaching offers a special chance to take students out to the leading edge and see what the production of knowledge looks like, Anderson said. "You have to bring [students] along far enough so they know the difference between questions that they don't know the answer to and questions that you don't know the answer to," he said.

It's risky, "but the job of teaching is to communicate momentum, not just information," said Landy. "It's vitally important to let ourselves be wrong, to let ourselves be challenged. We have to let ourselves get into those situations where we might fail and where maybe no one is going to come up with an answer.

"Get out of the way and let the thing happen," he said. "Just be a catalyst. Once the reaction has taken place, the catalyst gets discarded-hopefully not fired, but discarded."

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Professors preach 10 commandments of team teaching

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Joshua Landy, associate professor of French and Italian, and Lanier Anderson, associate professor of philosophy, might easily have been rivals, said Michele Marincovich, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, as she introduced Landy and Anderson's presentation at the Center's "Award-Winning Teachers on Teaching" lecture series on Feb. 23.

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Experienced teachers often recall team or collaborative teaching experiences as their best and worst experiences in a classroom. Like any form of collaborative scholarship, successful collaborative teaching integrates the strengths of multiple viewpoints in a synthetic endeavor that no single member of the project could have completed independently. It also provides an expanded number of teaching styles that may connect with more student learning preferences.

At its best, collaborative teaching allows students and faculty to benefit from the healthy exchange of ideas in a setting defined by mutual respect and a shared interest in a topic. At its worst, collaborative teaching can create a fragmented or even hostile environment in which instructors undermine each other and compromise the academic ideal of a learning community and civil discourse. Kathryn Plank, editor of Team Teaching: Across the Disciplines, Across the Academy, describes team teaching as a rough and tumble enterprise. Read Plank's blog entry about team teaching.

The video below shows one example of team teaching. Both courses were titled "Economic Analyses of the Law" but one was taught to graduate students at the William & Mary Law School and one was taught to undergraduates in the College's economics department.

Below is a short introduction to how team teaching is conducted at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

Three Models for Collaborative Teaching

There are three models that the CFT describes here for faculty and student consideration as you contemplate collaborative teaching: traditional team teaching, linked courses for student learning communities, and connected pairs of courses meeting at the same time.
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Traditional team teaching involves two or more instructors teaching the same course. The instructors are involved in a collaborative endeavor throughout the entire course. Some team teaching is more like tag-team teaching, in which only one instructor meets the class to cover a segment of the material. Tag-team teaching has its benefits, but it misses out on the benefits of dialogue and the give and take engaged by the team of instructors.

Advantages of this model include potential deep student learning because of exposure to the connections across the disciplines of the instructors, the ambiguity of different disciplinary views, and the broad support that a heterogeneous teaching team can provide during the entire course.

Challenges include the misfortunes that could occur if the team is not well organized and connected. One challenge is determining the amount of credit each of the team members receives for teaching the course. Sometimes an instructor receives only a fraction of the credit that he or she would receive for teaching a course solo, while in reality team teaching usually requires each instructor to engage more work than when being the only instructor.

The linked course approach involves a cohort of 20 or so students, traditionally but not necessarily first year, together taking two or three courses that are linked by a theme. For example, the theme could be "the environment" with the 3 courses being introductory biology, political science, and English. Once each week the instructors of these linked courses provide a one-hour seminar for the cohort in which the instructors jointly discuss connections, similarities, and differences between the content and objectives of the courses.

Advantages , based on the research on student learning communities fostered by linked courses, include increased student retention-particularly for students academically at risk; faster and less disruptive student cognitive intellectual development; and greater civic contributions to the institution.

Challenges include finding students for the cohort and aligning the student schedules (this is usually undertaken by the student affairs division and the registrar). Another challenge is sometimes the cliquish behavior when the student cohort is embedded in a larger class.

The third model involves a pair or series of connected courses arranged and connected by the instructors to meet at the same scheduled time so that the classes can meet as a whole when the instructors think it is appropriate. The instructors can illustrate and emphasize the interdisciplinarity of certain topics or approaches appearing in both courses.

For example, a connected pair could be an introductory political science and an introductory biology course where the role of public policy affects the biological environment. There is no student learning community cohort involved, so the support generated by a learning community is not available. Thus the connected instructors should include some community building in their courses and during joint meetings. Forming small groups in each course and then mixing these across the courses could build the needed community.

Advantages of this model include the student encounters with different disciplinary connections and related ambiguity. This model is easier to set up than the student learning community linked course model because there is no cohort to form.

Challenges may include finding a space for the joint class meetings.

Cultivating Colleagueship

Finding (or cultivating) a good fit in personality, expertise, and pedagogical philosophy is important to functioning as an effective instructional connection. Strong mismatches in these areas could pose serious obstacles or, on the other hand, provide a variety of learning experiences and opportunities for students. The following questions may be useful as you consider any type of collaborative teaching with a colleague:

Do we share a mutual respect for one another?

Are we free to disagree respectfully without putting our careers in jeopardy?

Are our areas of expertise more likely to complement each other or compete for dominance in the course?

Are we both willing to compromise on issues around which we are used to having a high degree of autonomy (eg. grading standards, course content, and classroom management in the case of team teaching)? (These are not of such concern for linked courses.)

Team teaching also cultivates collaboration between teachers and students. In the article Team Teaching: The Learning Side of the Teaching - Learning Equation, Eison and Tidwell (2003) advocate sharing power with students and including them in some of the decision-making about their own learning. We believe this facilitates critical thinking and students' ability to see themselves as constructors of knowledge.

Constructing Team-Taught, Linked, or Connected Courses

Even the most complementary pairings will find it difficult to be successful if they are not working toward the same overall goals. Proper course design is a pragmatic step for any courses, but it is particularly important for team-taught, linked, or connected courses. By exploring individual assumptions about the goals and methods of a course and reaching a consensus, linked or co-instructors dramatically improve their chances of offering compelling, coherent courses. Conversely, by not working together in such a course design process, linked and co-instructors run the risk of outcomes such as the following:

Serial or parallel teaching splits time between two fundamentally different approaches that can leave students confused; moreover, it fails to take advantage of the opportunity for instructors to build community and model rigorous, courteous academic discourse.

Linked or co-instructors who improvise policies or assignments independently create an environment that promotes triangulation (students playing one instructor against the other) and inconsistency.

If there is a power imbalance involved among the instructors that is not addressed such as between senior and junior faculty, students will recognize the inequality and their learning from one of the instructors may be compromised.

The CFT's teaching guides on Course Design and its Course Design Working Groups offer advice and resources for instructors as they develop or refine their course offerings.

In addition to the normal challenges of developing course content and procedures, linked and co-instructors must decide how to share the teaching responsibilities. Two heads may be better than one at modeling academic discourse, presenting ideas in a variety of ways, facilitating student discussions, and evaluating student work, but they also may be prone to replacing student discussion with expert opinions, contradicting one another, and getting caught up in debating minor points to the detriment of student learning.

As a part of course design, linked and co-instructors should consider the following questions:

What responsibilities will be shared by the instructors?

What responsibilities will be divided generally (across the semester) or specifically (on particular days)?

What are the responsibilities of the instructor "in charge" of a particular event or assignment?

How can the other instructor(s) facilitate student learning by assisting the instructor with the primary responsibility for a given event or assignment?

How will instructors handle disagreements about content or procedure without undermining one another or compromising student learning?

How and when will instructors meet to discuss the course or linked courses and consider changes to content or procedures throughout the semester?

Additional Resources

Web:

Center for Teaching Library:

Bess, James L. Teaching alone, teaching together: transforming the structure of teams for teaching. San Francisco : Jossey-Bass, 2000.

Davis, James R. Interdisciplinary Courses and Team Teaching. Phoenix: American Council on Education/Oryx Press Series on Higher Education, 1997.

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Introduction Three Models for Collaborative Teaching Cultivating Colleagueship Constructing Team-Taught, Linked, or Connected Courses Additional Resources Introduction Experienced teachers often recall team or collaborative teaching experiences as their best and worst experiences in a classroom. Like any form of collaborative scholarship, successful collaborative teaching integrates the strengths of multiple viewpoints in a synthetic endeavor that...