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Most students expect to see one professor at the front of the classroom throughout the semester. But for those attending Harvey Mudd College, a STEM-focused institution in California, it\u2019s not unusual to have four or more faculty members teaching one course. <\/p>\n
At Harvey Mudd, team teaching has been a distinguishing facet of the student experience for decades; most general education STEM courses for incoming students are taught by two or more professors. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the water we swim in,\u201d said Kathy Van Heuvelen, associate dean of faculty. \u201cIt\u2019s so embedded in our culture.\u201d <\/p>\n
Implementing team teaching as standard practice has helped the college train early-career faculty, establish more holistic courses and ensure students are aware of the various resources and experts available to them on campus. <\/p>\n
What is team teaching? <\/strong>Also called collaborative teaching or co-teaching, team teaching involves multiple instructors leading a course, each with their own responsibilities. <\/p>\n Often, team teaching involves faculty of different disciplines covering a topic or issue from multiple perspectives. At Harvey Mudd, for example, a group of faculty taught a course on California wildfires, and the content included the history of forestry, atmospheric chemistry and air pollution, as well as the social implications of fires. Sometimes that means two professors teaching side by side, but often faculty split up lessons and take turns delivering content to students. <\/p>\n Team teaching is less common than solo teaching, in part because it requires more time to implement. Faculty sometimes face logistical barriers, such as aligning schedules and co-creating materials, as well as personal differences in assessment or classroom management. But when done well, the format can equip students with greater critical thinking skills and a richer understanding of content. <\/p>\n Prepped for success: <\/strong>To help professors navigate team teaching, Harvey Mudd offers them a variety of resources. New instructors participate in a weekly lunch led by college administrators where they gather, eat and engage in professional development, Van Heuvelen said. \u201cOur sessions have included team-teaching strategies for communicating with your team and navigating this mode of teaching.\u201d <\/p>\n Van Heuvelen also provides a team-teaching checklist for faculty each semester to help them prepare for the upcoming term, which includes items such as communication, timeline for developing materials, classroom management and other course policies. <\/p>\n \u201cIt has a list of questions for the team to discuss ahead of time to try to help teams get out In front of any challenges and establish their team norms,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n The college is part of the Claremont Consortium\u2014a group of seven higher education institutions in Claremont, Calif.\u2014which has a Consortium Center for Teaching and Learning and provides workshops on team teaching, as well. <\/p>\n Most team-taught courses are designed to feature a junior and senior faculty member, allowing the early-career professional to learn from a more experienced instructor, Van Heuvelen said. <\/p>\n \u201cFor an early-career hire who maybe does not have extensive teaching experience, it is like attending a master class,\u201d Van Heuvelen said. \u201cThere is tremendous mentoring that can go on there.\u201d <\/p>\n Newer instructors also bring fresh perspectives and ideas to the classroom, which ensures content does not get stale over time. <\/p>\n Supporting student success: <\/strong>One of the benefits of the model is that students have a group of instructors to engage with and call on if they need academic support, Van Heuvelen said. <\/p>\n \u201cFor example, when we have a team that\u2019s teaching, we all hold common office hours, so students can go to any office hours,\u201d Van Heuvelen said. <\/p>\n Past research shows that students are often unaware of the full range of supports available to them on campus, but engaging with many professors can get students more plugged in to institutional services, or at least provide more touch points, Van Heuvelen said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most students expect to see one professor at the front of the classroom throughout the semester. But for those attending Harvey Mudd College, a STEM-focused institution in California, it\u2019s not unusual to have four or more faculty members teaching one course. At Harvey Mudd, team teaching has been a distinguishing facet of the student experience<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[2335,3350,678,4745,1905],"class_list":{"0":"post-27000","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-benefits","9":"tag-faculty","10":"tag-students","11":"tag-teaching","12":"tag-team"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}