TEAM
TEACHING
What is Team Teaching?
As the name suggests it is a group of
teachers, working as a team and teaching. The team can range from 2 to 5
teachers who will teach the same group of students.
The different type of teaching may
include- Teaching the same group at the same time, shared teaching as per the
area of expertise or teaching different subgroup within a large group of
students.
Team Teaching Method
The team-teaching method is one of the
greatest innovations in the teaching sector. It came into existence in the year
1954 in the USA and was mainly focused on developing courses and teaching
strategies.
Team teaching is also known as collaborative
teaching or co-teaching method. The definitions to team teaching
are defined by different people in different ways.
Six Approaches to Co-Teaching:
Co-teaching or team teaching is basically a
collective understanding of two or more teachers focusing on a single group of
students with the best use of strategies, methodology and joint accountability.
1.One Teach, One Observe
2.One Teach, One Assist
3.Parallel Teaching
4.Station Teaching
5.Alternative Teaching
6.Team Teaching
Team Teaching Definition:
T-together
E-Everyone
A-Achievers
M-More
- “Team
teaching is a type of instructional organization involving teaching
personnel and the students assigned to them in which two or more teachers
are given responsibility, looking together, for all or a significant part
of the instruction for some group students”. – as per Spanish.
- “In this teaching strategy two or more than two teachers
involve to make a plan of any given subject, or subjects cooperatively,
carry it out, and always evaluate its effect on the students periodically”
– by educationist
- “It is a form of
organization in which individual teachers decide to pool resources,
interest, and expertise in order to device and implement a scheme of
work suitable to the needs for their pupils and the facilities of
their school”- -- David Warwick
- “In team teaching method two or more teachers make a plan of
subject, cooperatively carry it out and always evaluate its effects on students
periodically”.
---- Naik.M.B
- “Team teaching involves bringing together a number of classes whose
teaching is then the responsibility is then the joint responsibility of
the teachers’ of these classes who constitute a team”.
----Apter.
- Team teaching is a type of instructional organization involving
teaching personnel and the students assigned to them in which two or more
teachers are given responsibility, looking together, for all or a
significant part of the instruction for some group students”.
---J.T.Shapliin (1964)
Characteristics of Team Teaching:
·
The team-teaching method is flexible
·
In team teaching, teachers need to decide their activities by
themselves
·
It is a collective responsibility
·
In team teaching, the whole responsibility is on all the teachers
·
The requirements of pupils, schools and other things are also
considered
·
Teaching and evaluation are both done on the co-operative basis
Few other
characteristics are,
·
Economic factors
·
Enthusiasm is structured
·
Staff development
·
Experience-centered work
Objectives of Team-teaching
The team-teaching
method is practiced mainly at a single classroom or space and it is developed
so as to improvise the learning strategies for the students.
- To improve quality of instruction.
- To exploit talents and expertise of teachers.
- To utilize resources of school.
- To understand importance of cooperation and group work among
teachers.
- To develop the sense of shared responsibility.
- To increase flexibility in grouping and scheduling as the team-teaching
groups students according to their interests and aptitudes in the subject.
- Effective
teaching methods as per the interests of the pupils.
- Make the best
usage of abilities, interests, and expertise in the teacher’s community.
Principles of Team-teaching
- Allocation of duties to teachers on the basis of their interests,
qualifications and personality characteristics.
- Having varying size of the group according to the purpose of the
team-teaching.
- Allotment of time according to the importance of the subject.
- Providing appropriate learning environment by making arrangement
of laboratory, good library, workshop et.
- Providing appropriate learning behaviour to each learner within
the group,
- Exercising constructive supervision on the activities of the
group.
- Keeping the level of team teaching appropriate to the level of
learner.
Types
of Team Teaching:
There are mainly
2 types of team-teaching methods, they are
1. Hierarchic team teaching:
This type of team-teaching
method is just similar to a pyramid where different levels of teachers are
organized in a structure from top to bottom. The team leader is placed at the
top, mid-level teachers just below the team leader and normal teachers at the
bottom.
2. Synergetic team teaching:
In this type
of teaching method, there is no differentiation between teachers. Through the cooperation
of two or more teachers working together, synergetic team-teaching groups can
be formed.
Example of Team Teaching:
Let’s say that your college has 4
teachers who teach sociology. Here each teacher will be teaching a few sections
to your class. The sections or topics of the whole subject will be divided by
the teachers themselves. The senior-most teacher will be the team leader of the
whole process.
We can see the advantages outweighs the
disadvantages if done properly team teaching can be an effective tool for
successful learning. Though it requires a lot of efforts and coordination, it
promotes overall growth and development for teachers and for students.
Procedure/Steps of Team-teaching
- Planning
- Organizing
- Evaluating.
1.Planning: This step involves the
following activities,
Ø
Formulating the objectives of the team-teaching session.
Ø
Writing these in behavioural terms.
Ø
Identifying the entering behviour of the learners.
Ø
Deciding the details of the material to be taught.
Ø
Assigning duties to teachers, such as lead lecture, follow up work and
supervision
their interest and
competencies.
Ø
Fixing up the level of instruction.
Ø
Selecting appropriate teaching aids and other inputs, if any, for
generating learning environment.
Ø
Deciding ways and means to be adopted for evaluating the student performance.
2.Organizing:
Ø
Destemming the level of instruction. Some questions are asked to
explore the background of the learner.
Ø
Selecting the appropriate communication strategy by considering the
level of language achievement learners.
Ø
Presentation of lead lecture by a competent of the team; other teachers
listen the lecture and note element of the topic that appear to be not easily understandable
to the learners or not appropriately presented.
Ø
The other teachers of the team also deliver lectures and clarify the various
elements.
Ø
Supervision of the student activities which are assigned in lead
lecture or group work.
Ø
Every member of the team should
conscious about the time schedule and about the assigned to him. He must be
well prepared and ready for implementing the plan.
3. Evaluation:
Evaluation is an important aspect of
any type of teaching. It will helpful to measure the performance of learners.
It also provides reinforcement to the team of teachers as well as to the
learners, this stage involves the following activities.
Ø
Asking oral questions. Each question should measure a particular
objective envisaged by the team.
Ø
Taking decision about the level of performance and realization of the objectives.
Ø
Diagnosing difficulties of the learners and providing the remediation.
Ø
Revising the planning and organizing phase of team-teaching itself on the
basis of evaluation of the student.
Necessary Skills Required in
the Team of Teachers:
1.
A team of teachers with a various set of skills perspective and
expertise.
2.
Vision and sense of direction.
3.
Ability to coordinate internally.
4.
Excellent team planning.
5.
Friendly nature and ability to keep the environment conducive.
Tips to
Make Team Teaching Effective:
1.
The
openness of mind- Teachers and students must be open to change and must embrace
this new form of learning.
2.
An
effective strategy is necessary which requires undivided attention and time,
willingness to make the learning effective. The
strategy should involve coverage of course syllabus, activities and quizzes to
be carried out, a flow of lecture and documenting and developing a database of
the same.
3.
Regular
meetings and follow up.
4.
Rotation
of roles to enhance learning and reduce boredom.
6.
Respecting
others idea.
7.
Training
to new teachers who are new to the concept of team teaching.
Main
Ingredients of Team-Teaching Strategy:
1.
Scheduling
2.
Grouping of students
3.
Teachers assign themselves responsibilities
4.
New building arrangement
5.
The pupils are provided independent study time
6.
Make use of paraprofessionals
7.
The centralized libraries are replaced by resource centers
Suggested Best Practices for Faculty
Team-teaching works well when faculty,
Ø
Plan together.
Ø
Identify sources of information on team teaching.
Ø
Talk to others with experience.
Ø
Become acquainted with each other’s styles.
Ø
Communicate (i.e., clearly define expectations).
Ø
Plan alternating, interjecting strategies.
Ø
Attend each other’s classes.
Ø
Support each other.
Ø
Model debate.
Ø
Participate even if not teaching on a certain occasion.
Ø
Apply common grading standards.
Ø
Attend all staff meetings.
Ø
Let the students speak.
Ø
Be willing to be surprised.
Advantages
of Team-teaching.
For
faculty,
- Learn about teaching.
- Improve their own teaching skills.
- Have opportunities to socialize graduate students
into the world of teaching.
- Step out of their comfort zone.
- Have opportunities for creative assignments.
- Become informed and encouraged in interdisciplinary
research.
- Avoid the lonely, repetitive, fragmented
experience of solo teaching.
- Gain new insights into their disciplines.
- Build collegial relationships.
- Foster respect.
Some of the advantages of this approach are;
- Each teacher has an active role.
- Students view both teachers as equals.
- Both teachers are actively involved in classroom organization and
management.
- This approach encourages risk taking. Teachers may try things in
pairs that they wouldn’t try alone.
- Two heads are better than one.
Some disadvantages of this approach are:
- Preplanning takes a considerable amount of time.
- Techers’ roles need to be clearly defined for shared responsibility.
Advantages of Team Teaching in
Education:
1. Low cost:
One can get an efficient form of learning
at a very low cost; as such no new resources are required to start team
teaching.
2. Support to teachers:
Usually, teachers are overburdened with
the fact that they have to complete the curriculum by the end of the term, even
if they have creative ideas to teach students, they do not have enough time to
plan and impart the same to the students.
Moreover, it can also happen that
teachers have ideas but need guidance to develop the skill and impart the same
to the students.
Team teaching eliminates such problems
and other problems of a similar kind. When teachers collaborate, they could
play on their strengths and weaknesses and together as a team can make a
successful way to teach and learn.
3. Closer integration of staff:
Very often teachers in schools and
colleges lack bonding and friendship among themselves. Even worse a competitive
environment is seen among the teachers.
The main motive
of educational institutes is to impart value to students and work as a whole
for being efficient knowledge importers. Envy or competition among teachers can
have a negative impact on the Institute and on the student’s mind.
With team
teaching, teachers are bound to bond, as frequent discussions and planning make
them develop a good relationship. A happy staff can effectively inculcate the
vision of the Institute
4. Variety of ideas:
When teachers come together with their
teaching style, ideas and expertise come together, if planned perfectly, the
mixture of best ideas and styles will put forth many ways out of a single
topic. It thus helps in better learning
5. Better involvement of students:
A new method is always appealing;
students might wonder what new thing they are going to learn. A team of teacher
will have various ways and ideas to put forth, which make the students, put on
their thinking cap and question ‘why’ for all things. They will come up
with various questions, queries, and ideas.
A dynamic
discussion session will increase student’s involvement and thus helps in bringing
out the best in students
6. Mental stimulation to students:
In traditional lecture only one
teacher is teaching, the ideas, thoughts are only one way. Often students are
forced to accept whatever taught and they do not bother to think the other way
around.
Team teaching helps them question the
theories and facts. When the students are totally involved it brings out the
creativity and the habit of questioning things.
7. Breaks traditional lecture boredom:
Let’s be very honest, in lectures, we
are often distracted, either chatting with our friends or checking our phones.
Or maybe jotting down notes, in all the mentioned cases we are giving divided
attention.
An interactive
session, debates, help of visual aids and the like evokes interests among
students. Team teaching exactly does that.
8. Better bonding between student and teacher:
Humans bond when they interact, it is as
simple as that. The bonding is increased when teachers often ask questions and
listen to what students have to say. People when heard and appreciated, will
ultimately be more engaged.
9. Provokes participation / interaction:
Teachers will often find students who
rarely participate in any activity and are aloof, mostly students with a shy
personality will not speak much in class. But during team-teaching, a variety
of ideas are put forth.
A perfectly planned lecture will
provoke even the most notorious and most aloof people to be engaged. Team
teaching helps teachers deal with students of all personalities well and get
better engagement
10. Imparts the lesson of team management:
When students see the way, teachers work
in a team, they indirectly get the lesson of team management and the importance
of working in a team. Everyone in their career will need to work in teams.
Students get to see how teachers capitalize
on each of their strengths how they respect each other’s ideas and how as a
whole they put the best picture forward. Indirectly, team teaching is helping
reduce the extra lecture on team management.
11. Develops interpersonal skills and logic of students:
Students interaction and logic is
improved drastically as they learn to question things and learn how to
communicate their ideas effectively.
While in case of
a debate, students get to learn how to respect the contradicting ideas, accept
them and also tell their own thoughts in return.
12. Teachers can give individual attention:
When a teacher is teaching solely, he
or she cannot give attention to the students who have a problem learning. The
main focus is to make the whole group of student understanding at the same
time. But we all know that all students are different and everyone has their
own learning pace.
In
team teaching, if one teacher is speaking the other one can solve the queries
student raises, without disturbing the whole class.
13. Staff development:
There is no limit to learning, provided
if one wishes to, team teaching gives teachers an opportunity to learn and grow
themselves.
Teachers also get
a chance to brush up their skills, work up to their fullest potential and along
with that their creativity, motivation, and team management skills get a solid boost too.
14. Long-term knowledge retention:
With a dynamic and interactive
session student are engaged and they learn better. Knowledge retention is much
higher than the traditional learning approach
Disadvantages of Team Teaching:
1. Acceptance of change by teachers:
Let’s face it, we humans dislike
change, teachers may not accept the idea of team teaching, they are often rigid
and want to stick to the traditional teaching techniques. The idea that they
will have to put extra effort and work hard makes them reluctant.
Team teaching can
only be effective if teachers are willing and happy to involve in the new form
of teaching. A forced approach is bound to fail.
While traditional
teaching has been an attempted and tried technique, likewise it has
disadvantages of traditional teaching, especially nowadays the innovation has
improved adapting, more fun and intelligence.
2. Rigidity in teachers:
Apart from accepting the change in the
form of teaching, teachers often have the rigidity to accept and adjust with
other teachers, while working in a team we have to accept others idea and drop ours.
Teachers should not have an ego and should handle criticism openly.
3. Bad team management:
Internal coordination and good team
tempo are extremely important, internal conflict may result in a complete
failure.
4. Personality conflict:
People with contradicting personality
must devise a way to work together effectively. A dominating person will
overpower other people, a collaborative approach will help everyone grow and
devise an effective process of team teaching.
5. Inability to complete curriculum:
While devising creative curriculum
& engaging students in an interactive session, the curriculum may fall
behind.
Even though creative teaching is
necessary, it is also important for completing the course syllabus. This is one
of the major challenges faced during team teaching.
6. Time for coordination and planning:
Teachers have to take out time from
their busy schedules and sit together to devise the lecture flow and activities
that have to be carried out.
Many times, you
could find them juggling through their own work and the time required for
planning out the course
7. Hard to keep track:
The sessions at times can get super
interactive and teachers will forget the link. The teachers have shared
responsibility and have an individual role to play. If anyone of the teachers
is absent for some reason then the whole session will be jeopardized.
8. Takes time to develop:
Teachers will have to refer many books
and talk to several veteran teachers for designing an effective teaching plan.
It will also
involve deep research and planning out activities which will be appealing to
students. Thus, it takes lots of time and efforts before even starting a
session.
9. Going overboard:
While being creative and lining up too
many activities, it could get way beyond the required amount.
A little simulation to students’ brain
will bring the best in them, but if it gets too much they will find it too hard
to comprehend. One needs to find the right amount.
10. Resistance from students:
Since childhood, students get used to
the traditional form of teaching, they like the structure and the
repetitiveness of the lectures. Most probably they have devised their own ways
to make it work, a sudden change in the style of teaching will make them
confused and they might resist the change.
Some Students like the basic lecture
and then they do their self-study to learn in deep about it. You could find
students coming up with specific problems that they find difficult.
Teaching them
everything in detail and inculcating activity, debate or different methods to
teach the same topic may make them feel that their time is getting wasted.
11. Takes time to develop:
This new teaching style is fresh to
students as well as teachers. Teachers would not have perfect coordination at
the first go, they will have to do many trails for reaching a most effective
format. There can be an overlap of ideas among teachers or they could not
impart whatever they thought of.
It
could also happen that they overestimated or underestimated the time required
to complete the planned tasks. If one of the teachers finds it too difficult to
carry out and opts out of it then the whole team will be disrupted.
Teachers can also face resistance
from the students. Too many ideas and discussion will make the classroom
chaotic. Patience from teachers as well as students is required for a
successful team-teaching
12. The expectation of higher compensation:
If we compare the efforts required for
teaching solely with the efforts required to teach in a team, then the later
one is undoubtedly much harder and would require deep study, time and planning.
Thus, teachers may demand a higher
salary. It could ultimately bring financial pressure on the educational
institute.
Mathetics programmed instruction meaning merits limitations
