Reference Publications

Taking our own advice: Team teaching

Journal of Engineering Education, Jul 2002 by Rover, Diane T

Teaching Alone, Teaching Together: Transforming the Structure of Teams, for Teaching

by James L. Bess and Associates

Jossey-Bass (A Wiley Company), 2000, 304 pages, ISBN 0787947989

As engineering professors, many of us have used groups or teams to support student learning and educational objectives. We tell the students that effective teaming is hard, that it requires the familiar "forming, storming, norming, and performing" pattern (Small Group Development Theory by Bruce Tuckman). But we also tell them that teamwork is essential to successfully achieve outcomes when confronted with problems that require substantial effort along with diverse skills and perspectives, for example, in product design. How well served would we be if we took our own advice? After all, in teaching, we are designing learning experiences for students, and in a sense, packaging knowledge into a product for student consumers. If we see fit to engage students in cooperative learning, are there similar arguments to engage faculty in "cooperative teaching?" If we take accreditation criteria and employer feedback on the importance of teaming to heart, are there benefits to be gained from "instructional teams?" These questions, while not explicitly answered, are explored in somewhat provoking fashion in the book Teaching Alone, Teaching Together by James Bess and several contributors: John Braxton, Marietta Del Favero, Janet Donald, Michael Galbraith, Thomas Grace, Patricia Maslin-Ostrowski, Alenoush Saroyan, Bruce Speck, Richard Tiberius, and Jane Tipping.

The Wiley Web site gives this summary of the book:

The notion that college teachers are only lecturers or discussion leaders has become greatly outdated in higher education. Today, the instructional process is much more complex and demandingrequiring a range of expertise that cannot be expected from any single individual. In this provocative book, James L. Bess and a select group of scholars propose a radical rethinking of teaching and academic work. They suggest a unique team-based academic organization that matches the different talents of faculty members with the distinct, differentiated tasks of teaching. By working together and supporting each other, faculty members can not only build on their collective strengths and knowledge but also improve their practice in such critical areas as:

* Designing and preparing courses

* Lecturing

* Facilitating group work

* Advising students

* Advising and mentoring colleagues

* Assessing learning outcomes

* Researching new techniques and technologies

* Linking academic and nonacademic pursuits

More important, this new model of collaborative instruction will inspire a fresh, enhanced commitment to teaching-one that moves beyond the current practice of isolated classroom teaching. Teaching Alone, Teaching Together is a scholarly, groundbreaking volume that will surely inspire debate and discussion among faculty members, department chairs, and academic administrators.

In the author's own words (Chapter 1, p. 5), the "idea for this book stemmed from an awareness ... that there simply is not enough time to perform effectively even in each of the required major functions-teaching, research, and service work." His premise is that "instructional subfunctions or roles are so diverse and require such different mixes of tasks, talents, and temperaments that the smaller parts must be played by more than one person." This book is about the diversity of roles or tasks in the process of teaching, not about the diversity of subject matter. That is, it is not about the traditional view of team teaching as bringing together faculty having different disciplinary knowledge so as to teach a complex subject. The team teaching suggested in this book draws faculty from the same discipline and forms teams of specialists based on process knowledge, i.e., the process of teaching. Bess emphasizes this in both the Preface and Chapter One (the latter is excerpted in Portable Document Format at the Wiley website as of this writing). He identifies seven major domains in the process of teaching:

1. Pedagogy

2. Research

3. Lecturing

4.Leading discussions

5. Mentoring

6. Curricular and co-curricular integration

7. Assessment

He organizes the book by considering each domain in turn through contributed chapters, as shown in Parts I-Ill of the following contents outline:

Chapter 1. Tasks, Talents, and Temperments in Teaching: The Challenge of Compatibility, James L. Bess.

PartI: Preparatory Roles

Chapter 2. The Pedagogue: Creating Designs for Teaching, Janet Gail Donald.

Chapter 3. The Researcher: Generating Knowledge for Team Teaching, John M. Braxton, Marietta Del Favero.

PartII: Direct Student Contact Roles in Classroom Settings Chapter 4. The Lecturer: Working with Large Groups, Alenoush Saroyan. Chapter 5. The Discussion Leader: Fostering Student Learning in Groups, Richard G. Tiberius, Jane Tipping.

PartIII: Facilitating Roles