Making Team Teaching Effective

How do you make team teaching effective? With WIOA and contextualization of instruction, we often partner our career and technical education with our adullt education staff. But  how do we ensure there is co-planning using the combined expertise between industry experts and adult education experts? 

I'd love to hear how you are doing this and have examples to share.
Sincerely, 
Kathy Tracey

Comments

Hi Kathy, This is a most timely topic since many programs are in the process of trying to figure this out. There is good evidence that when teachers work together effectively, students can greatly benefit.

Let me say first that creating successful teaching teams is not easy. One reason for this is that not everyone is well-suited for team teaching. Both teachers need to be open to learning how to work toegether effectively. I've seen examples of highly effective teams and other examples of teams that were utter failures because one or both teachers were unwilling to work at it.

A team I am familiar with teaches a CNA class together. The nurse educator had been solo teaching the class for many years. Upon joining the class, the adult educator discovered that the nurse eduator lectured all day, every day throughout the course without even the use of technology. Somewhat early on, the adult educator gently suggested to the nurse educator that using technology might be useful. Of course, the adult educator volunteered to design the technology support. Over time, with the savvy support of the adult educator, the nurse educator's practice has been completely transformed so that the course is highly interactive with many small group and partner conversations and well as student-led projects, and, of course, the use of technology is integrated into every lesson. Not suprisingly, the outcome has been that far more students have successfully completed the course than had in the past.

One needs to give a great deal of credit to both of these teachers. The nurse educator was willing to change, and the adult educator approached her colleague with deep respect and an acknowledgement that she, too, had much to learn from her colleague about the content of the CNA course. A reciprocal partnership was key to their success.

On another note, in many programs there are increasing numbers of English leaarners who are transitioning into training. This situation has raised issues for the content instructors/trainers who have never taught individuals who are still building their language skills. Having a co-teacher/trainer, i.e., an adult educator, who understands language learners is invaluable. It is also useful to offer training to these content trainers on ways to scaffold and support English learners who are enrolled in training.

I'm eager to hear from members about their experiences related to team teaching!

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, English Language Acquisition and Teaching & Learning CoPs