In research, we benefit from co-operating with our fellow academics. But teaching is still considered an individual exercise. We argue that co-teaching – much like co-authorship – can significantly improve the quality of educational content through shared expertise, enhanced engagement and diversity of styles.
Picture this: you are midway through explaining a complex theoretical framework when your co-instructor jumps in with a completely different perspective. Instead of confusion, your students lean forward, engaged by the debate unfolding before them. This is co-teaching at its best – and it is time more of us embraced it.
- Inclusive co-teaching can draw on educators’ lived experience
- Better together: co-teaching to support equity in educator training
- Fostering student co-creation to give back to the community
Much like co-authorship, co-teaching is a co-operative exercise in designing and implementing teaching modules and entire courses. The exact balance is determined by the instructors but the starting point is the shared expertise and responsibilities.
Benefits
For students: multiple perspectives, better learning
Co-teaching’s benefits for students include exposure to different approaches to the subject. We noticed that the students in our co-teaching classes valued the debates between the instructors and frequently referred to these occasions.
Efficient co-teaching requires a good deal of collegial rapport because students are sensitive to co-teacher dynamics. Having good dynamics allows you to have hard and honest conversations about sensitive topics such as different research philosophies. When students see instructors differ on important issues, they learn that academia is not about being right – it is about engaging critically with complex ideas.
Co-teaching also mitigates against potential bias in assignments and grading. With two instructors almost always co-present and available, they can always double-check their expectations, as well as appeal to the second opinion.
For professors: learning while teaching
From an educator’s perspective, co-teaching is an excellent way to discover another angle on the subject, rethink your own assumptions or borrow teaching techniques. Also, it pushes professors to articulate better the purpose of the course, because, well, you have to convince both yourself and your valued colleague – as well as your students – that the course makes sense and worth taking.
Teaching an entire semester on your own can be a lonely experience, so having a colleague by your side provides welcome psychological relief and makes the classroom environment more fun and engaging for everyone involved. There is something energising about having an intellectual partner in the room, who can pick up when your energy drops or offer a fresh angle when you are stuck.
For administrators: quality assurance built in
For university administrators, co-teaching can be helpful in the context of double grading since, by default, assignments will be revised by multiple instructors. As students and their parents are becoming more demanding in terms of education quality, the presence of two (or more) professors in the class ensures that their money is not spent in vain.
Challenges
Increased workload
Let’s be honest: teaching together does not mean teaching half a course or 50 per cent of the work. In fact, it is sometimes even more work because you need to catch up on new readings and engage with new debates from your colleague’s expertise. You are essentially learning a course while teaching it.
So set clear boundaries from the start and resist the urge to over-prepare for your colleague’s sections. Trust their expertise.
Conflicting philosophies
Although teaching philosophies and styles can differ, there should be common ground to start with, such as mutual interest in the subject and a shared attitude toward the classroom as a community of peers, rather than a hierarchy between instructor and subjects.
Steep learning curve
Co-teaching requires new skills: real-time coordination, public negotiation of ideas and the ability to gracefully hand off control. These do not come naturally to most academics, who are used to being the sole authority in their classrooms.
Recommendations
Finding your partner
Look for colleagues who complement rather than duplicate your expertise. The best co-teaching partnerships often emerge from existing friendships, collaborations or faculty who regularly engage in thoughtful academic discussions.
Planning together
Have regular meetings throughout the semester. Discuss not just content but classroom dynamics, student concerns and how you will handle unexpected moments.
Don’t be afraid of occasional miscoordination
Minor incidences of miscoordination, which happen very occasionally, are not a disaster – it is an opportunity to model how scholars handle uncertainty and disagreement. Students often learn more from watching you navigate these moments than from perfectly polished presentations.
Dinara Pisareva and Andrei Semenov are assistant professors at Nazarbayev University.
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