The Pedagogical Value of Co-Teaching: Case Study – Chemistry

Co-teaching, defined as the collaborative planning and delivery of teaching by two or more educators within the same learning space, is a people centric pedagogic approach than can promote student understanding, a sense of community and inclusion across cohorts as well as increae staff enjoyment of teaching.
In this series of Case Studies we talk to several academic staff who have been practicing Co-Teaching to understand how they approach this and what the benefits and challenges are.

Professor Richard Winpenny and Professor Eric McInness – Department of Chemistry

How long have you been co-delivering for your course units and what was the rationale for taking this approach?

Since lockdown in 2020. We decided to do it then so one person could talk and the other monitor the on-line chat. It was huge fun so we kept it when we returned to the real world. It still allows one to speak while the other watches the audience.

Can you explain about how you deliver your sessions, what is the dynamic between the teaching staff, do you adopt different roles?

We have provided a textbook, written by us for this course, so no notes need to be taken. We then have set problems for the week based on a chapter of the book, but also going back to the start of the book. These problems are the basis of the synchronous session.

Most weeks one of us speaks to the problems while standing at a visualiser while the second interrupts with additional points, or to show a different approach to answering the question, or if he feels the first speaker has been unclear or, well, wrong.

We have distinct approaches to science. Eric is more analytical and mathematically adept. Richard has a woolier approach and often takes short-cuts in understanding. We do this in front of the students to demonstrate that you can learn the material in different ways. We occasionally disagree, with Richard calling Eric a pedant and Eric appalled by Richard’s sloppiness.

What are the benefits/drawbacks to this approach for you as staff and also your students?

For us it is more fun. We think it is more entertaining for the students and it shows that there is no one way to learn chemistry – which is a vital lesson.

What has been the impact of this approach on your non-teaching time – for example moving from 100% teaching of half a unit to 50% teaching of an entire unit?

Very little. There’s six more hours of seeing students, but that’s nothing compared with most of the administrative tasks UoM asks us to do.

Has there been any change in Student outcomes since you adopted this approach or any student feedback that relates to Team teaching?

We also changed the examination paper – setting two questions rather than four questions as we felt we were setting an endurance course rather than an exam. Student marks have improved and we are having to make examinations more difficult. We have also added some material this year, again to increase difficulty.

For outcomes it means we have very few resits or failures. To fail they must have made no effort, and it is in everyone’s interest for such students to stop after one year.

Student feedback is very positive.

How do you approach the planning of the sessions? Both plan sessions, take it turns etc.

We each wrote different sections of the textbook, and each wrote some of the worksheets for the synchronous sessions. We then meet to check/improve over a coffee.

On the day, we turn up and wing it. This is deliberate: if we can’t teach 1st year chemistry without preparation we probably aren’t teaching the right material.

A very strong advantage is that because we both consider all the teaching material it works well. When a session fails, e.g. too short, too difficult or easy, we then revise.

Any issues with Student queries? Do they favour one of you over the other? As you are sharing responsibility for the whole course how are you ensuring consistency of messaging to students?

Nothing we’ve noticed. When we reply to student queries we always copy the other in.

Anything about this approach to teaching that you didn’t foresee?

Not really, other than a tiny minority of students objecting to being asked to read lecture notes.

And a difficulty presented by the sense of humour of white men over 55 years old.

Advice for any staff wanting to adopt this approach?

Go for it and we’re happy to talk to them or have them attend the lectures if they want to see what we do.

And insist on a lecture theatre with a visualiser and a blackboard. You both need to be able to write on something without fighting over a single visualiser.

Is there anything else that you think other teaching colleagues will benefit from relating to your co-teaching experiences

Shorten your examination papers. Exams shouldn’t be an endurance test. You can find out who understood the course from one question just as much as two questions.

We also have a third partner in crime – Prof David Collison – who deals with on-line videos as the pair of us are computer illiterate. David brings a third approach to the material.

Also, we check and revise our worksheets every year. Some tutorials fail because the questions are poorly considered and they never get revised. Working with someone means we check these formative learning exercises like we check examination questions.

Thanks to Richard and Eric for sharing their experiences

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Professor Uli Sattler and Professor Sean Bechhofer – Computer Science – coming soon

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