Planning and teaching for effective learning
An area within higher education I want to explore is co-teaching. As an AL I currently co-teach across three universities on two programmes BA GMD first years practical studio work and BA GD Contextual Studies second years. Student group sizes range from 45-75 and so co-teaching is invaluable.
Recently I had been given the opportunity to plan a formative assessment session, this provided me with a chance to adapt an approach we had previously introduced to students in the first block; a walk around exhibition introducing peer to peer feedback. The aim was to plan a structured yet enjoyable formative assessment ensuring students were actively engaged in their own learning process, demonstrating a clear understanding of the learning outcomes and assessment criteria in becoming self-regulated learners. If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail, in this case planning posed a challenge, primarily revolving around staff coordination.
My recent peer observation had been an online session conducted by two co-hosts. It was delivered using Microsoft Teams and used a Miro board to structure the activities. It emphasised collaborative ‘live’ teaching and learning, it also encapsulated learning through coteaching, that ‘collaborative teaching (also called coteaching or team teaching) can also be viewed as a mode for learning (Scherer et al., 2020). Co-teaching has been an invaluable experience for my teaching practice. Alexandra Mihai (2021) highlights numerous benefits to coteaching.; shared workload, from the planning to the evaluation stage; capitalising on the strengths and expertise of the co-teachers; greater teacher/ student ratio; more student support; familiarising students with various teaching styles and methods; providing students with different perspectives on one topic, so enriching their learning experience. However, co-teaching can be problematic.
The planning of this session raised the question of, how can we plan better when we are not together? We often plan asynchronously for in-person sessions because both associate and contracted lecturers are rarely in the same at the place time except during contact teaching hours. Planning sessions typically takes place through an array of digital channels, occasionally in person, never exceeding 15 minutes, each with its own limitations and constraints. Collaborative planning is an integral part of coteaching, and ‘serves as a mechanism for learning allowing lectures to engage in generative discussions about pedagogy, content, and teaching strategies.’ Scherer et al., (2020). Though it doesn’t tackle lecturers’ varying schedules or directly solve the time required to plan, it does allow for the sharing of expertise and the development of student-centred teaching strategies. It has the potential to enhance student engagement, motivation, and learning outcomes creating an effective learning environment whilst enhancing a lecturers practice.
Reading these papers, I have learnt that many of the methods, strategies, and approaches discussed within them have been introduced to me during the PgCert course, such as observations of co-lecturers, keeping reflective notes ‘what did I learn today that will be useful to me as a lecturer?’ (Scherer et al., 2020) and can be implemented into my current teaching practice. It has also allowed me to reflect on embracing imperfection recognising that teaching is a complex and evolving process.
In the future, I aim to develop a self-initiated project: a visual journal titled Embracing Imperfection featuring interviews and stories from teaching staff who view mistakes as valuable learning experiences.
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References
Mihai, A. (2021) The Power of Two: Exploring Co-teaching, The Educationalist. Available at: https://educationalist.substack.com/p/the-power-of-two-exploring-co-teaching (Accessed: 26 February 2024).
Scherer, H.H. et al. (2020) ‘Coteaching in Higher Education’, Journal of Effective Teaching in Higher Education, 3(1), pp. 15–29. Available at: https://doi.org/10.36021/jethe.v3i1.37
Additional reading
Branch, J. et al. (2021) ‘Collaborative Planning and Team Teaching in a Large Lecture Hall: Modeling Leadership for Change’, IASL Annual Conference Proceedings [Preprint]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.29173/iasl7991.