Co-teaching / team teaching

Teaching a course in collaboration with another colleague can be an intellectually and personally rewarding experience for the co-instructors as well as for students. It can also be challenging, and doing it well requires clear communication, time, and the development of a shared vision for the course. 

Macalester supports the development of team-taught courses through the Fund for the Advancement of Collaborative Teaching (FACT), which offers $1000 course development stipends to each faculty member selected for a team-teaching experience as well as the possibility of hiring part-time faculty to cover courses necessary to a department’s curriculum that might be lost due to the team-teaching assignment. Funding is administered through the Vice Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty’s office. Contact Paul Overvoorde for more information. 

Even without financial support, some Macalester faculty have co-taught classes with department or non-department colleagues.

Below we offer some resources and recommendations for colleagues who are considering co-teaching.

• Four questions to ask before you co-teach (Mendoza & Weise, 2017, Inside Higher Ed)
• Challenges and benefits of team teaching (Boston University) (pdf)
• What we learned from co-teaching (Bali, Mostafa, & Osman, 2016, Chronicle of Higher Education)