Report of Faculty Experiences When Team Teaching in Higher Education

Abstract

This article continues the project of current authors (Malak & Gambescia, 2023) who learned about the personalities, leadership styles, and pedagogical preferences of higher education instructors that have collaborated on lessons, by expanding the analysis to the experiences of team teaching in the areas of best, worse, and overall experiences in the teaching/learning process. Thirty-five faculty who had team taught in the past completed an online survey responding to 16 questions related to their team-teaching experience, using a Likert Scale rating and several open-ending questions. Respondents found that the most benefit from the experience was in collaborating with the other faculty member as opposed to benefits to the student. Furthermore, in this collaboration faculty found satisfaction in the planning and building of components in the teaching/learning process to provide a quality course versus activities related to students such as building better relationships and activities related to assessing students’ work. External influences and benefits to self that were not related to the other faculty member or student interaction were not evident. Given these results, we believe that a significant characteristic of any faculty member involved in team teaching is knowing how to lead and knowing how to follow.