The Higher Education Academy Annual Conference July 2006 – Session papers
Team Teaching: engaging diverse student groups in higher education. Reflections on initiatives at Monash University, Australia and Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, UK
Wendy Yellowley and Marilyn Farmer Buckinghamshire Business School Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College,UK
Dr Stuart Levy Monash University, Australia
Abstract This paper is a collaborative insight from research undertaken at Monash University, Australia and Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, UK into approaches to enhancing the student learning experience for diverse student populations.
Australian and UK Higher Education reflect the impact of national policy directed at broadening the participation of previously underrepresented sections of the population. Facilitating access and inclusiveness for such groups is formally recognised in university policy statements. Universities have acknowledged the need to develop their capacity to support diversity and to address student achievement and progression rates with a range of institutional approaches.
Both Monash University and Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College have recognised that simply broadening access to study would be a meaningless initiative if central to that were not also measures to create an appropriate learning environment.
In Australia, Monash University has developed a holistic approach to the creation of a learning community through their Diploma of Foundation Studies. This provides a scaffolded support environment for those new to post secondary education assisting students to develop their skills, capacities and attitudes to become lifelong learners. A significant feature of this supported programme has been collaborative team teaching, which has been the focus of research at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College. Team teaching has been investigated in an effort to explore the
1 The Higher Education Academy Annual Conference July 2006 – Session papers impact it can have on student learning and engagement and the difference it can make to the teaching experience for staff and the notion of ‘pedogogic isolation’.
The findings from the research into team teaching at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College across both undergraduate and postgraduate groups revealed a number of critical issues related to enhancing the student learning experience for a diverse range of students. The qualitative research findings have been clustered into several areas including broadening the curriculum, engaging students and developing understanding. Student feedback suggested for example that team teaching helped to act as a mechanism for a positive learning experience and provided an example and role model for students who often are required to work in teams. Tutor reflections acknowledged it encouraged experimentation with innovation in the class room concerning approaches to delivery and assessment, a willingness to take more risks, deepened understanding of individual delivery style, and allowed closer connection with learning styles and individual student support and progress. The research findings at Monash University were similar and suggest that aside from the success of the DoFS programme as an access initiative teaching strategies have been effective in engaging students and enhancing their learning experience. Their scaffolded support programme has resulted in the development of a number of teaching strategies to cultivate a learning community model based around a small teaching team.
What goes on in the classroom is pivotal to developing student engagement in the learning process. Team teaching can be used as a mechanism to construct an enriching and supportive environment both for the students and the academic staff. The benefits derived are clearly evident, the challenges are always going to be those of time and resources. In both institutions the research into collaborative teaching teams has been found to have a significant impact on the student learning experience. KEYWORDS Team Teaching Pedagogic isolation of the role of the tutor Undergraduate and Postgraduate students Diverse student populations Widening Participation Enhancing the student/tutor learning experience Engaging students in learning
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Team Teaching: engaging diverse student groups in higher education. Reflections on initiatives at Monash University, Australia and Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, UK
Introduction
This paper explores a team teaching approach to student engagement adopted by two institutions in response to the broadening of educational access and participation from non traditional student groups. At Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, UK, research has been conducted into the impact of team teaching as a mechanism for engaging students and promoting learning. The Diploma of Foundation Studies (DoFS) at Monash University, Australia, represents an institutional response to enhancing the student experience through the adoption of a team teaching and a learning community model. Both institutions have undertaken research to assess the impact of such initiatives on student participation and engagement in learning.
Australian and UK higher education reflects the impact of national policy directed at broadening the participation of previously under-represented sections of the population. Facilitating access and inclusiveness for such groups is formally recognised in university policy statements and universities have acknowledged the need to develop their capacity to manage student diversity and its impact on student completion with a range of institutional approaches. McInnis (2003, p.391), however, observes that such strategies “are not responding to diversity for the sake of promoting diversity. They represent the beginnings of systematic attempts to change the mainstream university experience generated by the diversity of student backgrounds.”
At the Gippsland Campus of Monash University a first year alternative entry program called the Diploma of Foundation Studies (DoFS) has been built upon a core of common units (three units out of eight) taught through the year by a small teaching team. The DoFS program at Monash University confirms that in an environment characterised by increasing student numbers and diversity, an appropriately supportive program and environment can broaden access and participation in non-compulsory post-secondary education. Further, it can assist students with modest levels of secondary school achievement to develop the necessary skills,
3 The Higher Education Academy Annual Conference July 2006 – Session papers capacities and attitudes to engage effectively with tertiary level learning practices and embark upon the enterprise of becoming lifelong learners (Candy, Crebert & O’Leary, 1994). Completion has been uniformly high throughout the program’s history with an aggregate rate of 90%. This suggests that, aside from its success as an access initiative, the DoFS program has been effective in engaging students once they have enrolled, with few withdrawing. The findings also indicate that individualistic factors, such as personal motivation, application and persistence, are more important than the base academic level on entry. Furthermore, a supported approach to encouraging the engagement of students and participation in learning is crucial. Indeed, simply broadening access to study would be a meaningless initiative if central to that were not also measures to create an appropriate learning environment.
At Buckinghamshire Business School (part of Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College) staff are constantly looking for ways to engage with and support student learning and improve retention. An innovative approach has been to trial team teaching in order to research the impact on student engagement and learning as well as the way that it might impact on the experience of staff. The applied research undertook to explore elements of the model of team teaching put forward by Benjamin (2000), key aspects of which are based on the work of Senge (1990) and Schrage (1995). Research has been conducted both into the student perceptions of team teaching as well as the practitioner experience. Schon (1987) and Argyris (1993) argue that qualitative improvements in outcomes result when practitioners are able to focus, reflect and evaluate their practice jointly. Improvement in the student learning experience when a team teaching approach is taken is supported by Austin and Baldwin (1991), who argue that team teaching can improve the capability of students in areas of critical evaluation and analysis. The range of modules included in the research was both under-graduate and post-graduate. These modules were chosen as they represented a mix of student numbers, student diversity and varying experiences of higher education. The modules were:-
Level 1 Organisational Behaviour module ( first year undergradu- ate) Level 3 Employee Development and Strategic Human Resource Development modules (final year undergraduate) Post–Graduate Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Designing and Delivering Training Elective on the Professional De- velopment Scheme
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Monash University’s DoFS program has sought to engage new students with the process of tertiary learning through the cultivation of a learning community model around a small teaching team that works closely with the students throughout the year. Over the last six years three units have been taught by the same teaching team, albeit with different staff from year to year. One unit is taught in the first semester by the entire team that then divides into two subgroups for the purposes of teaching two units in the second semester. In each of the units the expectation is that all members of the teaching team will participate, or at minimum attend, the lectures. A colleague from the Language and Learning Services Centre has been a regular contributor in each of these teams. In this way a learning community is created (Tinto, 2000) in which students have the opportunity to create effective learning relationships with members of the teaching team that last throughout their first year. Staff members have the opportunity to guide students throughout the year in their development as tertiary learners and to provide pastoral care as required. Previous studies (Bruck et. al., 2001; Peel, 2000) have found that personalisation and ‘being known’ were important contributors to student’s perceptions of a positive learning experience. Further, staffing core subjects in this manner facilitated the effective development of overlapping themes and learning objectives that would otherwise be impractical in more mainstream approaches where a variety of units and the staff that teach them operate in isolation.
It would appear that the scaffolded support provided to DoFS students is sufficient for many of them to achieve success. In addition to widening access the DoFS program also focuses on issues of participation and what happens to individuals once they gain entry to higher education. Rather than standardising the student learning experience as if their learning needs, interests and abilities were identical (Twigg, 2003) the DoFS program has embedded within it a number of teaching strategies and resources which enable the students to become confident, adaptable and independent learners. Strategies explored in detail elsewhere (Levy & Murray, 2003a; Levy & Murray, 2000b) have contributed to the success of the program which incorporates many of those features identified as most effective when dealing with diversity (McInnis, 2003).
At Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College the definition of team teaching on which the research was based was derived from the work of Goetz (2000) who suggests that team teaching is a group of two or more teachers involved in planning, delivering and evaluating learning activities for the same learning group. The applied research in the Business School involved collaborative sessions where two tutors delivered a session at the same time to the same group of students exchanging and discussing
5 The Higher Education Academy Annual Conference July 2006 – Session papers ideas and theories in front of the learners (Robinson & Schaible, 1995; Maroney, 1995). In the same way that Monash University have responded to widening participation by developing a supportive learning community Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College has considered alternative ways of engaging students in learning. In this context, team teaching provided an effective strategy for developing a collaborative and open approach to teaching.
Outcomes and Observations Research at both institutions into team teaching has confirmed that it can change the learning experience of students and staff. In terms of engaging students from diverse backgrounds a number of learning points emerged from this research. The experience of team teaching removes ‘pedagogic isolation’ or removes ‘pedagogical solitude’ (Shulman & Hutchings, 1995). This can encourage experimentation with innovation in the classroom to support a range of different learning styles and student needs. At Bucking- hamshire Chilterns University College the practice of having two tutors in the classroom at the same time creates a ‘safety net’ to try out different approaches which may be daunting for one tutor or too ambitious in terms of control and logistics. The process of collaborative team teaching provides an example and role model for students who are often required to work in teams. At Monash University this model of collaborative practice has been extremely effective in supporting the development of a ‘learning community’ in which students and staff have assumed a common identity and purpose.
In an environment trying to respond to diversity, the role of the teacher in building a range of mechanisms to encourage learning and student en- gagement is crucial (McInnis, 2003). Team teaching deepens understand- ing and encourages reflection about individual delivery style and its impact on engagement with students as it provides ‘on tap’ a mechanism for con- structive feedback, which goes beyond a one off formal peer review pro- cess. It generates a ‘scholarly discourse on teaching and student learning’ (Benjamin, 2000). No longer is teaching a private encounter between one tutor and a group of students which can result in issues being hidden, ig- nored or overlooked.
Research at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College found that at the higher academic levels a team teaching approach can encourage the skills of critical evaluation and analysis through the team debating issues and presenting differing views to illustrate to students that questioning and challenging ideas is an essential part of undergraduate/post-graduate study. Team teaching can also provide a supportive climate for staff, which helps to generate enthusiasm, synergy and a positive attitude. It offers an opportunity to enjoy and enrich the teaching experience.
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The qualitative research findings drawn from student feedback at both institutions can be clustered into three main categories. A sample of student responses is provided below:
Broadening the curriculum experience Buckinghamshire Chilterns Monash University The team teaching was effective in that it I have really grown from this program. It allowed more information and examples to helped me finally decide what I really want be passed onto students. to do and gave me time to consider the options. It helped me understand what university is about and my role in the institution.
Two lecturers teaching at one time helps to It wasn’t just about learning, if that makes keep me interested as different view points sense, it was about learning about other can be discussed. things. It wasn’t rote learning or book learning; it was just learning sort of life skills in a university context. So that’s probably one of the best things, and meeting new people … from so many different Faculties… I think just the experience of everybody and the[ir] perspective[s]… you get sociology people with their views and the nurses with their views, just sort of incorporating all the views into one general view.
The team teaching was beneficial as it The classes that we had and the support offered different perspectives to the network, it made me more comfortable to outlined topics by both lecturers. I be at uni and it was a smooth transition personally feel that my learning opportunity from school. And you sort of get opened up was enhanced. to this new world of knowledge and this Team teaching provokes discussion. new way of thinking and writing… I think I felt able to put my views forward because that’s what gave me the confidence to then it felt comfortable. go out and go onto the other areas that I’m I liked the fact that lots of students had a really interested in. I suppose it makes you view and it made me think about topics really inquisitive and I think more… critical more. of everything you read and things like that. That has travelled across with me to the end of till now. Engaging students Buckinghamshire Chilterns Monash University The team teaching maintained [The teaching team] know your name, they concentration and interest. know your learning style as well, like if you’re confident or not. I like the feeling that people know each other. I think it’s back to the networking. You’ve got this network of people that know you.
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Paired teaching makes module more Everyone had to participate, it wasn’t just interesting as different style of inputs. sit there and yeah you’re here, it was you had to actively participate.
It added variation to keep attention. They [teaching team] create a strong Having two tutors in the room made me network for the student to improve their work harder. There was no escaping! self-confidence/self-belief, set realistic achievements. Developing Understanding Buckinghamshire Chilterns Monash University I found the team teaching concept very Oh it definitely got heated. Someone useful, it enabled the motivations of stands their point and someone else stands students to be ascertained, as well as their point and that’s good because you providing a varied teaching style from both can share the knowledge, you’re just lecturers to help the students’ throwing ideas around the room and that understanding’. could relate back if you need to write an essay about that topic. [I] like the idea of being comfortable with the people around you and being able to speak your mind. Dynamic lectures/pace. The combination of That whole community type network, we all discussions and listening and the dual bounced ideas off each other. I remember teaching aided my understanding. asking students in our first units let’s go and work on the essay together and like… in that first year it was just really easy to bounce ideas off each other and help each other out and work together…
Further, students appreciated the fact that all members of the teaching staff participated in the lectures, providing a genuine sense of communal and collegial learning. Enhanced accessibility and support outside of the formal learning sessions, and variation in delivery style, helped maintain student interest and encouraged engagement.
Personal investment, by both students and staff, appears to be the key to engaging students and building a successful learning community. As observed by McInnis, James and Hartley (2000, p.4) “[u]niversities, by themselves, do not ‘make’ the student experience; this requires an active contribution from the students.” Community building takes place in the tutorials and daily interaction between staff and students and this is most easily achieved through the use of small teaching teams engaged in team teaching. Quantifying the social dimension of student engagement may be difficult and imprecise but that does not mean it can be ignored or discounted. Research (Peat, Dalziel and Grant, 2001) has shown that students perform best in their first year at university when they negotiate successfully the social transition between secondary school and university. Success in the first year is not just about acquiring academic
8 The Higher Education Academy Annual Conference July 2006 – Session papers skills; it also involves developing an appropriate level of social maturity and social well being. Qualitative evidence suggests that team teaching can be an effective contributor because the students identify with a personalised university learning environment, and establish a learner identity through which they see themselves as an integral part of the university learning community.
McInnis (2003, p. 393) identifies that “a powerful but easily neglected response to diversity is to ensure that the fundamentals of good undergraduate teaching are supported…‘Good teaching is good teaching is good teaching’ is the message now underlining effective intervention programmes”. One of the successful features of both initiatives has been the positive impact on student learning and teaching practice as a consequence of the collaborative partnership between staff. This collaboration has resulted in the rethinking of assessment, redevelopment of marking criteria, and changes in teaching practices and curriculum. Using a cycle of sharing information and knowledge, negotiating meaning, implementing new approaches and reflecting on the outcome (following James et al., 2004) has led to successive improvements in learning for both staff and students. Most importantly, this learning cycle has transformed tacit, implicit knowledge into explicit articulation. This means, then, that students are more likely to have an understanding of what is required, with the associated positive effect on performance. This suggests reconsideration is needed of the ‘lone academic’ system universities are so heavily dependent upon (Twigg, 2003).
The team dynamic is perhaps the most critical aspect as a high level of trust and respect is required. Research suggests that an important variable is the ‘intention’ of the team and whether the team is established on a voluntary basis or imposed (Benjamin 2000). The success of the team appears to be influenced by this factor (Goetz, 2000) and experience at both institutions confirms this. When staff has been co-opted onto teaching teams the necessary staff collaboration has been absent and the students have been adept at exploiting differences in staff commitment. As noted by Goetz (2000) ‘clever students may attempt to play one tutor off against another’. Whilst collaborative teaching teams can have a significant impact on the student learning environment (James, Skillen, Percy, Tootell & Irvine, 2004), a barrier to success can be the co- ordination and continuity required.
As would be expected, some challenges with team teaching were experienced. The reflection process is time consuming and whilst team
9 The Higher Education Academy Annual Conference July 2006 – Session papers teaching allows the workload to be shared, if learning programs are to be delivered in a co-ordinated and well-planned manner they have to be jointly prepared. As a consequence, team teaching involves a high level of co-operation, a willingness to be adaptable to colleague’s ideas and styles, and a preparedness to expose individual strengths and weaknesses in an open forum.
It is a testament to the effectiveness of a team teaching based learning community model in engaging first year students that at Monash University an unforeseen issue arose in subsequent years. As noted by one student: [The teaching team] was a really big positive thing for me, but it also was a disadvantage as well. Because when we leave DoFS, you think or expect or hope that the other lecturers and people that you have are going to be the same way, but they’re not. So as good as what that was, like it was awesome to have that support… I think I struggled. Because I had that in first year, I expected it or hoped it would be like that following. And it wasn’t, so I sort of had to change and readjust again. The inculcation of a learning community identity by the teaching team has proven remarkably effective in encouraging students to support each other and seek support from staff. These networks have been observed operating into the second and third year of students’ study; although it must be admitted some students have experienced a delayed form of transition anxiety in their subsequent years of study. The reason for this stems from the breakdown of support groups formed during first year. These anxieties, however, do not appear to have been significant enough to have impacted upon student retention levels or results.
The effectiveness of team teaching as an engagement strategy can be assessed not simply through qualitative feedback from the students and staff involved but also through quantitative data detailing student performance. Certainly this has been the experience at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College where feedback from external examiners noted an increase in critical analysis and debate in students’ examination answers at Level 3 and improved achievement rates at Level 1. At post- graduate level the pass rate for the nationally set examination for the module which is team taught improved by 5% from the previous year. At Monash University, 91% of students graduating from the DoFS program were successful in gaining places in Monash University degree programs the following year on the basis of their results. DoFS graduates entered the institution with significantly more modest levels of secondary school success than their mainstream peers but have subsequently progressed through their degree level studies at a satisfactory rate comparable to that of students admitted through mainstream avenues. These outcomes at both institutions suggest that team teaching can be an effective method through which to engage students with successful learning practices.
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Concluding Remarks
A major focus of both the UK and Australian governments’ in recent years has been on widening participation in higher education but at the same time demanding greater fiscal accountability. In a higher education envir- onment characterised by competing demands of teaching and research- ing, by increased diversity, and decreased funding, a somewhat rational- ised response to teaching and learning demands can arise (Bruck, Hallett, Hood, MacDonald & Moore, 2001). It is not, however, sufficient to assume that providing access to a more diverse group of students ensures suc- cessful learning. Nor can it be assumed that the traditional approach to teaching will be sufficient to capture the various learning needs of new stu- dent populations. It has been noted of the Australian Y Generation that ‘there is a need to strike a balance between fostering independence and providing scaffolded support for a diverse range of students needs.’ (Krause, 2005) Monash University and Buckinghamshire Chilterns Univer- sity College have adopted team teaching as a means to address some of the challenges presented by student groups new to higher education.
Whilst engaging students through team teaching does have additional re- source costs associated with it, these need to be evaluated with respect to the institutional costs incurred by a failure to engage and retain students. Resource costs associated with team teaching are primarily related to staffing; the costs of failing to retain students are often hidden and dis- placed from faculty budgets. As noted by Swail (2006) these costs occur at both an institutional and, for the students, a personal level. Institutionally ‘[e]very student “lost” represents a financial loss for institutions’ from a variety of immediate and longer term revenue streams. Students who fail to complete incur financial costs but also ’an opportunity cost’ through loss of valuable ‘life’ time (Swail, 2006). The findings of research conducted at both institutions suggests that team teaching and the establishment of learning communities as a means of engaging, and subsequently retain- ing, students is a means of minimising these costs.
What goes on in the classroom is pivotal to developing student engage- ment in the learning process. Team teaching can be used as a mechanism to construct an enriching and supportive environment both for the students and the academic staff. The benefits derived are clearly evident, the chal- lenges are always going to be those of time and resources. This research carried out at both institutions suggests that the process of team teaching can help to encourage student engagement with the learning process.
Wendy Yellowley and Marilyn Farmer
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Dr Stuart Levy
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