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Speaking of
Teaching
T H E C E N T E R F O R T E A C H I N G A N D L E A R N I N G • S T A N F O R D U N I V E R S I T Y
Fall 2006
NEWSLETTER
Vol.16, No.1
Team Teaching: Benets and Challenges
I
n recent years, team-taught courses
have become an important part
of the Stanford curriculum. Long an
integral aspect of the Introduction
to the Humanities (IHUM) program,
team teaching has now found a place
in many different departments, pro-
grams, and disciplines, at levels ranging
from undergraduate lectures to graduate
seminars. Team teaching boasts many
pedagogical and intellectual advan-
tages: it can help create a dynamic and
interactive learning environment, pro-
vide instructors with a useful way
of modeling thinking within or across
disciplines, and also inspire new
research ideas and intellectual partner-
ships among faculty. To experience the
full benets of team teaching, however,
instructors must adjust their course
planning and classroom management
strategies to accommodate a collabora-
tive approach.
Professors Lanier Anderson (Phi-
losophy) and Joshua Landy (French
and Italian), who have team-taught
several courses together, summed up
some of the lessons taken from their
experience in an Award-Winning
Teachers on Teaching presentation
during Winter Quarter 2005-2006. In
the following, their suggestions for
team-teaching, presented as a mock
Decalogue, are interspersed with results
from recent research on team teaching.
Thou shalt plan everything with thy
neighbor.
Team teaching requires different prep-
aration than traditional, single-instruc-
tor courses, particularly concerning
the organizational aspects of course
management. Careful and extensive
planning can help instructors prevent
disagreements down the line regarding
assignments, grading procedures, and
teaching strategies (Letterman and
Dugan, 2004; Wentworth and Davis,
2002). Planning meetings also allow
instructors to familiarize themselves
with their partner’s material, helping
make the class a true team effort from
the start. According to Landy, “Every-
one on the team has to be behind every
element of the course.” While reaching
this consensus may take a lot of time
and compromise, in the end the extra
effort will result in a far more success-
ful intellectual experience. As Cowan,
Ewell, and McConnell (1995), a teach-
ing team at City College of Loyola
University in New Orleans, write, “Our
joint planning sessions became inter-
disciplinary conversations into which
we subsequently invited our students.
These conversations were among the
highlights of our teaching together
(par. 5).”
Thou shalt attend thy neighbor’s lec-
tures.
One of the most important rules of team
teaching, Landy says, is to “attend all
meetings of the class. Never miss a
colleague’s lecture.” Anderson and
Landy use what is typically called
an interactive teaching model, where
all members of the teaching team are
present during each course meeting.
This model provides the most oppor-
Professor Joshua Landy
Professor Lanier Anderson