Teaching Three Courses Like One: A Case for Integrated Teaching

Abstract

Team teaching in higher education requires a great deal of coordination and commitment from both the professors teaching together, as well as administrators coordinating courses. Given the difficulties in logistics, it is not surprising that many teams give up on team teaching after only one or two semesters. The literature and lived experience by the authors verify the benefits that come from team teaching: multiple perspectives on the course material, more than one-course delivery method, greater attention from students used to just one instructor, and a greater level of energy in the room and on-line when more than one presenter shares the lecture time. Team teaching (or co-teaching as it is also referred to), in the Service Management Specialization at the Gustavson School of Business in Victoria, Canada, is sharing a cohort of students across three classes, and while each professor is responsible for separate course topics, each makes the time to integrate topics and share time in the classroom together multiple times during the semester.

The authors have been part of a team delivering curriculum this way for over 20 years, and this chapter examines how the material is organized and delivered to team teaching success. Critical elements include funding to support team teaching, commitment from professors to coordinate together, willingness to share materials, and building bridges from class to class to enable students to follow and integrate learnings. Team teaching has resulted in greater cohesiveness among faculty teaching in the program, higher teaching evaluations than professors experienced in solo teaching, and students who feel better prepared to tackle complex business problems that cross the interdisciplinary boundaries of marketing, operations, and talent management.

Citation

Ranson, H.A., Van Buskirk, C.D. and Cotton, R.D. (2023), "Teaching Three Courses Like One: A Case for Integrated Teaching", Sengupta, E. (Ed.) Integrative Curricula: A Multi-Dimensional Approach to Pedagogy (Innovations in Higher Education Teaching and Learning, Vol. 50), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 101-114. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2055-364120230000050006