The idea of team teaching is comparatively new in the field of education. It is one of the most interesting and potentially significant recent development in education. It is an organizational structure to improve teaching learning process in the classroom. It is an innovation in school organization in which two or more teachers teach a group of students. The group is benefited by the expertise of different teachers.

Team teaching involves a group of instructors working purposefully, regularly, and cooperatively to help a group of students of any age learn. Teachers together set goals for a course, design a syllabus, prepare individual lesson plans, teach students, and evaluate the results. They share insights, argue with one another, and perhaps even challenge students to decide which approach is better.

Teams can be single-discipline, interdisciplinary, or school-within-a-school teams that meet with a common set of students over an extended period of time. New teachers may be paired with veteran teachers. Innovations are encouraged, and modifications in class size, location, and time are permitted. Different personalities, voices, values, and approaches spark interest, keep attention, and prevent boredom.

The team-teaching approach allows for more interaction between teachers and students. Faculty evaluate students on their achievement of the learning goals; students evaluate faculty members on their teaching proficiency. Emphasis is on student and faculty growth, balancing initiative and shared responsibility, specialization and broadening horizons, the clear and interesting presentation of content and student development, democratic participation and common expectations, and cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes. This combination of analysis, synthesis, critical thinking, and practical applications can be done on all levels of education, from kindergarten through graduate school.

Definition of Team Teaching

Carlo-Obson:– According to him team teaching is “An instructional situation where two or more teachers possessing complimentary teaching skills cooperatively plan and implement. The instruction for a single group of students using flexible scheduling and grouping techniques to meet the particular instruction.”

David Warwick:- “A team teaching is a form of organization in which individual teachers decide to pool resources, interest and expertise, in order to devise and implement scheme of work suitable to the needs of their pupils and the facilities of their school.”

Characteristics of Team Teaching

From the above mentioned definitions of team teaching, the following characteristics emerge:-

1. It is an instructional arrangement.
2. It involves teaching to be conducted by two or more teachers.
3. It calls for team spirit in teaching.
4. Team spirit of teachers is bound to benefit the students to the maximum.
5. It is a sort of pooling of expertise and resources such as experience, interest, knowledge and skills etc,. of teachers.
6. It is economical in the sence that in more work in less time. 

Objectives of Team Teaching

Team Teaching aims at the realization of the following objectives:

1. To bring about improvement in instruction.
2. To make the best use of the expertise and talents of teachers
3. To develop the feeling of cooperation and group work among teachers.
4. To make the best use of the resources of the school.
5. To develop the feeling and sence of sha5red responsibility among teachers.
6. To expand the scope of teaching good things to students in the most effective manners.
7. To increase flexibility in grouping and scheduling as the team teaching groups students according to their interest and aptitudes in the subject.

Types of Team Teaching

Johnson and Hunt {1968} suggest the following three types of team teaching.

1. Team teaching with in a single discipline:-here a team of teachers carry on cooperative teaching in the same subject. For instance, two or three teachers of Hindi may teach the subject together in the same class.
2. Different team experts related to the course:- Here different teachers who are experts in their own fields are asked to teach together some course which is related to all of them.
3. Combined team teaching with related innovations:- Here a few teachers who are interested in some innovations are asked to discuss their innovations of classroom teaching to one group of learners.

According to Halverson (2000) team teaching includes a number of different approaches. Some of the more common are

• Interactive team teaching – two faculty members present in front of the class simultaneously.
• Rotational format team teaching – faculty alternate teaching the class. This rotational format has a number of variations depending on the subject matter and the number of faculty involved.
• Participant-observer team teaching – all participating faculty are present for all the classes, but only one is “teaching” at a time. Roles that the other teachers could play as participating observer(s) are model learner, observer, panel member, or resource (Klein, 1990).
• Team coordination – faculty arrange and integrate a curriculum so as to maximize learning and connections using paired or linked courses, an integrated cluster of independent courses, or freshman interest groups (McDaniels and Colarulli, 1997). Though not necessarily team teaching perse, this curriculum-level approach to interdisciplinarity can help to achieve some of the expected gains of team teaching.

Guiding principles of Team Teaching

Following are the important principles.

1. Allocation of duties to teachers on the basis of their interests, qualifications and personality characteristics.
2. Having varying size of the group according to the purpose of the team teaching.
3. Allotment of time according to the importance of the subject.
4. Providing appropriate learning environment bby making arrangement of laboratory, good library, workshops etc.,
5. Providing appropriate learning behavior to each learner with in the group.
6. Exercising constructive supervision on the activities to the group.
7. Keeping the level of team teaching appropriate to the level of the learners.

Advantages of Team Teaching

1. Team teaching stimulus thought and discussion among teachers who are jointly responsible for a group of students.
2. A strong sense of involvement and responsibility develops among the students.
3. Team teaching gives adequate opportunities to the students for free expression.
4. Team teaching offers opportunities to the students to develop human relations essential for social adjustment.
5. Teachers are motivated to work hard for the development of their professional proficiency.
6. Students get the opportunity to be benefited by the special knowledge of teacher constituting the team.
7. Team teaching makes proper use of the staff, equipment and the school building.
8. Team teaching helps in the maintenance of discipline as it makes the best use of the time and energy of students.
9. Team teaching helps teachers to evaluate the work of one another and provides opportunities for improving one’s own teaching.
10. Ultimately team teaching helps in the improvement of instruction.
11. The plan provides a flexible class size.
12. Teachers work in the totality of the situation.

Limitations of team teaching

1. Traditional conservative attitude:- In general we seem to be wedded to the traditional routine methods. We resist any new innovation.
2. Lack of cooperation:- mutual cooperation among the members of the team cannot be taken for granted.
3. Lack of facilities:- our school are usually ill-equipped as regards laboratory, work shop and library facilities.
4. Look of accommodation:- we do not have sufficient accommodation in school. It is very difficult to provide separate rooms to teach students in small rooms .
5. High costs: experience of advanced countries reveals that the cost of team teaching per student is relatively higher than the per student cost of conventional teaching.
6. Problem of delegation of power: team teaching calls for delegation of power to teachers. But our administrators are very reluctant to delegate their powers to any other agency.

Essentials for effective team teaching

1. A team of teachers with various set of skills prospective and expertise.
2. Openness of mind- Teachers and students must be open to change and must embrace this new form of learning.
3. An effective strategy is necessary which requires undivided attention and time, willingness to make the leaning effective. Strategy should involve coverage of course syllabus, activities and quizzes to be carried out, flow of lecture and documenting and developing database of the same.
4. Regular meetings and follow up.
5. Rotation of roles to enhance learning and reduce boredom.
6. Effective way to assess students performance.
7. Training to new teachers who are new to the concept of team teaching.

References

Assignments

1. Plan and execute team teaching for any of the UG courses. Narrate your experiences.
2. Prepare write up on how team teaching facilitates learning.