team teaching

[Jon Monroe]

Thanks for your comments a few weeks back regarding team teaching.

Kathleen Archer noted:

>Team teaching does
>present the problem of different teaching styles, and to a certain extent,
>different expectations, but if you can give each person a group of lectures
>together students have a chance to get used to them.

and Bernadette Roche mentioned:

>As much as I enjoy team teaching, I think setting up a dichotomy for 
>the students (here is how plants work, and then here is how animals 
>work) prevents them from getting a good understanding of process; 
>it doesn't encourage them to compare and contrast the solutions that 
>plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, etc. use to combat the problems 
>associated with living in a heterogenous world.

It seems to me that both of these problems might be solved, in part, 
by "co-teaching" (as opposed to "'tag' team teaching") in which the 
teachers are in front of the class together at least some of the 
time.  If the two faculty really wanted to do this, wrote and graded 
exams together, and could be compensated appropriately with respect 
to contact hours, I think the benefits to the students could be 
tremendous.

Has anyone been able to pull this off?
What are the cons I'm not thinking of?

Jon


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  Jonathan D. Monroe           Associate Professor
  Department of Biology       office: 540-568-6649
  MSC 7801                       lab: 540-568-6045
  James Madison University       fax: 540-568-3333
  Harrisonburg, VA 22807   email: monroejd at jmu.edu
  http://csm.jmu.edu/biology/monroejd/jmonroe.html
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