Student Appraisals of Collaborative Teaching

Scholars have argued that team teaching promises great benefits for students. However, little systematic research exists to show how such benefits occur. Team teaching takes various forms including the simultaneously taught two-person course (coteaching), the alternating two-person course (alternate), and the panel of three or more faculty (panel). The authors analyze and compare student appraisals of these three different models of team-taught classes to a norm of traditional, solo-instructed courses. Team-taught student assessment data were compared with a baseline of student evaluations of individually instructed courses nationwide. Results indicate that there are no real differences in student attitudes toward team-taught and traditional classes. However, there were some significant differences between the types of team-taught courses.