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Teaching as Part of an Instructional Team
Many faculty and TAs at Ohio State teach within instructional teams, in varied and numerous structures. These structures involve instructors from the same or different disciplines, either designing and teaching a course together or taking turns sharing their own knowledge. Other typical teaching teams involve the lecturer of a large class working with TAs who either grade or teach recitation or lab sections.Team teaching, or co-teaching, can be the strategy of choice for some instructors, particularly those in the professional schools of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Veterinary Medicine. In the team teaching context, faculty partner with one or more other faculty members within their discipline to teach specific courses. The strengths of team teaching rest on the belief that multiple perspectives, energy, and talents can enrich a course tremendously. James Davis (1995) lists eight characteristics of effective teams found in the literature: clear, elevating goal; results-driven structure; competent members; unified commitment; collaborative climate; standards of excellence; external support and recognition; and principled leadership. To plan together well takes more coordination. Davis and others emphasize that clear communication among team members is the key to success. Delegation of responsibilities and frequent checks of tasks' results are important during the planning process. Although a high level of dialogue is involved, Davis recommends that teams truly work together and avoid the "tag team" syndrome of assigning each a topic or topics and taking charge of the course in serial fashion.
As problems become more complex and require multidisciplinary perspectives, collaborations among instructors across departments are leading to more cases of interdisciplinary team teaching. In these cases, the course planning process follows a similar pattern, but there are added considerations. Davis deals with these at length in Chapter 3 of Interdisciplinary Courses and Team Teaching: New Arrangements for Learning. Such arrangements, Davis argues, offer advantages in terms of their holistic approach, as well as the developmental potential and intellectual excitement that can be experienced by instructors and students alike. Davis points out that in the planning process for interdisciplinary courses, a step is needed prior to those usually involved. He terms this prior step "Inventing the Subject," a period of dialogue and exploration during which the instructors and others decide on principal issues and perspectives that will be encompassed in the course.
Instructional teams involving lectures and recitations or labs are very common at Ohio State, in particular for large introductory courses. Typically, recitations and labs are taught by TAs and are smaller in size than the lecture portion of the course. Most are taught concurrently with the lecture, although some labs are stand-alone courses and may be taught in the next academic term after the corresponding lecture-based course. Communication and organization are key in order for any of these teams to function at their highest level; see Being a Course/TA Supervisor for guidance.
Teaching a Recitation
The role of a recitation leader is most often assigned to TAs, who assist the faculty course supervisor that is the instructor of record for a large course with several sections. Such courses include introductory-level biology, psychology, mathematics, chemistry, history, sociology, and physics. Usually several TAs will be assigned to lead separate recitation sections for one course.Recitation leaders facilitate discussions on areas of the course content, readings, or assignments that students might find confusing or difficult. These discussions may require that you be especially effective in understanding how to facilitate group work, how to stimulate student motivation, how to respond to student questions, and what techniques to use to actively engage students during discussions. Sometimes, recitation leaders also prepare and grade quizzes, tests, or papers and submit part of the course grade. You may also be asked to assist with record-keeping, such as attendance and student requests to add or drop the course.
Recitation leaders are an important link between the course instructor and the students. For example, students often will look to TAs for clarification of subject matter, assignments, and how to meet course expectations. Therefore, it is important to have good communication between the faculty supervisor and the TAs who lead the recitation sections.
Teaching in the Lab
While some faculty teach laboratory courses, especially at upper levels, most often this role is assigned to TAs. These classes provide students with hands-on experience in understanding science. These can be active demonstrations or short student experiments. TAs likely will work under a course supervisor. As a lab instructor, whether you are a faculty member or TA, your responsibilities might include reviewing experiments before they are given out to students, setting up laboratory materials (sometimes this is the responsibility of a lab coordinator), demonstrating specific lab techniques, lecturing on content, getting students engaged in laboratory activities, monitoring student work, asking students questions to guide them, and evaluating their reports. Lab instructors also must have a working knowledge of laboratory safety procedures and proper use of scientific equipment.When preparing a lab assignment, instructors might take a moment to view it from a student's perspective. It is important to look for ambiguities and poorly designed procedures that may cause students' misunderstanding and confusion. The best way for instructors to troubleshoot a lab is to do a trial run themselves. It is also very important to have students read through the assignment before coming to lab since time is always tight and they can arrive better prepared to begin. A short presentation might be planned in order to introduce the lab to the students. This likely will include all the information that students need in order to understand and complete the assignment. As the presentation is planned, instructors might stop and ask themselves whether they would understand it, if they were the students.
When teaching in a lab setting, some instructors, especially new teachers, have a tendency to stay at the front of the lab, unless students approach them with questions. A better strategy is to walk around the lab, talking with students and checking their progress, answering any questions they may have, and providing guidance if deemed necessary. The lab instructor can ask students questions that refer to obscure points from the lecture, so that the lab instructor can better assess whether students understand what they are doing. By using this approach, the instructor can also help students prepare for their examinations.
It is important that lab instructors, when offering information, be wary of speaking too technically to students, especially if the information is pivotal to students' basic understanding and completion of the lab exercise. Students will benefit from an emphasis on the basic concepts, along with a gradual introduction to terminology that students will need to use when discussing those concepts.
It is often a good idea for students to work together, either formally or informally. In this way they can help each other learn the material, share equipment and good preparation, and answer each other's questions. While the students are working in groups, lab instructors can check on the progress of each group member, encourage them to participate, and make it everyone's responsibility to help other group members understand the material.
Good teachers stay organized and help students be organized too. It is important to know where equipment and reference materials are located, make careful note of any missing or damaged supplies and equipment, and attend to these needs right away rather than waiting until the next lab. Checking on how students organize their data collection, written work, and drawings will help keep them on track. It is also useful to remind students how much time remains and what needs to be accomplished, and to allow for clean-up time. Safety rules should be established; the instructor should make sure that students follow all safety rules and guidelines.
Being a Grader
Many of the above roles involve grading. In some instances,
TAs are assigned
the sole responsibility of being a grader for a course. It is
important to remember
that whether or not this is your primary responsibility, evaluating
and grading
student work often is combined with other responsibilities as well. Grading
is a very sensitive topic to many in the academic community--particularly undergraduate
students, who often see grades as a way of being accountable to
parents, scholarships,
or financial aid sponsors. If you are assigned the role of being a grader, or have
this in addition
to other roles, you must think about the importance of how grading criteria
assess learning goals, grade consistently between students and among fellow graders, and use the grading procedures and policies in
your department. As a faculty member, you may be offered the assistance of one or more TAs as graders. If so, it is your responsibility to provide them with clear guidance about your grading criteria and how they are to assess your learning goals. You should also ensure that the TAs meet grading procedures and policies of your department, making every effort to grade consistently.
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