By Dr. Anupama Sethi and Dr. Sharon Koh
Posted Tue 20 August, 2024

Can international team teaching enhance cultural awareness and inclusive learning? We explored possibilities for building cultural awareness and inclusive learning by co-developing and co-delivering the unit across Australian and Malaysian campuses. This provided an exciting opportunity for the students to gain international experience without leaving their countries.

Co-developing and co-teaching the module

Starting as strangers, when the Department of Economics, Monash University Australia, and Monash University Malaysia, put us together to co-teach a unit. We embarked on our journey of team teaching with a positive attitude and are now good friends. We started interacting, brainstorming, and planning six months ahead of co-teaching this module in S1 2022. The module workshops are run jointly online by both educators, combining Australian and Malaysian cohorts on a weekly basis. Both educators prepared pre-recorded materials to create a shared understanding of the content among students. The authors used a wide range of digital tools, such as Google Forms, Padlet, and AnswerGarden, to enhance active participation during joint workshops.

It is a challenge to run an inter-country-inter-campus online workshop. We have learned from the initial discussions with the educational designer team that it is important to explore various tools to run the online workshops. Instead of working in silos, we have opted for an alternative model of teaching where we collaborate and teach together in the workshop. We meet regularly and even rehearse the workshop structure before the workshops so that the students can see us as working in a synchronised unit.

By working together in a cohesive way, the educators have maintained synchronisation and mutual understanding between them for effective co-teaching and delivery of the unit jointly. Participating in team teaching potentially contributes to the professional growth of students and teachers (Baeten & Simons, 2014; Mononen et al, 2023). Teaching in a team can be seen through a socio-constructivist lens, which emphasises that teachers collaboratively construct knowledge through social interactions, thereby achieving more collectively than they would individually (Baeten & Simons, 2014).

Our team believes that presenting a united front is crucial to show our dedication towards the student learning journey. The team-teaching relationship is visible intentionally to the students, who often take our cues when we interact with them in the discussions. The relationship is built through weekly pre-class and post-class meetings. The team is open to each other’s ideas, and we work out effective collaboration of content and how it can be imparted in a motivating and effective way. Team teaching may serve as a great way to give practical demonstrations to the students about professional collaboration, which helps in the effectiveness of teaching and learning practices. We meet regularly, intensely collaborating before and after workshops. We meticulously plan all workshop activities and the sequence of events together. This includes a range of choices, from selecting the opening music to designing ice-breaker activities and Poll Everywhere questions.

The module workshops are run jointly online by both educators, combining Australian and Malaysian cohorts on a weekly basis.

Teaching tools

The educators in our teams prepare an array of tools for asking concise questions, curate videos for presentation, and strategise the approach for discussing case studies. We select music videos to be played while waiting for all students to join the class to make the class more lively and start with a happy note. Icebreaker questions are used to link the topic covered during the workshop and start discussions. Using the Zoom breakout room feature, the educators randomly mix students from both campuses to collaborate. This approach allows students to gain exposure to diverse perspectives and backgrounds, enriching their learning experience. Students are encouraged to actively engage and co-create the content during the group discussions. The joint workshops provide rich peer-to-peer learning opportunities.

To inculcate interest in the content and capture their interest and passion from the beginning of the class, we very carefully decided on the ice-breaker question. For example, while covering the Economic and business environment, we asked “With which Southeast Asian country would you prefer do business?” and captured students’ responses using Answergarden. From there, we discuss further, e.g. “If you could move anywhere in the world and continue working remotely, where would you go?” These icebreaker questions encourage students to think critically about the economic and business environment in the region and to become comfortable talking to each other in the group. Then, discussion questions are given to each group and each group can write their responses (upload videos, pictures, written responses), followed by the presentation by each group and discussion in the class.

Sample of Answergarden and Padlet responses

Student response 11/03/2024

Part of the post-class activity requires students to complete a ‘one-minute take away’ Google form submission in which students are expected to summarise, reflect on their learning journey, and provide quick feedback. This helps keep students motivated and engaged, and they give careful attention to the content covered during the workshop.

Benefits of Team teaching

In our experiences of team teaching, educators feel more motivated while working together. We have tried many new tools, and teaching approaches and became more confident while teaching together. Team teachers are more likely to take pedagogical risks and are more inclined to experiment with unfamiliar and innovative teaching approaches (Baeten & Simons, 2014; Birrell & Bullough, 2005). Having multiple faculty together in a single online space provided different perspectives to the shared teaching and learning, and helped the team to develop meaningful relationships with the students. Working and teaching in a team seems to play a pivotal role in maintaining the motivation of both educators and students.

Educators from different locations also add different perspectives to the classroom, which makes it a unique experience. Together, the educators not only speak from a global perspective but bring a global perspective into the classroom, i.e., to understand and appreciate perspectives other than their own. Our collaborative efforts result in the merger of diverse teaching strategies, knowledge, and tools. Beyond benefiting from two educators from different campuses, students witness a model of teamwork and the cultivation of trustworthy relationships. This opens up the potential for educators to consider global setting delivery of the unit to enhance students’ learning outcomes.

Team teaching may serve as a great way to give practical demonstrations to the students about professional collaboration, which helps in the effectiveness of teaching and learning practices.

The collaborative nature of team teaching brings a broader range of expertise and perspectives to the forefront, potentially enriching the learning experience. This diversity may help to sustain student interest and create more engaging content and conversation. Where there is complementarity among educators, it encourages innovative and creative lesson planning as teachers brainstorm and experiment with new teaching strategies, technologies, and assessment methods. It can create a dynamic and effective learning and teaching environment.

Joint workshops of Australian and Malaysian campus cohorts make the workshop more interesting. Peer-to-peer interactions motivates students and enhances their emotional intelligence and collaborative learning experience. The international campus exposure, diverse backgrounds and different cultures and countries make the learning experience more enjoyable and unique. Each of them feels motivated, inclusive, and an important part of the group.

Does international team teaching give us a way to keep students (and teachers) motivated and encourage inclusive teaching and learning?

Yes, at least in our experience!

Have you done any team teaching or are you thinking of trying it? Please let us know by adding a comment, below.

References

Baeten, M., & Simons, M. (2014). Student teachers’ team teaching: Models, effects, and conditions for implementation. Teaching and Teacher Education, 41, 92–110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2014.03.010

Birrell, J. R., & Bullough, R. V. (2005). Teaching with a Peer: A Follow-Up Study of the 1st Year of Teaching. Action in Teacher Education, 27(1), 72–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/01626620.2005.10463375

Mononen, M., Havu-Nuutinen, S., & Haring, M. (2023). Student
teachers’ experiences in teaching practice using team teaching in flexible learning space. Teaching and Teacher Education, 125, 104069. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2023.104069