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Subject: Large Teaching Teams

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Alec Wersun
Posts: 7
30/05/2007 14:40  
I would like to raise the question of working in large teaching teams. For example, Susan Ogden and I run a module with 700 students and a teaching team of 10-12 people. We have agonised (and still do) over whether we should adopt a "soft touch" or a "heavy touch" approach in terms of how and what we do in seminars, of which there are about 35 each week. On the one hand, one wishes to provide students with a comp[arable experience; on the other, one does not necessarily wish to be too directive ......It owuld be a wonderful world if everyone had loads of time to discuss, debate, brainstorm and agree approaches, but one finds that the module leader is responsible for getting things done and for many it is a question of doing what is needed....Any views or other experiences?
Charlotte Taylor
Posts: 4
30/05/2007 23:25  
Alec, I've run large units for many years, usually over 1000 students, up to a max of 1600, and up to 40 staff. Our tutors/demonstrators teach in all the lab classes (about 20 sessions a week) and we have the same problems. Partly the way in which the class activities are structured determines what everyone will do - ie lab experiment, often requiring pooling of results at the end, but within that framework staff are free to teach and interact with their group however they want. To standardise (horrible word !!) the student experience we have lots of training sessions for staff - starting at faculty level with a semester long training program for all science sessional staff, then with introductory sessions at the beginning of the unit and weekly lab meetings. There's a lot of discsussion in these meetings. particularly with staff who have taught the unit before and this helps new staff to work their way into the system. I've found that explaining my philosophy for setting up the learning activity and modelling what I would do with students does have a positive effect on the teaching across the unit. However you have to be able to trust the team to make their own interpretations of this - I've watched staff doing something totally different with the material and make the learning experience better - I count those as the little triumphs in team teaching. The downside of this flexibility is that some poor teaching will slip through the net, I can't be everywhere to check! However students are usually pretty good at bringing up these problems in liaison meetings?
Derek Rowntree
Posts: 35
31/05/2007 10:09  
Charlotte highlights the essential idea here -- although the enrolment is large (like on an Open University course) and there is only one course director, the students are working in groups of 40 or less (presumably with the same tutor each week who will get to know them through their work and be in a position to give each one reasonably individualised feedback and support. Is that right, Charlotte?
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Forums > Feast of case studies > Open session on case studies in the archive > Large Teaching Teams


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