Sean Camp and Dr. Susan Egbert from Utah State University presented on web-based team teaching for the 2020 Lilly Conference. Their recorded session was a lot of fun to watch and clearly shows that they are a dynamic and captivating pair of instructors. They work well together and spoke in a conversational and engaging way. They team teach courses in social work via synchronous web broadcast platform! This sounds very cool but also challenging. Their discussion started with objectives and the pedagogical frameworks they have used to structure, frame, and deliver their instruction. They use distance education for participants across their state. They then mentioned team teaching pedagogy focusing on co-instructor model of fully shared responsibilities. Thus resonated with me as I’ve had the opportunity to co-teach with instructors and postdocs from the Biotechnology Program and my significant other in in-person labs and sessions. This past year I was a co-instructor with postdocs delivering remote online asynchronous lab courses! Further, this spring Claire and I are co-instructors in a significantly redesigned Yeast Metabolic Engineering course that is asynchronous and using new approaches and technology. I have learned a lot from my co-instructors, and I benefit from observing the synchronous sessions taught by our new postdoctoral teaching scholar. Sean Camp and Susan Egbert described the benefits of team teaching for students and instructors. Students benefit from different perspectives and approaches. Instructors learn from each other and help build more collaborative environments. I have certainly learn and have fun with co-instructors. I’m now very excited about the new case studies and course set up in the yeast module… and Claire and I share the responsibilities. As mentioned by the presenters, it is an adventure. I can only imagine doing virtual co-teaching from different sites! The presenters described how they set Zoom etiquette expectations and worked to create a setting modeling collaboration and professionalism. To a point, the co-instructors entertain while delivering content and facilitating discussions. I can get a sense of their classroom personas from their presentation: they are both humorous and help support and develop each others ideas. I learned about Zoom mute etiquette with the space bar and asking speakers in class to verbally say when they are done sharing. I also appreciate how they acknowledge difficulties with monitoring the chat even with co-instructors. They ended by explaining how they schedule responsibilities and debrief/reflect after Zoom sessions and after the course to improve the next session or offering. It was fun and encouraging to see how Sean and Susan enjoy and learn from co-teaching, and how students respond positively to their team teaching practices. I hope we can continue co-teaching, as Claire and I enjoy it!
