Team Teaching Policy

In an effort to create more flexible teaching and learning opportunities for faculty and students, the policy outlines allowable team-teaching arrangements for faculty and graduate students both within and between departments and programs in the College. Team-teaching arrangements between the College and other schools will be considered, but such arrangements must be approved by the Office of the Dean.

Normally, team-taught courses are limited to two instructors. Any other arrangement must be approved by the Office of the Dean.

The following policies will guide team-teaching assignments:

Integrated

An integrated team-taught course is one in which members of the team actively participate in all phases of the course, including development of course materials, evaluation of student work, and attendance in and preparation for all class sessions.

Integrated team-teaching assignments must be approved by the chair or chairs of the instructors’ unit(s). An integrated team-taught course must meet double the minima for single-instructor courses (e.g. 24 undergraduate students or 12 graduate students for a course taught by two instructors).

If instructors are from different units, each unit should consider having a separate, cross-listed designation for the team-taught course.

Sequential

A sequential team-taught course is one in which each instructor is responsible for a portion of course instruction and evaluation of student work. Attendance by each instructor is only required for his or her portion of the class sessions. The total credit across instructors equals one course and that credit is divided among them.

For example, if two instructors sequentially team teach a course and each is responsible for half of the course, then each instructor would get credit for having taught half of a course. Initially each instructor would teach such a course as an overload, since teaching loads are normally specified in whole courses. However, in a future semester each instructor could use that half-credit, along with another half-credit from a similar instance of a sequentially team-taught course, in lieu of teaching the latter course as an overload. Such partial credits can also be combined to reduce one’s teaching load in a future semester, but cannot be used to reduce one’s teaching load to less than one course in a future semester.

Similarly, if an instructor teaches two or more different sequentially team-taught courses in one semester, the partial credits from teaching those courses can be combined and counted toward the instructor’s overall course load for that semester.

Sequential team-teaching assignments must be approved by the chair or chairs of the instructors’ unit(s). A sequential team-taught course need only meet the minima for single-instructor courses (12 undergraduate students or 6 graduate students).