Improving Team Teaching in the Earth Sciences through an Action Learning Approach

Abstract

A project developed in the Earth and Land Science course at the University of Canberra has explored action learning/research as an approach to improving team teaching. The approach is well suited to implementing positive changes in dynamic group situations such as those involving multiple teams of teachers and learners.A major advantage of this approach is its capability to introduce changes in teaching methods in an interactive way and to provide an easier start to the process of change. Participants are able to initiate, direct and develop ownership of change and there are greater opportunities for synergy through cooperative peer involvement and support. The project reported here has improved our team teaching in the subjects where it has been applied, but more importantly it has acted as a pilot for ongoing and future developments.

Introduction

Team teaching is an important component in most tertiary level earth science courses where a significant part of the curriculum includes experiential learning in practical and field classes. These settings require coordinated input from a group of teaching and support staff. Team teaching in this area appears to have evolved through practical necessity, generally without much reported evaluation or reflection on its effectiveness or formal consideration of its theoretical basis.

Action learning can be defined as ‘the continuous process of learning and reflection, with support and input from colleagues’ (e.g. McGill & Beaty, 1995). It involves continuous feedback through a cycle of reflection-planningaction-observation-reflection. Reflection is a critical part of the process. Reflection promotes learning by reconstructing or returning to the experience through describing it, attending to the feelings of the experience and re-evaluating the experience. This article describes and examines a project that uses an action learning/research approach to improve team teaching within a specific earth science course at the University of Canberra.

Teaching Teams

A teaching team can be defined as a group of educators working together in an integrated and complementary arrangement to assist learning in a particular subject or course. Members of teaching teams have the shared aim of assisting a particular educational outcome, as well as common interests in a broad subject area and similar needs and problems. Other individual attributes may be different, for example age, experience and specialist expertise. The operation of the team is likely to be affected by intra-team group dynamics as well as by interactions in the broader group of students and teachers. The effectiveness of teaching teams can vary considerably and is influenced by such factors as the background and experience of individual members, the level of communication, cohesion and morale within the group, the structure, organisation and style of leadership and the overall goals and objectives which give the group its direction (e.g. Jaques 1991).

Good leadership and management are important in building good teaching teams. Research by Martin et al. (2003) on leadership and teamwork in large first year courses suggests that perceptions of leadership and management of teaching teams can be classified into seven major categories. These range from situations where there is perceived to be no obvious leadership and where the team is well established and appears to run itself, to situations where the perception is one of full involvement and planning by all members of the team, as demonstrated in the Stages A to G in Table 1. These different styles of team management and leadership are likely to have different effects on educational outcomes. However, there appears to be limited research into the detailed effects from the student learning point of view. Theory and empirical evidence suggest that action learning/research is ideally suited to bringing about change and improvement in social interactions such as team development (Kember & Kelly, 1993; Kember & McKay, 1996).

Table 1 Structural relationship between the seven categories of leadership and management types in large first year courses (after Martin et al., 2003).

HOW DECISIONS ARE MADE	WHO MAKES THE DECISIONS
	No One	Others external to Teaching Team	Teaching Team	Teaching Team constituted as a peer group	Individual teachers within peer group
Given	A
Imposed		B	C
Negotiated		D	E
Collaborative				F	G

Action Learning Approach

Recently, the University of Canberra reviewed its course offerings and implemented a ‘New Academic Program’ (NAP). Under the NAP a new Earth and Land Science course was constructed and it was planned to develop a more integrated or seamless arrangement of content within the new course. An important aspect of this plan was to increase the degree of team teaching. It was considered highly appropriate to assess the present approach to team teaching and to develop strategies and methods to change the team teaching in a way that would increase the educational outcomes. This led to development by the author of an action learning/research project to trial this approach to improving team teaching. It soon became obvious that in order to keep the project manageable it would be best to restrict it to aspects of team teaching in the two main subjects that I convene. The project could then serve as a pilot study to explore ways of assessing and improving team teaching across the whole course as an ongoing strategy.

As such, the project aimed to improve team teaching outcomes in two subjects: Dynamic Earth, a one semester introductory geology subject at first year level, and Earth Science Applications, a year-long third year subject. Dynamic Earth is a subject that has run for many years and has been carried over into the new course. Earth Science Applications is a new subject under the NAP, but with significant content, albeit reorganised, from the pre-existing course. The two subjects have different team teaching approaches:

1. Dynamic Earth

In Dynamic Earth we employ a group of postgraduate/honours students (usually 4 or 5) as demonstrators to help run the practical classes and the two, one-day field classes (Figure 1). The format and content of these activities are well established and there are detailed laboratory and field class manuals. Most of the lectures are given by a senior lecturer (myself) with some given by an assistant lecturer and occasional guest speakers. Monitoring by senior staff and student evaluations over five years suggest that educational outcomes in this subject could be significantly improved by adjusting a number of aspects of the team teaching, including better selection or deployment of team members and better overall co-ordination and briefing of the team. Historically, we have had a core of reliable tutors with previous experience in the subject, but shortcomings are particularly apparent when all the team members are new to the task.

No formal training with regard to teaching skills has been provided for the demonstrators in the subject. Most of what they learn about teaching is picked up “on-the-job” by a combination of example from others (including their own teachers), trial and error and discussions with the lecturer in charge and their peers. This approach has been common in many tertiary institutions (e.g. Goodlad, 1997).

Figure 1 Student demonstrator working with a small group of Dynamic Earth students on a geological mapping exercise.

2. Earth Science Applications

This is a year-long subject comprising a series of modules and three one-week field classes. It involves a teaching team of five lecturers who each teach in one or more modules. Each of the lecturers has many years of experience in teaching the content of their particular module/s. The teaching team is coordinated by the subject convenor (myself). There is some overlap of content between the modules and the field classes.

One of the stated aims of this subject is to integrate disciplines such as economic geology, exploration geochemistry, pedology, landscape evolution and regolith geology. It was felt that improving the level of coordination between the team members, particularly the format and timing of assessment, could probably increase the educational outcomes.

The model of Martin et al. (2003) provides a useful tool to characterise and compare team activity and leadership in the two subjects. It also provides a framework to monitor changes.

The subject Dynamic Earth has a management style that largely falls into Category C (Table 1). The lecturer in charge is perceived as being the overall manager of the subject structure and content as well as of the teaching team. There is some informal feedback to the operation of the course from demonstrators who make up most of the rest of the teaching team. The assistant lecturer has a high degree of autonomy (i.e. an element of Category G). It was considered that increasing the amount of feedback from the teaching team and involving the junior members in developing new approaches and strategies would improve interest of the team members as well as the learning outcomes of the subject.

The management style in Earth Science Applications falls into the combined categories of E, F and G (Table 1). The teaching team is a group of peers who feel that their opinions can influence what the group does, but who also feel they can pursue their own ideas and educational styles in their particular component of the course. Individual members of the team feel strong ownership of their part of the subject and typically are strongly motivated about teaching it. The overall structure of the subject, as well as the broad content, are decided by the whole team through planning meetings. Improving communication and coordination between the team members would help better integrate the various components of the subject and improve problems with the amount of assessment.

Project Implementation

The action learning project was implemented with the assistance of the Centre for the Enhancement of Learning, Teaching and Scholarship (CELTS) at the University of Canberra, with a peer support group of seven set members. The set included a colleague from the Earth and Land Science course and five staff from a wide range of discipline areas including education, management, communication, and environmental design.

Initially, it was planned to focus on improving the educational outcomes of the two different teaching teams associated with the two selected subjects, progressively over the course of two semesters. While this mainly involved action research and “real time” or “near real time” feedback, implementation and improvement, it was also hoped to develop some methodologies and strategies to be used on an ongoing basis and into the future.

The project was developed through two partly overlapping stages of:

1. Improving and assessing team teaching in Dynamic Earth (mostly over Semester 1 with a specific group of tutors);

2. Addressing team teaching improvements in Earth Science Applications (commencing through planning activities in Semester 1 and extending into Semester 2).

Specific methods to examine current practice, make changes and assess the outcomes included: team meetings; student feedback on the teaching team (including formal assessments); a workshop to examine team teaching and develop new ideas and approaches; peer assessment (including through set feedback, discussions with other staff on team operation and comments on reports and plans).

A time line and milestones for the project were developed in the early stages of the project (Table 2). These were modified and refined as the project progressed.

Table 2 Time line and proposed milestones for the action learning project.

Semester 1 Weeks
1–3	Develop project concept, initiate peer group set and action learning journal.
4–6	Define project and problems.
7–9	Explore and develop theoretical aspects of the project through reading.
10–12	Explore theoretical and practical aspects of the project through peer discussions, reading. Firm up project methods and scope. CELTS workshop on “Sessional Staff”. Feedback meeting with tutors in Dynamic Earth.
13–15	Student assessment of Dynamic Earth. Planning meeting of Earth Science Applications teaching team, review of Semester 1, plan Semester 2.
Mid Year Break	Start preparation of first sections of Action Learning project report. Plan workshop for week 2 of Semester 2.
Semester 2 Weeks
1–3	Set up and run teaching team workshop “Improving Earth Science Education”.
4–9	Compile all assessment data and reflect on changes and outcomes. Continue reading and assess findings in light of the theoretical framework
10–12	Student assessment of Earth Science Applications, staff assessment of the lecture team. Compile report on project.

Progress and Outcomes

The action learning project progressed broadly according to plan but with some significant changes in detail and timing. The initial stage of the project involved developing the project concept. This was done over the first four weeks of the project with discussion and input from colleagues and the action learning set. Set discussions played a key role in the project. For example, the idea of organising a teaching team workshop to help evaluate the existing situation in Dynamic Earth and develop an action plan arose from one of the early set meetings. Reading and discussion with set members also helped clarify the objectives and approach and raised the significant issue of how to evaluate the effectiveness of the project strategies.

An important step in the project was the initiation of an action learning journal. This journal was both a diary of activities and a record of thoughts, ideas and reflections. I found it a very useful tool to stimulate reflection during the entry of items.

Participation in a CELTS workshop on “Supervising Sessional Staff” in week 8 proved very helpful in developing ideas on improving team teaching in Dynamic Earth and raising my awareness of some of the factors and issues related to sessional team teaching. This workshop also provided a useful model for the workshop organised later in the project on “Improving Teaching and Learning in First Year Earth Science”

Near the end of Semester 1 a meeting of the teaching team in Dynamic Earth was held to discuss and review the operation of the subject and the team teaching. Some very useful feedback was received and a range of suggestions and concerns communicated and discussed. This meeting also helped set the scene for the planned workshop early in Semester 2. Feedback was obtained from a student assessment of Dynamic Earth organised through CELTS. This provided a basis for discussion at the workshop.

The workshop on “Improving Teaching and Learning in First Year Earth Science” was held early in Semester 2. A set of aims, the format and suggested products were developed and circulated at the meeting. Following the meeting a report was compiled on the outcomes. The workshop was well attended by all members of the teaching team and a representative sample of students from the subject and course. It proved highly successful in providing information on the current strengths and shortcomings of the course, as well as providing a forum to discuss ways to improve the learning outcomes. Two useful outcomes from the workshop were the concept of a “Guide for Demonstrators in Earth Science”, to help the teaching team perform more effectively, and a plan to instigate an introductory shortcourse for demonstrators to provide them with some of the basics of teaching and to stimulate them to improve their teaching efficiency.

Less progress was made on addressing team teaching in the third year subject Earth Science Applications. As a result of the evolving developments through the project and particularly the success with identifying strategies to help demonstrators, it was decided by the start of Semester 2 to focus on improving team teaching in the first year course. Much less emphasis was therefore placed on the second component of the project, although a number of issues were identified through team teaching meetings and a student assessment of Earth Science Applications. These provided a basis for future investigations and improvements in this subject. The student assessment in particular, revealed a need for better communication and co-ordination between members of the teaching team to reduce overlap and improve consistency in assessment across the various modules in the subject. Other issues identified through discussion with students and within the teaching team included differences in workload expectations of different team members and problems with timing of assessment and field class commitments.

By the end of the two semesters, major outcomes included:

• A successful workshop with useful findings on current deficiencies in the team teaching approach and suggestions for improvement in the subject Dynamic Earth;

• Preparation of a “Guide for Demonstrators in Earth Science”;

• Plans for an introductory workshop or shortcourse to improve the competency of the teaching team in Dynamic Earth;

• Student assessments of both the subjects Dynamic Earth and Earth Science Applications.

Project Results

The action learning project resulted in the following significant findings:

1. Recognition of the importance of clear communication between all members of teaching teams.

   The existing course manual and field guide for Dynamic Earth assisted demonstrators with instruction on what is required of the students. However, feedback from the student assessment, teaching team meetings and the workshop indicated that more formal communication of objectives, methods and techniques was required. This was particularly evident during the period of the project, as the demonstrators were all new with no prior experience of the subject. Student assessment of the third year subject, Earth Science Applications, and two review meetings of the lecturing team also identified lack of sufficient communication between the team members as a problem.

2. Need for improved competency in the first year teaching team.

   Issues raised at the workshop on “Improving Teaching and Learning in First Year Earth Science” clearly indicated the need for some basic teaching training for our demonstrators.

3. Need for more frequent formal discussion and reflection by the teaching teams and better liaison with students.

   This finding also arose from the workshop between the teaching team and students. The students could see this need and suggested the introduction of student liaison representatives and some sessions (similar to the workshop) to help address issues.

4. Need to modify the lecture format in Dynamic Earth.

   Students felt that the existing format of two one-hour lectures back to back with a fifteen minute break in between was not efficient and wasted time.

5. Need to modify the workloads and volume of assessment in the various modules making up the subject Earth Science Applications.

   This was initially identified as an issue by the students in informal discussions and through a formal student assessment. The problem was subsequently confirmed by discussion during meetings of the teaching team.

Changes were made as a result of these findings but not all changes proved ongoing or successful. For example, the initiative of electing student liaison officers lapsed as students did not see the need to have this formal structure and now prefer to raise issues as a group as the need arises. Changes were made to the lecture format of Dynamic Earth (lectures on separate days) and also to the workload in Earth Science Applications (a maximum of two assessment items per module). Some changes remain to be made, for example increasing demonstrator competency through a basic skills shortcourse and further improvements to workload and assessment at third year level.

It proved difficult to evaluate the effects of changes to our team teaching. Student feedback for the subject Dynamic Earth before and after the project indicated some improvements to the overall learning outcomes and overall grade levels were eight percent higher in the group involved in the project. However, it is difficult to ascribe these improvements to particular factors given the large number of variables that affect student learning. Comparison of student assessments for Dynamic Earth before and after the project, in relation to team teaching aspects, showed some differences but these were not consistent (Figure 2). After the project there was a general decrease in the number of students indicating strong dissatisfaction with aspects related directly to teaching staff and the teaching team. More students indicated that the field classes helped them. There was very positive feedback from the teaching team about the “Guide for Demonstrators” and interest in the planned basic skills shortcourse. The various planning meetings and involvement of the teaching team and students in the workshop during the project created a general interest by all in improving our teaching and learning. The project certainly showed all participants the value of review and reflection and introduced the broader group to the concept of action learning as a technique for problem solving.

Figure 2 Summary of results from two student assessments for Dynamic Earth collected before and after the action learning project. The five questions selected relate most specifically to staff and team aspects and are from a total of 34 routine questions.

Discussion

Action learning/research can provide insights into situations, problems and solutions not as obvious when making a standard analytical assessment. For example, the value of employing our postgraduate students as demonstrators became much clearer as a result of their involvement in the project. To some extent employing these students has been an accident of history and availability. However, a better understanding of group dynamics and the important attributes that make for efficient teaching teams revealed that they have important special qualities. These include a common interest in the subject area, which provides for high motivation and a unified commitment. They can see the benefits of gaining teaching experience, which adds to their enthusiasm and motivation. They typically come from a cohort who mix together and have common interests outside their teaching duties and they are on site and available to students outside the classroom. They are also similar in age and outlook to the undergraduate students and are thus perceived as being more approachable, particularly by first year students. On the other hand, they lack the competency and knowledge that older more experienced demonstrators may have. Products and outcomes from the project have helped address this deficiency and will continue to do so.

The project also increased the awareness of problems with our other type of teaching team, composed of groups of lecturers (Figure 3). These team members have a high level of competence and motivation in their area of specialisation, but they lack the ability, interest or opportunity to communicate well with each other. This has clearly led to problems of coordination in our new third year subject. In fact, there has been a strong tendency for the team members to operate their modules almost as separate “mini subjects”. The use of regular team meetings has been an approach to solve this problem but more innovative action is needed. For example, changing the modular structure of the subject may help, but at this stage it is hard to see how this could be implemented, given a number of practical constraints. The more limited success of the action learning approach with this group is in itself a reflection of some of these difficulties. Members of this group were less involved or committed to exploring or implementing change because they believed their individual modules were well structured and meeting requirements and most of the staff are oversubscribed to other work commitments. Nevertheless, representations from students resulting from the project have initiated some changes and this student-driven change is continuing.

Figure 3 The teaching team. What was the plan?!

A major advantage of action learning/research is its capability to implement incremental change in an interactive way. It makes getting started on change easier and less daunting than a total reassessment and reorganisation of a situation. Because it is collaborative it can be more dynamic and draw on input from others in a group, rather than relying on the knowledge/skill acquisition and reflection of a single individual. Much static learning of knowledge and skills has a tendency to reduce in its rate of increase with time. Action learning can reinvigorate the learning curve. The experience of this project has also shown that the action learning/research approach can result in a “cascade effect” by which members of a peer set or group become facilitators for other groups (Figure 4). In this way the ownership of changes and improvements can be passed on to all participants and stakeholders at the appropriate level. This is clearly a very powerful attribute of action learning/research when applied in multiple team situations.

Figure 4 Example of the “cascade effect” created where action learning/research is applied to a multiple team situation.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Action learning/research is an approach particularly suited to improving team-related activities such as team teaching. By its very nature of requiring peer or team input in the reflection process and the resulting actions, it involves the whole group and gives members a sense of ownership of solutions. It is also particularly suited to application in scientific disciplines because it has close parallels to the “scientific method”, a method that science educators are familiar and comfortable with. Action learning/research is an easier and more effective way to initiate change within teaching teams than management driven control.

The following recommendations can be made from the experience of the author with this project:

• Action learning/research is an effective approach to examine and modify team teaching outcomes in an interactive and constructive way;

• By definition, it is important for the action learning plan to be flexible, to allow for inevitable modifications;

• A suitable time frame is required for the action learning/research process to take effect. In a normal working academic environment, two semesters would be a minimum. This allows for at least two or three action learning cycles;

• The approach can and should be ongoing to produce continual updates and improvements;

• It is important to have a supportive peer group;

• Keeping an action learning journal provides an effective discipline to record activities, plans and ideas It is also an effective way to stimulate the all important reflective process.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to colleagues and students in the Earth and Land Science course for their contributions to the project, peer support, evaluations and general discussion. Also thanks to Elaine Martin from RMIT who provided me with preprints of some articles on team teaching in large first year classes. Special thanks to Valerie Clifford from CELTS, who assisted with the project, and who with Leah Moore read and commented on early versions of the article.