Research Transfer in Co-teaching: A Three-dimensional Approach

Abstract

This paper showcases how a series of teaching innovation projects on co-teaching, grounded in practitioner research, have the potential to generate a virtuous cycle of multiple transferability, reaching students, teacher trainees, teaching professionals and the research community. Arising from a grassroots initiative of university professors wishing to explore the challenges and benefits of co-teaching in terms of the acquisition of 21st century skills such as collaboration or critical awareness, project members researched their own co-teaching practice and its impact on the students participating in it by means of a mixed methods study carried out at a medium-size private university in Spain. A total of 15 courses were co-taught, involving 27 professors from three departments. Following a convergent mixed methods design, data was gathered and triangulated from multiple sources: student surveys, student focus groups, professor interviews, and professor diaries. Study results were made available by means of three integrated strategies of innovation transfer, which will be outlined in this presentation: 1. Transfer of theory into practice (teachers modelling co-teaching - students applying what they have learnt to internships, bachelor theses and future teaching practice). 2. Transfer as dissemination in conferences, congresses, publications, etc. 3. Transfer as a motor of innovation – good practice leading to tailor-made training at schools. Teaching innovation, practitioner research and cross-sectional transferability can thus form part of a virtuous cycle of quality assurance in educational policy, pedagogy and practice.

Presenters

Birgit Strotmann
Senior Lecturer, Departamento de Traducción e Interpretación y Comunicación Multilingüe, Comillas Pontifical University, Madrid, Spain

Magdalena Custodio Espinar
Associate Profesor, Education Research Methods and Evaluation, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Madrid, Spain

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Learning in Higher Education

KEYWORDS

Co-teaching, Transfer, Collaboration, Feedback, Teaching Innovation