Teacher collaboration continues to be deeply grounded within effective professional development. Teacher teams, where small groups of teachers work together in teaching and learning, have become progressively more popular and are considered one of the most effective approaches to improvement and growth. However, teacher teams are situated within a…

Co-planning is considered an integral part of a successful co-teaching relationship in which both teachers have parity and use their individual expertise to benefit all students. However, the literature has not discussed adequately how co-planning is achieved within the parameters of the already full schedules of two teachers. This column shares…

At St. Joseph's School for the Deaf in New York, teachers worked together toward the common goal of developing and implementing a spiraling English Language Arts curriculum that would allow each teacher to build on skills students developed in earlier classes. They collaboratively developed instruction following the literacy workshop model…

This article presents findings of a longitudinal case study conducted at a Taiwanese high school from 2006 to 2010. This school participated in the 'High Scope Programme' (HSP), which was sponsored by the Taiwanese National Science Council to promote curricular innovation in science education. Utilising interview data with 11 participating…

The authors are similar in sharing the academic discipline of professional writing and of both having had experience as writers and editors in the workplace, but they are different in many other and obvious ways. The students notice these differences, using, in course assessments, descriptive phrases to describe the contrast that include "yin and…

Policymakers and industry leaders are calling for a 21st century education that is more interdisciplinary in nature, including the ability to solve problems and think creatively. Traditional teaching practices that present subjects as separate and distinct disciplines do not encourage students to make connections between subjects in school and in…

Change in higher education, as manifested in curriculum reform, can be particularly difficult as the structures of academia, such as rank and tradition, retard the process. Two recent reports from the Modern Language Association (MLA) strive to address needed curricular adaptations and offer a roadmap of considerations for modifications. The 2007…

The most important prerequisite to group creativity in curriculum development is a climate of free inquiry, free expression, and objective criticism. An atmosphere such as this develops from the personal security, active participation, and creativity of each team member. A period of negative feelings caused by frustration and failure when the…

The planning and development of interdisciplinary education for health associates at Johns Hopkins University are described by Malcolm L. Peterson. (Includes training of an interdisciplinary team of practitioners by an interdisciplinary team of teachers.) Walter O. Spitzer compares Canadian and U.S. experience in such interdisciplinary education…

Examined how high school teachers made meaning of a change process involving teamwork, interdisciplinary teaching, and block scheduling. Document analysis, observation, and interview data indicated that uncertainty and doubt were the pervading themes and had a critical effect on the teaching team's ability to move to interdisciplinary teaching.…

Describes the membership, responsibilities, problems, and group dynamics involved in the team approach to the design and development of courses for Britain's Open University. The team selects content and creates teaching materials using various media (correspondence texts, television and radio programs, summer school, home experiment kits,…

This paper describes and interprets the case of a middle school's first year of using interdisciplinary teacher teams as a key among several restructuring moves. It describes: (1) characteristics of the teaming process--leadership, decision making, professional growth and support of individual teachers, and cooperation, competition, and conflict…

The Interdisciplinary Teamed Instruction (ITI) Project was a 2-year project aimed at determining the effects of ITI on teaching and learning and at validating the effectiveness of a professional development model to facilitate development, implementation, and evaluation of ITI. Through summer institutes and onsite workshops, project staff provided…

Guidelines for collaborative, interdisciplinary teaching at the college level are presented, including: restricting the team to two members, in general; agreeing on a trial period; selecting a coteacher with a healthy psyche; selecting course content fertile for interdisciplinary learning; discussing teaching philosophy and methods; reviewing…

Teaming incorporates an ever expanding curriculum, without an overlapping of subjects, by a collaboration of teachers and students learning from one discipline to another. Through the teaming approach to teaching, the child gains from the emotional, motivational, and enrichment of interrelationships of different subject teachers. Stimulation for…