Teaching experience where two or more teachers come together, pooling their resources and expertise to impart rich learning experiences is sited as team teaching. I have been a part of team teaching, have lead, directed, supervised and observed several team teaching sessions. One carried out today was exceptional. A group of Hindi teachers carried out a team teaching session with fourth graders. They divided their work as per their skills in speaking, dramatizing, technology, integration, recitation and questioning. The topic chosen was “visit to a hill station”. Observing the lesson from a distance I was delighted to see the level of engagement of both teachers and students. An element of formative assessment raised the level of student involvement even more. Visual presentations and videos made the lesson enjoyable. What was very exceptional about the lesson? The contribution of images and visuals by the students and parents made the presentation more interesting. Kids were thrilled to see images of their own friends and their parents. At the end of the lesson, I asked the students what they found differences between the class experience and the one they experienced today. The answers made me sit and think. Here they are: • They got information which was not in the lesson. (Learning beyond the textbook) • They got to see the videos and pictures of places mentioned in the lesson. ( visual learning) • They got to learn and interact with many teachers at the same time. (new experience) • They learned ten times more. (perception of children) • They got to see pictures of their friends enjoying at that place. (connectedness) • The PPT and the lesson kept them engaged throughout the session and they were not bored. (engaging class) • They enjoyed participating in the question-answer session. (Formative testing) • Photos and videos contribution by the students. (Participation in the construction of learning) Amazing! This is what we have learned a team teaching is meant for. Agreed, it may not be a norm to engage in team teaching, but the introduction of it in a planned manner, keeping the constraints in mind will result in benefits we may not have imagined. Teachers I have seen work mostly in pedagogical isolation and children are subjected mostly to listening without participation, engagement and excitement. Team teaching could change all that.
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