Collaborative teaching practices in undergraduate active learning classrooms: A report of faculty team teaching models and student reflections from two biology courses

Effectively managing active learning classrooms (ALCs), particularly large ALCs, can present a variety of challenges for instructors. There is a rapidly growing body of research literature addressing the impact of ALCs on student engagement and learning, but fewer studies have focused on investigating instructional practices and instructors in ALCs. Moreover, little to no information on best practices for multiple instructors in these learning spaces has been reported, although the presence of multiple instructors or facilitators simultaneously seems to be frequently implemented in these spaces. Many unanswered questions remain regarding optimizing the opportunities afforded by ALCs and collaborative teaching models while minimizing difficulties that may arise when multiple instructors facilitate student learning concurrently. In an effort to begin reporting faculty experiences and student perspectives of team teaching models at the college or university level, this paper provides an overview of collaborative teaching models described in the literature, describes collaborative teaching models in two undergraduate biology courses, and reports student responses to questions addressing their experience with collaborative teaching in those courses. Finally, from our experiences, we provide recommendations of helpful practices for courses with multiple facilitators acting simultaneously in ALCs.