Team Teaching in Higher Education: Personalities, Leadership Styles, and Preferences

Abstract

Objective: This study aims to find out more about a) certain personality types, leadership styles, and teaching philosophies of those who have participated in team teaching, as well as b) their preferences for team teaching. These preliminary results ought to be helpful to faculty who may be asked to consider team teaching with a colleague(s), and results may help academic administrators assign and match faculty to team teach courses in their program offerings.

Background: Given that few faculty have had the opportunity to team teach relative to the numerous courses they offer solo, there is a lack of focus, faculty development opportunities, and research on this subject. This does not, however, diminish the value of this method of delivering courses in higher education. Faculty may explore collaborative teaching in a number of ways, such as inviting a colleague to provide a one-time guest lecture, distributing assignments according to the collaborators' specialized knowledge, or working together on every part of the course.

Methods: Using previously developed Myers-Briggs personality type finders and leadership style research tools, the participants' leadership and personality types were identified (Malak et al., 2022). People's experiences with teaching and preferences for leading vs. following were mapped using both qualitative (self-report) and quantitative (survey) approaches.

Results: Sixty-three percent of the respondents identified as utilizing either servant leadership or coaching/mentoring. The majority of "E" type personalities like to "Lead," especially in a team-teaching atmosphere, according to this study's findings. The traditional team-teaching method was adopted by 49% of the participants, while 26% used cooperative learning, 11% used integrated learning, 9% used parallel learning, and the remaining 6% used monitoring learning. It is important to highlight that more than 60% of the subjects who had "E" qualities had backgrounds in nursing, public health, health administration, or health care.

Conclusions: In summary, the faculty survey data reveal an overall profile of the faculty who have team taught in higher education as an extrovert with a penchant for judging; who prefers to lead rather than follow; uses a coaching/mentoring or servant leadership style; and prefers high level cooperation with a colleague(s) in the full range of teaching/learning activities.