"Students have the benefit of hearing from two faculty members with different points of view. They get to hear multifaceted, cross-disciplinary perspectives to issues as well as individual points of view."

--Dorothy Rogers

Two professors for the price of one? That's the deal students get when they take certain General Education courses. And while team teaching doesn't mean double the work for students, it does give them varying interpretations and perspectives because the professors come from different discplines.

While Greg Waters of English is showing his students Realist magazine for the course he teaches on the sixties, his teaching partner, Bill Berlin of Political Science is giving the students a view of the Vietnam War. Together, the pair is taking the students through a journey of the music, literature and pop culture of the time.

"We spent most of the summer preparing," Waters said. "We selected text, prepared a syllabus and a media schedule and read everything we could find about the sixties. I dug out old copies of Ramparts magazine and the Realist, and Bill found folk songs and a number of fascinating electronic sources." The course looks at civil rights, the Vietnam War, student protests and counterculture, Black power, feminism and sexual identity, using books, pamphlets, movies and music. "We take turns making presentations, lead discussions together, and find that our thoughts are recharged by the questions we ask each other," Waters added.

In 1983, General Education was based on a distribution model, meaning students took courses in a minimum of 15 areas. As the Gen Ed committee began examining the model through the years, two themes developed. "We saw that students under the distribution model had no common academic experiences and no interdisciplinary instruction," explained Helen Roberts of Mathematical Sciences, who served as chair of the committee. "Also, students were only receiving instruction that was compartmentalized. After much discussion we came upon the concept of a core (common experience) and concluded that team teaching was the way to accomplish interdisciplinary instruction."

Team teaching became part of the 2002 Gen Ed curriculum with Contemporary Issues core courses. Sophomore level cores are separated into Science and the Search for Order, Life Stages: American Perspectives and Globalization. Faculty members team teaching get two courses worth of credit and a one-time summer stipend of $2,500 to develop the course. This semester there are eight teams that have designed their own contemporary course themes. Teams meet with approximately 100 students once a week together, then break out into four groups of 25, which they teach individually.

After attending a workshop at the Leadership Associates Conference in 1999 and collaborating on various projects of mutual interest, it seemed like a natural for Norma Connolly of Legal Studies and Ofelia Rodriguez-Srednicki of Psychology to join forces for a class. They were eager to participate and came up with Deconstructing The Sopranos: Psychological and Legal Perspectives and Their Relationship to National Issues.

" 'The Sopranos' has had critical and popular acclaim, and given our North Jersey location it has particular resonance in the area," said Connolly. "We're both fans and often talked about the psychological and legal issues presented in the series. We thought that if we presented this familiar concept, change it to present topics that are of interest under national issues, and present scholarly materials to introduce students to our fields, we would have a class that would be interesting, current and fun for both the students and ourselves." For the course, the pair reviewed each episode, organizing them thematically and dividing coursework into separate units dealing with the gangster/mobster figure in the media, culture, gender issues, family issues, the elderly, abuse and more. Rodriguez-Srednicki said they keep the atmosphere at a relaxed yet lively pace and the students seem to respond well with the reality of having two instructors from different disciplines.

Having two perspectives on a subject matter is the core methodology behind team teaching and what Dorothy Rogers, associate dean of Humanities and Social Sciences and director of Gen Ed, believes is the key to its success. "Students have the benefit of hearing from two faculty members with different points of view. They get to see multifaceted, cross-disciplinary perspectives to issues as well as individual points of view."

Jeff Toney of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Shahla Wunderlich of Human Ecology agree. The pair has collaborated on research projects in the past and their common interest in the biochemistry of metabolism led them to their course, Scientific Findings in Nutrition and Health. "We chose that topic because we believe that we should not only teach scientific research findings, but we should teach the application of these findings to our daily lives," said Wunderlich. In their class, students benefit from the different disciplinary approaches to the material as well as varied styles of presentation. "I joined the University in 2002 after a successful career in the pharmaceutical industry with minimal teaching experience," said Toney. "In contrast, Dr. Wunderlich has extensive teaching experience. While one of us is presenting a lecture, the other can provide input with alternate points of view. This can result in stimulating discussion with the students and a better learning experience for them."

Students in the course The Centrality of Sport in American Life get a chance to see how a team--professionally and personally--interact in the classroom. Joan Ficke, vice president for Academic Affairs for Personnel and Resource Planning, and Joseph Moore of History, married for more than two decades, decided it would be fun to share a course on a topic of mutual interest for a semester. "Over the years we have participated in one another's classes," said Moore. "Collaborating appealed to us. The feeling we have is that the whole is greater than the parts." While they also believe that it is educationally important for students to learn from the team's synergy, Ficke admits the faculty members are also reaping rewards. "This is an energizing experience for us."

"As a faculty member, it is always necessary and exciting to find different approaches to problems. Having another professor present makes you keenly aware of your presentation," added Rodriguez-Srednicki. "Working together has allowed us to learn about different teaching techniques and to exchange ideas and open ourselves for further scholarly collaboration."

Berlin said team teaching is valuable to the professors because it expands the scope of learning and teaching and "also exposes us to a wider range of students than we would normally encounter in our departmental courses."

The Gen Ed committee is continuing to evaluate the program, meeting mid-semester with faculty to troubleshoot, and hopes to have an assessment model with an evaluation system that's both qualitative and quantitative in the near future.

In the meantime, feedback from those participating is positive and the benefits expansive. "MSU has always endeavored to incorporate multidisciplinary instruction in its curriculum and we believe that these types of courses highlight this goal," Connolly said.

Toney pointed out that team teaching can also foster research collaborations across disciplines that are traditionally disparate fields of study. "Funding agencies have made it clear that they value interdisciplinary research," he said. "I believe that team teaching is consistent with the future goals of the University."