14 Steps for Establishing Teaching Teams at Another Institution

• STEP 1. Link your teaching team program to your institution's urgent needs to improve student learning. Click Here to Learn More!
  • Teaching teams can help reduce chronic frustration among faculty with students lacking the critical learning competencies needed to succeed in college.
  • Teaching teams can help lower chronic frustration among administrators trying to improve student learning outcomes at minimal cost in an era of declining budgets.
  • Teaching teams can help implement large-scale curriculum development projects such as across the curriculum emphasis on information competencies or promoting excellent teaching in large core undergraduate courses.

  Click Here to Hide This Information!


• STEP 2. Bring faculty who already use preceptors together to share their ideas and experience when planning your teaching team program. Click Here to Learn More!
  • Host a reception for faculty to discuss their experiences with preceptors and give visibility to their efforts with learner-centered practices.
  • Organize a meeting of administrators and faculty who use preceptors to review pilot programs and plan future activities.
  • Form a proposal writing team to seek the resources necessary to set up a teaching teams program.

  Click Here to Hide This Information!


• STEP 3. Define your teaching team program broadly to preserve participating instructors' flexibility to innovate at the classroom level. Click Here to Learn More!
  • Encourage faculty to design their teaching teams around their own innovative ideas and the special talents of their students.
  • Emphasize that faculty are primarily responsible for developing successful and effective peer-assisted learning practices consistent with their teaching goals.
  • Consult with all faculty who want to introduce learner-centered practices into their curricula to determine the full range of disciplines your program could serve.

  Click Here to Hide This Information!


• STEP 4. Seek external funding to support developmental aspects of your teaching team program. Click Here to Learn More!
  • Successful competition for grants raises the program’s credibility with higher administration officials.
  • External grants often require institutional matching resources that might be denied with internal requests.
  • External grants help demonstrate proof-of-concept of ideas before attempting to institutionalize them.

  Click Here to Hide This Information!


• STEP 5. Develop an administrative support structure for your teaching team program that actively engages all stakeholders. Click Here to Learn More!
  • Accommodate program administration duties by negotiating release time for learning professionals and part-time back-up support with existing clerical and administrative staff.
  • Consider setting up a Council consisting of faculty and staff in key academic support units who will collectively “own” your program to maintain a strong focus on the classroom and keep it a grassroots operation.
  • Arrange partnerships to gain access to resources to develop your program, such as working with staff in learning centers, libraries, teaching centers, career exploration centers, residential life, and instructional technology centers to design and implement your preceptor training workshops.

  Click Here to Hide This Information!


• STEP 6. Build a comprehensive assessment and evaluation plan into your teaching team program. Click Here to Learn More!
  • Survey all participant groups—faculty, staff, GTAs, preceptors, students—to find out how the program is being implemented, how satisfied participants are, how well program goals are being met, and how the program could be improved.
  • Use a variety of assessment tools, including training workshop evaluations, interviews with faculty participants, focus group discussions, written reflections by preceptors, training course participation data, student portfolios, and student outcomes in courses with teaching teams.
  • Track program participants through graduation into their professional lives to assess the longer-term influence of teaching teams on students’ academic and professional growth and the institution’s retention and graduation rates.

  Click Here to Hide This Information!


• STEP 7. Identify appropriate roles for preceptors that contribute to meeting your institution's needs for learner-centered education. Click Here to Learn More!
  • Lead out-of-class study sessions.
  • Facilitate in-class group activities and discussions.
  • Conduct review sessions for exams.
  • Provide frequent feedback to faculty about their courses.
  • Provide assistance with technology.
  • Assist with hands-on research projects.
  • Conduct peer reviews of student writing for structural and grammatical deficiencies.

  Click Here to Hide This Information!


• STEP 8. Develop a comprehensive, rigorous training curriculum for preceptors in your teaching team program. Click Here to Learn More!
  • Include topics to prepare preceptors to help faculty deliver a more learner-centered curriculum (e.g., personal leadership skills, group dynamics, leading study groups, facilitating review sessions, conducting peer reviews of student writing, counseling skills, tutoring skills).
  • Include topics to prepare preceptors to help classmates develop their critical learning competencies (e.g., time management, critical thinking, problem solving, test preparation strategies, effective listening, note taking, active reading, academic writing, information competencies, oral communication, diversity training).
  • Anticipate the need to offer a suite of training workshop courses to accommodate first-time and returning preceptors and to provide faculty with specially trained preceptors for their discipline (e.g., math) or in specific skill areas (e.g., technology).

  Click Here to Hide This Information!


• STEP 9. Identify and recruit faculty who want to engage preceptors on teaching teams in their courses. Click Here to Learn More!
  • Appeal to many instructors' desire to “do something” for students in their classes who may be at risk because they lack confidence in their ability to succeed.
  • Have undergraduate coordinators schedule office visits with candidate instructors to explain the program and invite them to participate.
  • Avoid over-zealous recruiting tactics to minimize marginal faculty commitments to the teaching team idea.

  Click Here to Hide This Information!


• STEP 10. Identify and recruit preceptors to serve on teaching teams in participating instructors' courses. Click Here to Learn More!
  • Faculty are primarily responsible for recruiting and selecting preceptors for their classes. The number of preceptors recruited in each class depends entirely on the types of activities that the instructor plans to implement.
  • Recruiting begins when instructors contact former students who have already demonstrated maturity and effectiveness as role models in their courses. Additional recruiting occurs when instructors invite students who are co-enrolled in their courses to become preceptors.
  • Recruiting is very self-selective, that is, the applicant pool is dominated by motivated students, often with a history of helping others, which substantially lowers risk.

  Click Here to Hide This Information!


• STEP 11. Give preceptors high visibility and lead roles in your teaching team program's activities. Click Here to Learn More!
  • Use all opportunities to engage preceptors as recruiters, presenters, authors, and advocates of your program because they are its most articulate and compelling ambassadors.
  • Many preceptors will want to repeat their experience multiple times, ideas for program expansion will come from them, and some will move into other programs as tutors and mentors.
  • Former preceptors make ideal candidates when you recruit undergraduate assistants into coordinator positions to help operate your program.

  Click Here to Hide This Information!


• STEP 12. Cultivate positive relations with higher administration officials when planning and operating your teaching team program. Click Here to Learn More!
  • Invite higher administration officials to all of your program’s receptions and student showcase events.
  • Volunteer to make presentations about using teaching teams to improve student learning outcomes at orientation sessions for new faculty and training workshops for GTAs.
  • Emphasize the cost-effective strategy of using preceptors to embed critical skill development (e.g., technology, information competencies, communication skills) directly into instructors’ curricula.
  • Consult with higher administration officials early in the planning stages for new grant proposals.

  Click Here to Hide This Information!


• STEP 13. Disseminate your experience with your teaching team program. Click Here to Learn More!
  • Maintain a web site for your program.
  • Accept opportunities to serve on academic committees and policy-making groups to generate campus-wide visibility for your program’s objectives and accomplishments.
  • Attend seminars, workshops, and brown bag lunches to promote the role of your program through informal discussion.
  • Present at conferences that relate to various aspects of the undergraduate experience, and publish in peer-reviewed journals and books.
  • Work with external collaborators to help them set up similar programs.

  Click Here to Hide This Information!


• STEP 14. Periodically go back to STEP 1. Click Here to Learn More!
  • Institutional needs, priorities, policies, and personnel are moving targets!
  • Review all steps critically to test your assumptions, procedures, and promises to improve student learning outcomes with your teaching teams program and make adjustments as necessary.

  Click Here to Hide This Information!