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Improving Collaborative Teaching Practices in Grade 10 Science Through Action

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Conference Paper · November 2021

DOI: 10.1109/SEA-STEM53614.2021.9668003

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 Improving Collaborative Teaching Practices
in Grade 10 Science Through Action Research
Dino Paolo Cortes
Science Education Deptartment
De La Salle University
Manila, Philippines
dino_paolo_cortes@dlsu.edu.ph
Abstract— This action research documented the process of
improvement in collaborative teaching strategies employed in
Grade 10 Science in a private Filipino-Chinese school using the
Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) model for continuous improvement.
The study involved two teachers and two classes in the grade 10
level. To assess the improvement in the collaborative teaching
strategies implemented, student surveys and interviews, classroom
observation, peer observation with interviews were used. Students
were asked to report their perceived advantages and
disadvantages to collaborative teaching and these responses were
used to adjust strategies employed during the collaborative
teaching sessions. Based on the feedback of the peer observers,
administrators and students, collaboratively taught classes could
be improved by developing teaching plans that allow for hands-on
and interactive activities that maximize the presence of multiple
teachers but could be accomplished well within the instructional
time. Problems encountered during scheduling, preparation and
implementation may be solved by adjusting the workload of the
teacher. Students generally gave positive responses for the
collaborative teaching lessons that were implemented. Perceived
advantages of collaborative teaching are that it allowed for more
hands-on activities, better understanding of the lesson and better
interactions between teachers and students. The perceived
disadvantages of collaborative teaching are classes getting noisy
and some students not participating in the activities.
Keywords— collaborative teaching, Plan-Do-Study-Act model,
station rotation, team teaching, teaching Science
I. CONTEXT, AIMS AND IMPORTANCE
The Philippine educational system experienced a system
shift with the implementation of the Kinder to Grade 12 (K-12)
curriculum last June 2013. Prior its implementation, Philippine
Basic Education followed a 6-year elementary school program
and a 4-year secondary high school program. In this 4-year
secondary program, Science was taught in a disciplinal
approach. Integrated Science was taught during first year high
school, Biology was taught on second year high school,
Chemistry on the third year, and finally, Physics during the
fourth year. The 2013 K-12 curriculum shifted from teaching
the disciplines of science for each year to a spiral curriculum. In
this spiral curriculum, students will study a different strand of
science during each quarter of the schoolyear. For example, the
978-1-6654-1680-1/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE
Voltaire Mistades, PhD
Science Education Deptartment
De La Salle University
Manila, Philippines
voltaire.mistades@dlsu.edu.ph
K-12 Grade 7 Science curriculum includes topics from Earth
Science (first quarter), Physics (second quarter), Biology (third
quarter), and Chemistry (fourth quarter). This spiraling approach
continues throughout Grades 7 until 10, where all the
specializations of science are discussed each year of junior high
school. This new Science curriculum requires the junior high
school Science teacher to have mastery in all the four strands of
science and this posed new challenges to the Science teachers.
Teachers currently in the field, however, were not trained to
teach science in this manner. Prior to the implementation of the
K12 Science curriculum, high school teachers were trained in a
specific discipline of science, but not in all the four strands of
science included in the junior high school curriculum. Taking
the case of the first author as an example, I have graduated with
a bachelor’s degree in Science (Molecular Biology and
Biotechnology), and as of writing am a grade 10 Science
teacher. I am not confident that I would be able to teach the
Earth Science and Physics strands as well as I could teach
Chemistry and Biology. We have tried to address this problem
by rearranging the strands of the Junior High School science
curriculum to resemble the subjects under the old Basic
Education Curriculum. This rearrangement of the curriculum
did not work well for our school as national examinations were
based on the K12 spiral curriculum. In our rearranged
curriculum, our students found it hard to answer questions that
came from the other strands of Science that were not yet taught
to them. This prompted us to fully adopt the spiral Science
curriculum, and to address the challenge of teaching all the four
learning strands effectively, we decided to employ collaborative
teaching strategies.
Co-teaching, known also as collaborative and cooperative
teaching has been defined as “a general term referring to the
pedagogical setting where two teachers share their pedagogy,
information, and assessment” [1]. Many researchers and authors
have reported that collaborative teaching has benefits to both
teachers and students, such as teachers being able to reach more
students and plan more interesting and effective lectures [2]-[4],
however other researchers have reported that collaborative
teaching does not translate to improved student achievement and
appeared not to work in Japanese and Iranian cultures [1].
 In this paper, we report one cycle of the Action Research that
was undertaken using the Plan-Do-Study-Act approach. This
cycle coincided with one instructional quarter, or ten weeks of
teaching. Collaborative teaching was planned for, implemented
for one quarter and then evaluated at the end of the quarter.
Feedback from students, peer observers and administrators were
then used to improve how collaborative teaching was
implemented.
The action research had the following objectives:
1) document the experiences of the students and teachers in
collaborative teaching;
2) document the challenges encountered by the students and
the teachers;
3) determine the advantages of collaborative teaching as
perceived by students and teachers; and
4) improve collaborative teaching in Grade 10 Science.
This study was important to the first author as a teacher
because it allowed me to work together with other teachers in
improving instruction. I have not been taught how to teach Earth
Science and I have not yet taught Biology before and the premise
of two people working on a same task is better than just one is a
very promising solution. Based on the results of this study,
suggestions on the appropriateness of collaborative teaching in
the Philippine setting would be made. The study will provide
structure on how teachers could employ collaborative teaching
strategies.
II. COLLABORATIVE TEACHING: DEFINITION, ADVANTAGES
AND D ISADVANTAGES
The practice of having two or more teachers planning for
instruction has been named differently by researchers. Some
researchers define teaching team as “a group of two or more
persons assigned to the same students at the same time for
instructional purposes in a particular subject or combinations of
subjects” [5]. A more recent definition of team teaching is a
group of instructors working purposely and cooperatively to
help a group of students learn [6]. This team of teachers sets
goals, prepares lesson plans, teaches students and evaluates
results together. Many researches have been conducted on team
teaching and its effects on both students and teachers [1], [2],
[7]. Other authors, however, use a different set of terminologies
when referring to a group of teachers working together.
A more recent classification defined team teaching as just
one approach to collaborative teaching. They proposed four
collaborative teaching approaches which are: supportive
teaching, parallel teaching, complementary teaching and team
teaching [8].
Authors of books on team teaching have presented
advantages of team teaching to students. Team teaching
provides different teacher viewpoints and styles, more content
and flexibility [6]. Teachers can try out different methods and
groupings, share ideas and polish materials before instruction
indicating that teachers feel happier and less isolated.
Collaborative teaching practices have also been reported to be
effective for students with a variety of needs such as hearing
impairment, language delays [8]. Other reported benefits of
team teaching are that teachers in collaborative courses reach
more students. [7].
Collaborative teaching also has some disadvantages for
teachers, students and administrator. The biggest problem for
teachers comes from incompatible teammates [6]. Some
teachers fear that they will be humiliated from failures or that
they will be criticized for their choice of instructional method.
For students, disadvantages come from too much variety and the
loss of structure. Students may also be confused by conflicting
opinions from different teachers handling the same course. For
administrators, giving co-teachers similar schedules can be a
disadvantage.
Research has shown different results of collaborative
teaching on academic achievement. Results of team teaching on
different schools reported instances where there are significant
improvements in academic achievement and instances where
there are no significant improvements in academic achievement.
The researcher concluded that the length of time teachers is
involved in teaming and the change in their instructional practice
leading to student achievement is crucial to the success of
teaching in teams [2].
Recent researches, however, presented opposing
conclusions as to the effect of collaborative teaching on student
achievement. Increase in student achievement in math and in
reading has been reported when teachers engage in collaborative
teaching [9], but no significant difference in the performance of
students in language proficiency tests when taught using
traditional methods and collaborative teaching methods [1].
III. REFLECTION ON THE PLANNING STAGE
While planning for this action research, the authors realized
that collaborative teaching could indeed be a solution to the
challenges that the first author was facing in school. Together
with fellow Science teachers, the first author wanted to be able
to teach the four different strands of science in the K12
curriculum effectively while presenting ourselves as
collaborating teachers – that each section of the grade level
follows the same set of activities, and even getting the chance to
experience both teachers inside the classroom. Reading through
the literature about different approaches to doing collaborative
teaching and sharing it with my co-teacher, we became more
creative. We planned for different strategies for presenting the
content trying the different approaches for collaborative
teaching.
The first author and the teacher-collaborator have not
experienced collaborative teaching a class before, so the review
of related literature on the advantages and disadvantages of
collaborative teaching were particularly helpful for visualizing
potential conflicts and how to resolve them and learn from them.
We slowly became conscious of giving structure to our lesson
planning and delivery after noticing that have indeed introduced
variety and that the students might not have picked up the focus
of our lessons.
The first author was not prepared to lose full control of what
happens inside my class. I realized that it was about giving full
trust to my teacher-collaborator. This was one factor identified
by researchers contributing to the success of a team of teachers,
but it was a difficult one to achieve as it was a product of
reflective teaching and a longer time of collaboration. Being
able to identify what each one of us were capable of took time,
 but when we knew what to expect from each other, we had an
easier time teaching when we were a team. When we have
established our team structure and procedures, lessons were
conducted more effectively in a manner that was less tiring.
In planning for our parallel teaching sessions, we opted for
more practical activities that became easier to implement as we
did have less students to handle at a given time. In our case, we
would have thirty students and after splitting them into learning
stations, we both would have only fifteen students to teach.
Practical work became a good option for us, but we also became
more critical of the activities after more readings into the
effectiveness of practical work for learning science. To make
practical work more connected to the concepts that needed to be
learned, we made sure that the objectives of the practical work
were the same or parallel to the objectives of the course. We
also designed sessions where students would be given time to
talk about the activities and how these activities are connected
to the concepts we were talking about in class.
IV. RESEARCH DESIGN, PARTICIPANTS, AND INSTRUMENTATION
This study follows an action research design. Action
research is a participatory process concerned with developing
practical knowing in the pursuit of worthwhile human purposes
[10]. For this research, this practical knowledge involves the
development of practices for collaborative teaching in the shared
grade level. Collaborative teaching strategies was improved by
getting feedback from students, observing teachers and
administrators, and ourselves. Qualitative data from this
research was condensed into tables for easier interpretation.
Similar suggestions from students, observing teachers and
administrators were tallied and the rest of the suggestions were
tabulated to allow determination of relative importance of the
suggestions through their frequency.
The study involved two Science teachers (the first author and
a teacher-collaborator) working as a team. For the first year of
implementation, two classes of Grade 10 students were
involved, while in the second year of implementation, three
classes of Grade 10 students were involved. The first author was
the Science teacher of one section while the other sections were
taught by the teacher-collaborator. Each class has about 30
students. The first author had been teaching Science for 12 years
while the teacher-collaborator is a first-year teacher. The
research observers include other Science teachers, academic
department heads and the school principal.
The following materials were used to show evidence of
improvement of collaborative teaching strategies. A teaching
strategy evaluation tool was used to get data on student
perception on the advantages and disadvantages of the
collaborative teaching strategies employed. A collaborative
teaching observation tool was designed for use of teachers who
were observing the class to get data on whether the activities
were related to the core competencies required by the
Department of Education for Grade 10 science. A school-based
teacher competence appraisal form / Classroom observation
checklist was used by administrators of the school in grading
and giving feedback to teachers. Interview questionnaires were
used in asking for feedback on the collaborative teaching
strategies experienced, but the interviewer had the freedom to
probe respondents on their answers.
V. TEACHER ACTION AND REFLECTION
Since both the teachers involved in the action research have
not yet experienced doing collaborative teaching, initial actions
included observation of the co-teacher’s classes with increasing
frequency as both teachers got used to the other teacher’s
presence inside the classroom. When both teachers were
comfortable with working together inside the classroom,
learning stations were employed inside the classroom. The
classes were divided into three groups, one group will receive
instruction from one teacher, one group will receive instruction
from the other, while the other group was assigned a reading task
related to the topic. All groups went through all the stations
within the instructional time. Planning for this collaborative
teaching approach included the co-teachers designing the
stations together, deciding which learning activities would go to
each station and who facilitates the learning stations. The nature
of the station rotation approach required both teachers to attend
to the class of the co-teacher, asides from teaching his or her own
class. In this setup, the teachers also repeated the instructions,
demonstrations and activities at least 6 times – once per group
in each class. This station rotation approach was conducted once
a week for an entire quarter and was then evaluated. The
teachers gave their own classes the questionnaires to answer, but
the interviews from both sections was conducted by the
researcher at first. Peers and administrators were also asked by
the teachers to observe, evaluate and give feedback to the
collaborative teaching classes conducted. The teachers then
tabulated the responses of the students in the questionnaire and
considered the responses of the students in the interviews for
making the improvement plan for the next cycle of collaborative
teaching. The co-teachers then included the suggestions of the
administrators, peers, and students in the design of the
collaborative teaching approach to be used in the next quarter.
The first author learned a lot of things while making the
instruments for this action research. While making the teacher
strategy evaluation form, I remembered that in my first few
years of teaching, I have asked my students for feedback about
my teaching by asking them to write their thoughts on a small
sheet of paper. Although it was not as specific as the ones I have
made in this action research, I remember that reading through
the student answers and getting their feedback was an important
part of becoming a professional teacher. Years have passed, and
I haven’t been able to personally ask for feedback from my
students. I have relied on the year-end teacher evaluations given
by the school which generated shorter replies from the students.
While making this teacher strategy evaluation form, I realized
that getting feedback personally from my students gave more
insights than just relying on the results of the year-end teacher
evaluation made by the students.
Making the collaborative teaching observation tool was a
more challenging task, as there were no forms applicable in our
situation. Authors of researches and books on collaborative
teaching have given recommendations on how to evaluate
teacher teams however, these were generally descriptive in
nature. The first version of the collaborative teaching
observation tool had open-ended questions similar to the ones
given to the students. It asked the observers about their
perceived advantages and disadvantages of collaborative
teaching; however, it was not able to provide other information
about the effectiveness and the appropriateness of the
collaborative teaching strategies used.
The school-based teacher competence evaluation form was
used in its unaltered form retaining its use as a basis for grading
teachers as school personnel and using the results for
administrative decisions. Because of the experimental nature of
the research, the first author felt that the need to show that the
strategies employed are still within the school’s evaluation
system and that employing collaborative teaching strategies will
allow the teachers involved to get a higher mark in the school’s
teacher competence evaluation form. After all, one of the
reported effects of collaborative teaching is professional
development. The use of the school’s teacher evaluation form
also allowed me to appreciate the applicability of outside
researches on our school. I realized that as long as the goals of
instruction and evaluation were clear, ideas from other
researchers can also be applied in our own schools.
VI. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Results of the Teaching Strategy Evaluation Tool, and the
Focus Group Discussions were used to address the first aim of
the action research which was to document the experiences of
the students and teachers in collaborative teaching. The
following are the results of implementing the Teaching Strategy
Evaluation tool, as shown in Tables 1 and 2. Since this was
designed to get feedback from the students on the collaborative
teaching strategies employed, these were collected after one
quarter of collaborative teaching activities. Our initial
approaches to collaborative teaching focused on parallel
teaching. We divided the class into three groups, one group will
be with me, one group will be with her, while one group will
have a guided reading activity. We planned for the activities that
we will facilitate and implemented them inside the classroom.
We assigned areas in the classroom for the different activities
and the students will rotate among the stations every after 10
minutes. Since the class was divided into three, we usually only
had around ten to eleven students at a given time. We used the
term Team Teaching with the students whenever we had
collaborative teaching strategies as this was a more descriptive
term which was more easily remembered by the students. The
responses of the students were categorized and tallied for proper
action.
TABLE I. ADVANTAGES OF USING THE TEAM TEACHING STRATEGY
Frequency Percentage
RESPONSES
Hands-on 14 25.93 %
Learning as a group 12 22.22 %
Fun 10 18.52 %
Better understanding 9 16.67 %
Easier to learn and 7 12.96 %
remember
Can see the 7 12.96 %
demonstrations clearly
Can do many things at 5 9.26 %
once
Our initial goals for collaborative teaching were to allow us
to teach the four strands of Science more effectively by having
more ideas through working together. We concentrated on
putting our ideas together and implementing these together
inside the classroom, and at that stage we still did not have a
clear idea of what the students thought about the collaborative
teaching strategies that we employed. Their feedback was then
used in subsequent collaborative teaching sessions for
improvement.
Based on the students’ responses to the first question, their
experience on collaborative teaching was hands-on (25.93%),
fun (18.52%) and leads to better understanding (16.67%). These
are supported by student and peer observer responses in the
Focus Group Discussions. When asked about their feedback
about the collaborative teaching method, one student replied,
“It’s a bit effective because we get to learn from two different
teaching styles.” This could be one of the reasons why the
students replied that collaborative teaching leads to better
understanding. Peer observers also noted similar experiences as
the students. Teacher observers highlighted that there is more
interaction between students and teachers. Students can
manipulate and explore the learning materials, and the teacher
can assist each student, especially those with difficulty.
The collaborative teaching method used (Station Rotation)
posed different challenges to both the students and the teachers.
The most evident challenge that Collaborative Teaching posed
was time and time management. When asked to give details
about their experiences, the students replied, “Sometimes we run
out of time.”; “… sometimes you are grouped with people who
understand faster, so you can’t ask. Or, like you have to move
faster”. Some students find switching between three or more
stations challenging. They are compelled to finish all the tasks
in each station. This is further shown in Table 2, where they
were asked about the disadvantages of the collaborative teaching
method.
A large number of students (40.74%) responded that time
was not enough. We experimented with having three to four
learning stations. We had three learning stations in most of our
parallel teaching sessions, we each facilitated a station and then
assigned a reading task on one station.
TABLE II. DISADVANTAGES OF USING THE TEAM TEACHING STRATEGY
Responses Frequency Percentage
Time is not enough 22 40.74 %
Students are noisy 10 18.52 %
No disadvantage 8 14.81 %
Students are not 5 9.26 %
working
Upon suggestion of one of our administrators, we added
another station where students would have the chance to practice
assembling circuits, with the premise that the students will be
able to do more activities in a short period of time. We
conducted the station rotation sessions during our 80-minute
class sessions and this corresponds to roughly 15 to 20 minutes
for each station depending on the number of stations prepared.
Since a lot of the students found the time inadequate for the
stations, we decided to decrease the number of stations to two
for the next round of collaborative teaching sessions. The two
other concerns of our students were noise (18.52%) and
classmates who were not on task (9.26%). We interpreted this
as a result of a lack of overall structure that will guide them
during our collaborative teaching activities. To address this, we
concentrated on the parallel teaching as described by Thousand,
Villa and Nevin [8] focusing on the split class strategy. We also
deliberately avoided trying out other collaborative teaching
strategies to allow students to be familiar with the structure of
the split class strategy and prevent disengagement and
misbehavior.
The challenge of time and time management was also
brought up by peer observers who noted, “it demands time and
energy for both planning and implementation”; “It requires two
teachers to pull off. It requires two venues, ideally close to each
other.”; “It requires more planning and coordination.” It was
indeed difficult for us to manage the time needed for being in
each other’s classroom and preparing for classes during the same
time. It needed us to set a specific schedule for preparing the
lesson and the materials for the activities and this was
challenging at first.
Student responses for their perceived advantages of
collaborative teaching gives us a list of the possible advantages
of collaborative teaching, Table 1 summarizes student responses
indicating that collaborative teaching is hands-on (25.93%) and
fun (18.52%) and leads to better understanding (16.67%). This
is supported by student responses in focus group discussions.
Asking for details on their perceived advantages of collaborative
teaching, the students replied with – “I think it’s better because
you can have more stations. And you can have varied
perspectives”. “It’s a bit effective because we get to learn from
two different teaching styles and the teacher doesn’t have to
have a headache because our class has a tendency to become
noisy”. “… It’s fun, like you really get to see how the lesson is
being applied in real life”. After tabulating and analyzing the
student responses, we decided to work more consciously on the
perceived advantages of collaborative teaching. We then
designed lessons that would be hands-on and would allow more
interaction with teachers (7.41%).
Other advantages of collaborative teaching were also
pointed out by peer observers, they noted that it is “easier to
manage students because the task is divided to both teachers.”
“Better understanding of the lesson. Can finish the lesson in a
short amount of time.” “More interaction between students and
teachers. Students can manipulate / explore the learning
materials. Teacher can assist each student, especially those with
difficulty. Learning time is maximized.” “For this topic,
questions are better addressed.” “The class size is significantly
reduced – greater interaction. Demonstration with small
instruments is easier to do. Monitoring group activities is
easier.” This was also our observation of the collaborative
teaching experience. Classroom management was easier
because there were two teachers in the room and more tasks can
indeed be finished by the students because there were two
facilitators.
Students, teachers and administrators were involved in
getting suggestions for improving collaborative teaching in
Grade 10 Science. The following table shows the suggestions
given by students on how to improve collaborative teaching.
TABLE III. WHAT SUGGESTIONS DO YOU HAVE FOR IMPROVING THE
TEACHING STRATEGY
Increase time 13 24.07 %
No reply 10 18.52 %
Nothing 6 11.11 %
More activities / 5 9.26 %
experiments
Sixteen of the students either left the question unanswered or
wrote “Nothing” on their suggestions for improving the
collaborative teaching strategy. This makes “Increasing time”
as their primary suggestion for improving the strategy. We have
addressed this by conducting our next collaborative teaching
sessions on days where we had longer time for science. Some
days had just 40 minutes of science class, while other days had
80 minutes. We then scheduled the next collaborative teaching
sessions on the days wherein they had double periods of science.
Students gave concrete suggestions when they were asked to
explain further during focus group discussions. Students
replied, “The time is lacking, so I think we need to add 5 minutes
at least per station. And then maybe try to lessen the stations,
because sometimes when we have three or more than three, we
can’t even finish it within two periods.”
The responses of the students in the focus group discussions
were instrumental in improving our next collaborative teaching
sessions. Students expressed their desire to take down notes as
they said that although they got to experience it, they still needed
something that they could review in preparation for their
quizzes. In response to this, we prepared handouts that were
designed to link the activities to the learning objective for the
session. We also lessened the questions that they had to answer
for the activities so that they could focus on the experience and
not rush the activities so that they could finish answering all the
questions.
Another suggestion for improvement came from an
administrator. The concern raised by the administrator was the
comparison between our classroom management strategies.
“Like the personality, can it be learned by another teacher? Is it
okay to have two different personalities? What I can suggest is
to improve classroom management of the other teacher, I mean
because if you have classroom management strategies,
everything follows. What I see is that she actually has potential
when it comes to this, but we could work out the strategies of
managing the challenging students.”
With the suggestion coming from the administrators, the first
author became more conscious the differences in our classroom
management practices. We planned more observation visits that
focused on classroom management. In these observation visits,
one of us would just observe the class at the back and sometimes
help with students who are asking questions. We would then
talk about what we did in order to manage the class after the
observation session.
 Because we were mostly trying out a new strategy, we
wanted to determine whether the students found it acceptable
before continuing with the second cycle of collaborative
teaching. The following tables (Tables 4 and 5) show the
responses of the students when asked whether they would want
us to continue collaborative teaching, which was termed as team
teaching, to facilitate ease of communication.
TABLE IV. WOULD YOU LIKE THE TEACHERS TO CONTINUE USING THE
TEAM TEACHING STRATEGY?
Yes 45 83.33 %
No 6 11.11 %
Depends 3 5.56 %
TABLE V. HOW OFTEN SHOULD THE TEACHERS USE THE TEAM
TEACHING STRATEGY?
Once a week 31 57.41 %
Once every two weeks 10 18.52 %
Once a month 3 5.56 %
Two times a week 10 18.52 %
Majority (83.33%) of the students responded that they would
like us to continue the collaborative teaching strategies
employed, but there were some students who did not want to
have the collaborative teaching sessions (11.11%). Upon further
analysis of their responses for the disadvantages of the strategy
which are most probably their reason for not wanting to have the
collaborative teaching strategy, we made plans so that the
activities would be more organized, and the students are more
engaged with the activities. We also decided to have two
separate classrooms so that the students will not be disturbed by
discussions with the other group as 18.52% of the students
responded that their classmates were noisy. We also adopted the
frequency of collaborative teaching sessions that majority
(57.41%) the students suggested, which was once a week.
Personally, I found it nice that some students answered that they
did not want the collaborative teaching sessions to continue. For
me it was a sign that they responded honestly and that we had to
change our approach so that the students would benefit more
from our collaborations as teachers.
Collaborative teaching also promoted the attainment of the
teacher competence descriptors prescribed by the school. It
would also be good if teachers conducting collaborative
teaching will still be given an acceptable rating when they are
observed by school administrators. The next set of data comes
from four different observers using the school’s Teacher
Competence Appraisal Form. It is used as an evaluation tool
and bears a percentage of the teacher’s performance rating for
the school year. The data shows the average of the ratings given
by the four different observers on two different days. The
descriptors for the numerical ratings are as follows:
4 – The expected performance behavior is very evident
3 – The expected performance behavior is evident
2 – The expected performance behavior is somewhat evident
1 – The expected performance behavior is not evident
TABLE VI. TEACHER COMPETENCE APPRAISAL / CLASSROOM
OBSERVATION CHECKLIST
Average
DESCRIPTORS
Rating
1. The class started on time. 4.00
2. The classroom is clean and orderly. 3.75
3. Students come quickly to attention. 4.00
4. The purpose of the lesson is clearly
4.00
communicated to the students.
5. The objectives are age-appropriate. 4.00
6. Content of lesson is clearly presented. 4.00
7. Different points of view and specific
4.00
illustrations are used appropriately.
8. The specific instructional materials used
are clearly related to content of lesson and 4.00
selected method of instruction.
9. Teacher writes neatly, legibly, and in
3.75
cursive on the board.
10. Directions and procedures are clear to the
4.00
students.
11. Instructional time is maximized. 3.50
12. The teacher asks effective questions. 3.75
13. Spoken and written language is clear and
correct; vocabulary is appropriate to 4.00
student’s age and interests.
14. Tasks for individual or group work are
organized and engaged students at all 4.00
times thereby preventing misbehavior.
15. The lesson has a “closure” point. There is
a deliberate attempt to tie together the
planned and chance events of the lesson 3.50
and relate them to the immediate and long
range aims of instructions.
16. Teacher response to misbehavior is
consistent, appropriate, effective, and 3.50
sensitive to students’ individual needs.
17. Integration of technology is evident. 4.00
18. Planned activities are demonstrated in the
4.00
observed class.
The ratings given by the observers using the school’s
classroom observation checklist shown in Table 6 were
indicative that the descriptors were very much evident during
the classes observed. The first author was personally relieved
that the ratings given were such since it means that the lessons
and strategies that we have developed during our collaboration
were well within the school’s standard for teacher competence.
It also gave us the signal that we could still continue with our
collaborative work.
VII. REFLECTION ON THE STUDY PHASE
As a collaborative team, we would usually plan the activities,
walk through the lesson and prepare the materials and set-up
together but we didn’t talk much about the what we thought
about collaborative teaching. Our team reflection focused on
what difficulties we encountered during the collaborative
teaching activities. The following are some excerpts from our
reflection as a team. “I guess for us as a team, even though there
were some stressful parts or some difficulties having team
teaching for example, preparing some of the equipment or the
materials that we need and of course the extra load that we have.
But I guess it successful in a way that we are having positive
feedback from the students and as the students said, they’re
having fun and they think science is an exciting subject now…”
One of the challenges that we faced in our collaborative
teaching sessions was that it took more time to plan and execute
lessons. Since we wanted to avoid comparison between the
classes that we handle, we had to set time to talk about how we
would implement the class. As we started venturing into the
other approaches of collaboration, we devoted more time in
observing the other teacher’s classes until it became the parallel
teaching strategy where we had to be present in the other
teacher’s class to co-teach. My co-teacher’s response on how
much time we spend on collaborative teaching illustrates the
need for extra time. “And if we are doing team teaching every
Tuesday, my Tuesday class which was supposed to be six
periods, but because we are doing team teaching, it becomes
eight periods… For me, I am willing to have extra load, but of
course I am not sure if other teachers would be happy about it,
that they would have additional loads.” It was easier on my part
as I only had a few classes to teach, an additional two or four
periods of engaged collaboration would be manageable.
However, it is not sustainable to have collaborative teaching
when majority of a teacher’s vacant time would need to be
devoted to collaborative teaching a class. My partner gave the
following suggestions on what we could do in order to have a
better implementation of collaborative teaching. “I guess it
would be better if they would add another load for the teacher
that would be in team teaching. They could take off some of
the monitoring… Having more time where the beginning
teacher for the mentoring teacher, a certain time that they could
plan everything. So that they could talk more and plan
everything more, successful and they could have a time that they
could practice, the activities before they implement it with the
students”
Asked on the benefits of collaborative teaching, partner
teacher-collaborator replied: “since you have someone there,
you’re going to realize that there is still some room for me to
improve on… I never knew that if you had someone there
mentoring you throughout the process, you could learn a lot
actually, through the strategies. If you have some
misconceptions about the topics. And when you are having a
hard time on some topics or in the class, you have someone to
ask”. For the first author, collaborative teaching forced me to
prepare for my classes in much more detail, as I had to be able
to talk about how the activities that I planned could be performed
by another teacher. And since another teacher would be
observing the class for teaching strategies, I had to be clear on
what my strategies were and why I utilized these.
From the feedback of the students, peer observers and
administrators and our own evaluation, collaborative teaching
can be successfully implemented in a Philippine classroom
context. This can be compared to the conclusion of Aliakbari
and Nejad that collaborative teaching does not appear to work in
Japanese and Iranian cultures [1]. Although it seems that the
Philippines, an Asian country would have a similar culture and
response to collaborations as Japan, in this specific case, it seems
that collaborative teaching may be employed in the Philippines.
Further investigations on the viability and effectiveness of
collaborative teaching in the Philippines is still needed to make
definitive conclusions.
Our students also reported that they had better interactions
with the teacher and this is also noted in research [8]. Results
from other researches are also observed in this action research.
The novelty and the creativity, as noted by students, have been
described in researches where smaller class size resulted to
teachers being more creative with their classes [11].
The feedback from different sources gave us a lot of
information on how our collaborative practices appeared to be.
Majority of our improvement plans were aimed to enhance what
students thought of as advantages of the collaborative teaching
strategy and to address student concerns on time and noise. The
first author realized that most of the noise came from having
many activity centers in our first cycle. Since the activity centers
were also in the same room, there was no physical barrier to
lessen noise from one group of learners to the next. We
addressed this by lessening the activity centers to two and
assigning the half of the class to one room and the other half to
another. Working on improving the perceived advantage of
better interaction with teachers, we set time for summary and
question and answer. Feedback from peers and administrators
also gave us insight on how we could further improve our
collaborative work as teachers. As both of us were not trained
and have not experienced collaborative teaching before, it was
important for us to have constant feedback from different
sources. Because of the creative nature of collaborative
teaching, we sometimes got excited trying out new things,
testing out our individual and collaborative ideas, having
students do more things inside the classroom as there were more
teachers inside the classroom. It was easy to get lost in the
process and believe that what we were doing was for the good
of the students because we have put our thoughts and effort in it.
The multiple feedbacks from different sources, which was a
crucial part of the action research model, allowed us to adjust
and improve on our strategies. In using the school’s teacher
competence appraisal form, I learned that innovations should
also be aligned to the mission of the school and the objectives of
education as set by the Department of Education. With the
teaching strategy evaluation tool and focus group discussions, I
learned that student feedback was a necessary part of classroom
innovations and since they were the ones who were experiencing
the changes. The students were able to give concrete
suggestions on improving the collaborative teaching strategies
during the focus group discussions.
VIII. CONCLUSION
The objective of this action research is to propose ways of
improving collaborative teaching in Grade 10 Science in a
private Filipino-Chinese school.
Based on the suggestions of our students through the teacher-
made strategy evaluation tool and focus group discussions, the
collaborative teaching approach can be improved by developing
teaching plans that allow for hands-on and interactive activities
that maximize the presence of multiple teachers but could be
accomplished well within the instructional time. Planning for
structure and alignment to curricular objectives was also needed
in order to keep students on task.
The suggestions of peer teachers and administrator include
focusing on sharing our best practices for classroom
management and standardizing our classroom policies to
prevent teacher comparison. Peer teachers noted that student
queries are better addressed, and we maximized this perceived
advantage by improving our interactions with the students, also
allotting time for clarifications and summaries. Administrators
suggested addressing possible sources of comparison between
teachers doing collaborative work, and with this we worked on
planning the lessons and the delivery with more details so that
both co-teachers are aware of what the other is doing and how
he or she is doing it.
On identifying which parts of collaborative teaching were
stressful for the implementing teachers, we have relied mostly
on our team reflection. On our reflection we have noted that
collaborative teaching could result in more workload. The
collaborating teacher has to be physically present in the other
co-teacher’s class. Planning and preparing for the activities took
more time and the schedule of the teachers should match so that
there is enough time for discussions. In other collaborative
teaching approaches, it would also need two separate venues that
need to be available at the same time. Suggestions for
addressing these problems came from both us and the
administrators. These includes adjusting the workload of the
teacher to allow for more time for collaborative planning and
implementation. The partnership between teachers who have
conducted collaborative teaching could also be continued in the
next few school years, so that they are able to work more
efficiently and effectively together.
Our students generally gave positive responses for the
collaborative teaching lessons that we implemented. Majority
of the students responded that they wanted the collaborative
teaching lessons to continue. Through the teacher-made
questionnaire and the focus group discussion, the perceived
advantages of collaborative teaching are that it allowed for more
hands-on activities, better understanding of the lesson and better
interactions between teachers and students. The perceived
disadvantages of collaborative teaching are classes getting noisy
and some students not participating in the activities, however, a
similar number of student responses indicated that there were no
disadvantages to collaborative teaching.
Collaborative teaching for us was a positive experience.
Having been able to implement lessons that would be difficult
to implement when you are a solitary teacher and having
students appreciate the unique advantages of having
collaborative teaching, I was pleased with the process and the
results. We were also able to address parts of our teaching that
we wouldn’t have discovered through our collaborative teaching
experience.
Our experience with collaborative teaching suggests that it
is a possible way to address issues of teacher mastery of content
in the junior high school Science curriculum. Current
approaches to ensure quality of instruction in some schools are
assigning teachers to the topics where they have content
specialization. Each ten-week teaching cycle will then be
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assigned to a different teacher. Although this could be beneficial
to the student, the teachers do not get to interact with teachers
with different specializations. Through collaborative teaching
between teachers of different specialization, each teacher may
eventually gain mastery of all the four strands of science that are
taught in the same year.
IX. PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
The following pedagogical implications are forwarded for
consideration of the readers of this study. Given that the
students, peer teachers, and administrators who were part of this
study gave favorable evaluations of collaborative teaching, we
recommend that teachers and administrators try this approach
for teacher training and materials development. While the
collaboration in this study was limited to teachers of the same
subject content (Science), collaborative teaching may also be
extended to different subjects / specializations. Administrators
and teachers who would like to maximize the use of
collaborative teaching for faculty development and better
instruction should allocate enough time to the collaborating
teachers to allow for the planning and implementation of
material.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The first author wishes to thank the faculty and staff of the
De La Salle University for igniting, once again, my passion for
science, teaching, and learning. Thank you to my teacher-
collaborator, Ms. Victoria Apilado, for working with me in this
research and to my students, who have given their valuable
insights regarding this endeavor.
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