Improving Collaborative Teaching Practices in Grade 10 Science Through Action Research

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.