Best Practice Guide for Designing and Delivering EPICUR courses

Guidance and resources to support EPICUR course development, cc-by-sa

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Collaboration between Educators

Collaboration between Educators

Why collaborate with a fellow educator?

And at an individual level there is evidence that co-teaching and course collaboration can contribute to professional development:

‘For faculty who embark on this collaborative adventure, co-teaching and the comparison between teaching partners it generates necessarily result in profound reflection, negotiation and transfer related to all aspects of the teaching and learning process, and therefore contribute to professional development.’ (Buckingham et al, 2021)

This short video on ‘virtual exchange’ developed by UNI Collaboration an organisation committed to fostering learning through educator and student collaborations outlines the benefits of collaboration for the educators and the students.

Collaboration between universities, leading to systemic and sustainable impact is one of the EU’s primary aims. Through the process of sharing, combining and supplementing knowledge, skills and competences educators have opportunities to nurture collaborations within research and teaching. By bringing together subject specialisms in an interdisciplinary course, students can broaden their understanding of a subject and develop their awareness of how subject knowledge can be complementary.

5 key points about collaborating in the design of in-person or online classes

1. Developing meaningful connections with a fellow educator and/or researcher supports sustainable collaborations. However, collaborating comes with both opportunities and novelty which can be inspiring and challenging. The Collaborative Teaching Practice report is a useful place to start with its list of challenges and recommendations.

2. Here’s a checklist for developing an effective collaboration:

  • Share your motivations for collaborating on a course or a learning experience and hold on to the bigger picture. 
  • Value the benefits of the collaboration for you, your collaborator/s, and the students.
  • Stay open-minded – we all have our own lenses, influenced amongst other things by our personalities and by cultural and social norms. Spend time getting to know each other and find out what you have in common and differences in your opinions especially about teaching and learning. 
  • Invite alternative ideas, be ready to negotiate, and to share when and why it may be difficult for you to compromise.  
  • Spend time discussing and planning course design, content, delivery and assessment. Invite critical friends, including students, to offer feedback.
  • Identify how to share roles and responsibilities.
  • Check-in with each other regularly.
  • Watch out for making assumptions that you share the same understanding of the course and its outcomes.
  • Be positive and encouraging. See this as a unique opportunity.
  • Provide and invite constructive feedback on your contributions, be ready to learn from each other.

3. Within Alliances, these connections may start with a shared research focus or interest in finding a fellow educator to contribute to an EPICUR course. Alliances can facilitate finding a fellow researcher and/or educator. Register on EPICUR’s ‘CoTeachConnector’ and check with your Institutional Coordinator about identifying possible collaborators.

4. Alliances provide access to inter-university partnerships and collaborations at all levels. This means partnership agreements between universities in the same Alliance are already in place, making all forms of collaboration easier to administer. Although there is a commitment within EPICUR to Open Education Resources (OER), it is a good idea to check your university’s position. Here you can access current EPICUR information on OER.

5. Erasmus+ Mobility Agreements provide funding for physical mobilities. Visting individual colleagues or departments at EPICUR universities can help foster academic and professional collaborations and provide insights into the educational and social culture. One way to start is by offering an in-person guest lecture or inviting a potential collaborator to do the same for one of your courses.

Collaboration between educators in practice

To learn more about a collaborative course co-taught at the University of Freiburg, watch the EPiC EducTalk by Steven Randall (you'll find the video at the bottom of this page). 

Links to resources for teachers collaborating on designing and delivering in-person or online classes.

References

Buckingham Lyndsay R., López-Hernández Alfonso, Strotmann Birgit (2021) ‘Learning by Comparison: The Benefits of Co-Teaching for University Professors’ Professional Development’

Frontiers in Education 6. DOI=10.3389/feduc.2021.776991. Available at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2021.776991   

Interdisciplinary Collaborations

Author(s)

This resource sheet has been co-written or written by

  • Donna Hurford (SDU)

Related Resource Sheets

Next steps

If you need further support with developing your course, please contact your local teaching support unit.
If you need further information on offering your course for EPICUR, please contact your EPICUR institutional coordinator.

Local teaching support units

EPICUR Institutional Coordinators

Adam Mickiewicz University
Karolina Choczaj
karmench@amu.edu.pl

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Nikos Kouloussis
nikoul@agro.auth.gr

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Michael Zacherle
zacherle@kit.edu

University of Amsterdam
Tiffany Boersma
t.a.boersma@uva.nl

Universität Freiburg
Charlotte Langowski
charlotte.langowski@zv.uni-freiburg.de

Université de Haute-Alsace
Léa Ziri
lea.ziri@uha.fr

Universität für Bodenkultur Wien
Nicolas Fries
nicolas.fries@boku.ac.at

University of Southern Denmark
Ida Thøstesen
ilt@sdu.dk

University of Strasbourg
Pascale Nachez
pnachez@unistra.fr

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Further use as OER explicitly permitted:
This Resource Sheet within the Best Practice Guide for Designing and Delivering EPICUR Courses was created by Donna Hurford, University of Southern Denmark.
Please attribute according to TASLL rule as follows: Collaboration between Educators (Best Practice Guide for Designing and Delivering EPICUR Courses), by Donna Hurford, University of Southern Denmark. Any icons included are protected by copyright, © The Noun Project, used with permission.
License: This work and its contents are – unless otherwise stated – licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 . 

Last edited: 23. Jun 2025, 09:05, Hutz-Nierhoff, Dorthe [dh1076@rz.uni-freiburg.de]