An early-career lecturer and mentor walk into a lecture theatre . . . repeatedly: Developmental benefits of collaborative lecturing in political science

Abstract

This article considers the benefits and pitfalls of an innovative approach to collaborative teaching designed to develop lecturing skills in early-career political science instructors. Using reflective interviews, we consider how collaborative lecturing guided the early – and continued – development of the lecturers who undertook the same novel exercise over several years. Lecturers require skills in the application of active learning, to encourage deep-learning, but are rarely trained on how to apply this in large scale lecturing. We observe the lasting impact collaboration had on developing lecture method practice and encouraging continuous reflection on instruction. We argue collaborative lecturing can help those who are unfamiliar with the application of active learning in lecture settings – lacking experience due to being at an early-career stage or having previously studied/taught in different educational systems – to acclimatise to systems where active learning is a fundamental expectation for teaching politics.

Introduction

It is a rite of passage for those embarking on a career in higher education (HE) to stand in a ‘quiet’ lecture theatre, in front of a few hundred students and deliver at least an hour of well-prepared and engaging content for the first time. The lecture will then often become a constant experience for most within HE institutions. Some excel from the early stages of their lecturing career, because of innate confidence, or the skills they may have acquired from making short-form presentations at conferences or other venues, which has translated into a strong presenting style. For others, beginning the lecturing process can be intimidating. A difference in difficulty does exist between presenting what may be your own familiar research, in short 10- to 15-minute blocks, in a sparsely filled conference venue, and the presentation for at least an hour of level-adjusted material to a few hundred students, all of whom are increasingly encouraged to provide anonymous feedback and evaluation. In many systems, this feedback can factor into decision-making on promotions or hiring, increasing the pressure to perform.

It is perplexing, therefore, that despite the importance attributed to being an engaging lecturer, lecturing skills are not always part of formative training programmes. According to Race (2019: 168),

One way or another, many colleagues start their teaching careers in higher education by getting ‘thrown in at the deep end’. For many, within weeks or sometimes even days of taking up their posts, there are large-group sessions of some kind to be given. Sometimes they face this prospect without having had any opportunities to learn how to tackle the challenges involved and only their own experience as students in the same sort of situation to draw upon.

The approach to developing a good lecturer is still, all-too-often, ‘on your own, on the job’, presenting a significant challenge for many. In this article, however, we consider an alternative.

If course coordinators are willing to allow the opportunity, it is possible to provide active developmental sessions for those looking to gain early-career experience and confidence in the lecture method. This article reflects on an innovative training exercise led by trainee lecturers in political science, repeated over several years (2013–2020 ¹ ), that involved delivering a novel ‘collaborative lecture’. The exercise operated as a collaborative development opportunity for early-career instructors – who had substantial scope to design and develop the format of the exercise – to gain practical large-scale lecturing experience. This article draws upon the reflections of the participants – which included the authors – on their experiences of working together to design and deliver the session. For some, it was their first experience of giving a lecture, and although others had previous experience, it was still very early in their careers. For everyone, this was the first experience of co-teaching and mentoring between peers.

In this article, we engage with the concept of collaborative lecturing as a peer-to-peer co-teaching and mentoring exercise, with the empirical case focusing on the early-career instructors’ experiences. We define collaborative lecturing as two (or more) lecturers cooperating to develop and jointly deliver a lecture, accompanied by reflection on the experience. A nascent understanding is emerging that instructors who collaborate in peer-to-peer co-teaching exercises may draw positively upon the experience (e.g. promoting reflexivity (Buckingham et al., 2021)). Yet the collaboration of lecturers in teaching and reflecting on developing practice in the lecture space has rarely featured in literature.

Here we offer an innovative approach to the concept of collaborative lecturing, a significantly underexplored form of pedagogical collaboration, focusing on the early-career lecturer engaging in co-teaching and peer mentoring in a large introductory political science course.

The session was designed as a continuing process; once a participant had been involved for the first time they would be asked to return to direct the exercise and provide mentoring support to a new early-career participant, allowing the cycle to continue. Peer-to-peer mentoring is typically constructed in the context of senior colleagues interacting with junior ones, but here we explore an interaction of junior lecturers supporting each other’s development, building mutual initial confidence and experience to acclimatise to a new professional tool.

We begin by discussing the lecture method and emerging theoretical understanding of collaboration for lecturer development. Then we detail the collaborative developmental exercise before exploring the evidence on its benefits and potential limitations. We finish by considering how the findings develop a conceptual understanding of collaboration.

Development of a lecturer

The merits of the lecture as a learning device have long been debated, in general pedagogical literature (Behr, 1988; Lawson, 2015; Race, 2019) and in political science (Jackson and Prosser, 1989; Lambach et al., 2017; Omelicheva and Avdeyeva, 2008; Wunische, 2019). McLaughlin and Mandin (2001: 1135) – rather wittily – identify ‘lecturalgia (painful lecture)’ as a ‘frequent cause of morbidity for both teachers and learners’. Despite some questioning its benefits (Laurillard, 2002; Freeman et al., 2014), we suggest it is safe to say the lecture method will remain a cornerstone of HE into at least the not-too-distant future. In many departments, resources may not be available to consistently adopt alternatives to engage the significant undergraduate cohorts found – political science is unlikely to lose its attractiveness, any time soon, as a taught subject.

The lecture is a learning tool allowing the lecturer to impart their knowledge to a large group of students, at the same time, highlighting and providing elucidation on the complexities of different concepts. The lecture can be used to cut through the confusion of a dense literature or from the diffused discussion emerging from seminars run by different, less-specialised, tutors. While the method persists, it is increasingly clear, however, that the historically dominant didactic model of lecturing, where the lecturer provides an unrelenting stream of spoken information for students to absorb, is a less-than-ideal learning tool (Wolff et al., 2015). Here the lecturer is the focal point of the teaching. The students are a passive audience. The lecturer conveys complex spoken information without interacting with the students or allowing the students to engage with the learning topic and ideas (or each other), or to pursue an understanding or encourage an enquiry into the knowledge the lecture provided. The student is only recording and attempting to memorise information individually.

Consequently, it has been increasingly recognised that in order to get the most out of them, lectures should be approached as an active rather than a passive exercise, employing interactive learning to engage students (Huerta, 2007), and enable them to acquire a more foundational deep-learning experience, rather than only surface level retention and recall (Cerbin, 2018; Sloam, 2008). Here the interaction and active involvement of the students, rather than the lecturer, is the focal point in the learning process. The lecturer is supplying the student with their expertise but also applying ‘active learning’ techniques in the lecture, to involve the students directly, presenting them with learning exercises (e.g. paired discussion/debates/answer exchanges, role-play, real-time polling, buzz groups) which require participation and dialogue, to acquire and interrogate their own understanding, having them consider the ideas and engage in the enquiry for knowledge rather than only the remembering of ‘facts’.

The passive approach to learning and lecturing may lead students to ‘rely on rote learning and memorisation, avoid personal understanding, reflect little on their learning experience and study only what is discussed in the classroom’ (Yonker, 2011: 681). An active approach should invert this – students will ‘seek meaning in order to understand’ (Struyven et al., 2016: 280). Whether students acquire surface or deep-learning is not purely down to their personal decisions or innate characteristics but influenced by the learning environment provided by the lecturer (Dolmans et al., 2016). Therefore, we contend lectures, as an integral part of the learning environment, should be designed in a way that encourages students to think, engage, and reflect in real-time and after the event itself. The good lecturer can, as Penson (2012: 75) puts it, be ‘both a sage on the stage and a guide by the side’ [original emphasis] – guiding the learning process, if they know how to do this.

The experience of the lecturer is, therefore, important in positively affecting the students’ learning outcomes (Barkley and Major, 2018; Gibbs and Coffey, 2004; Sjöstedt, 2015). To provide a more active rather than passive lecture experience, we believe that the ‘good’ lecturer should be acquainted with the tools of active learning and confident in its delivery in the lecture space, be acclimatised to the practical application of student engagement and, ideally, be able to reflect on approaches to student learning. Yet the lecturing experience obtained by an instructor before gaining their first position involving substantive course coordination and delivery duties can be haphazard (Race, 2019). Many will start instruction careers in political science as teaching assistants, usually leading small seminars, before potentially progressing into lectureships prospectively involving large-scale lecturing responsibilities. Gaining experience prior to uptake of a lectureship may depend on the individual’s enterprise to seek associate lecturing opportunities or resulting from foresight of a supervisor or colleague, offering the opportunity to teach.

The opportunity may never arise, however, and may not necessarily constitute a barrier to employment. Demonstration of teaching skills is not always required in selection processes. Universities value specialised expertise, but they have placed less attention on teaching qualifications (Ellis, 2019). Once appointed, formal training programmes may be inconsistent or commence once a lecturer has already begun substantive teaching. Considerations on how to develop the early (and mid-to-late) career lecturer skill set, have, however, seen a burgeoning theoretical development.

A notable proportion of literature on lecturer training and development may be best described as falling into the ‘tips and tricks’ category. Alongside setting out a normative understanding of what may constitute good practice, Race (2019) provides a comprehensive account of approaches to delivering a lecture, with methods and presenting styles to consider. Barkley and Major (2018) provide a substantive consideration on becoming an engaging lecturer who can utilise active learning in large classroom settings. An array of online resources is also available for the prospective lecturer to utilise. However, while reading, or passively watching, can form an aspect of a lecturer’s development process (Ferman, 2002), the undertaking of practical exercises is increasingly considered to be an appealing approach to acquiring skills and experience (Niemi and Nevgi, 2014; Voogt et al., 2011).

Active learning and development

Active learning has been observed as providing benefits in the training of lecturers, in line with what we understand the benefits of active exercises to be on the student’s attainment of deep-learning outcomes, which is unsurprising as, we argue, the lecturer is a student when trained. For example, Inra et al. (2017) observed in a case study of medical instructors that when active learning was employed, it appeared to correspond with a development in the information transmission skills. In addition to appreciating the learning, a greater reflection on the development of educational practice and self-improvement is apparently instilled in the individual (Inra et al., 2017). Self-reflection appears an important motivator for academic skill development (Brown and Bakhtar, 1988; Carew et al., 2008), which is encouraged by interactions with others in active experiences. A common feature of active learning does involve collaboration, and a growing recognition has begun to develop on the potential significance of collaborative teaching as its own active development device.

Collaborative development

Collaboration in the scholarship of learning and teaching can take many forms, including student-to-student, teacher-to-student, across disciplines or institutions. We focus here, however, on collaborative teaching in the context of a peer-to-peer action undertaken by lecturers. Collaborative teaching, sometimes referred to as co-teaching or team-teaching, is defined as an endeavour of two or more teachers cooperating to develop, design, and or deliver a learning programme (Robinson and Schaible, 1995). The object is to coordinate, as doing so, has been observed in empirical studies, in addition to systematic and narrative reviews, as providing identifiable benefits to the students receiving co-teaching (Hargreaves, 2019). The students involved in co-teaching sessions have been considered to gain in terms of educational achievement, confidence in continued learning and personal development (Beninghof, 2020; Fulton and Britton, 2011). It has, however, become increasingly apparent that not only are the students garnering tangible benefits – the instructor may also be profiting (Beninghof, 2020; Ferguson and Wilson, 2011; Nevin et al., 2009; Perera et al., 2020) – making collaboration a potential win–win scenario for all those involved in the co-teaching experience (Buckingham et al., 2021). These tangible benefits include promoting the desire to acquire experience and the development of confidence in, and reflexivity on, different approaches to teaching, encouraged by supportive cooperation.

Studies have highlighted the value of collaborative work with colleagues (Briggs, 2007), development of collegiate ‘Professional Learning Communities’ to build confidence in teaching (Fulton and Britton, 2011) and effect on the collective efficacy of faculties (Vangrieken et al., 2015). Collaborative teaching has also seen growing focus as it relates to promoting diversity in classrooms (Sharma et al., 2023). Collaborative work is, thus, increasingly being accredited with positive attributes; however, according to Hargreaves (2019: 604): ‘What is less clear is what collaboration looks like, how it can vary, what are the relative benefits of different kinds of collaboration, and when collaboration can be harmful as well as helpful’. This has left the concept, we would argue, still under-theorised, particularly with regards to personal development.

The benefit of collaboration is apparently the metacognitive development of the participants: encouraging and enhancing the ability to substantively reflect on teaching approach and delivery of information (Buckingham et al., 2021). Chanmugam and Gerlach (2013) in a case study, involving co-teaching between two doctoral candidates delivering an undergraduate course, found that developmental benefits appeared for the instructors. Co-teaching created a supportive environment, to provide feedback, allowing for reflection on the approaches taken and building of confidence in the novice instructors, who felt accountable and encouraged to develop instruction skill sets. Strubbe et al. (2019) and Moghtader et al. (2022) found similar results in explorations of paired early-career science instructors, observing the building of confidence in the application of active learning and the engaging delivery of information.

In addition to promoting self-reflection and confidence building in the application of learning techniques (Buckingham et al., 2021), the developmental benefits of collaboration are projected to more likely stick with an individual, which is consistent with constructivist assumptions that knowledge is built upon from experience, drawing out comprehension (Taber, 2014). The constructivist position is that knowledge is socially constructed through interaction and embedded within the concept of active learning (Drew and Mackie, 2011; Sloam, 2008). The processes of social construction apply not only to students as co-learners but also to the instructors themselves. Collaborative teaching is thus another dimension of the social construction of knowledge through interaction.

Collaboration is appreciated by instructors and thus influences, in a lasting way, the approaches adopted by those engaging in the practice (Ferman, 2002). While potentially significant at all experience stages to promote growth, collaboration could be of particular importance for instructors in initial career stages. Ferman (2002: 155) claims that early-career instructors value peer discussion more than experienced colleagues, suggesting that ‘the benefits of curriculum based one-to-one collaborations include carry-over benefits into future activities by enhancing academics’ expertise in curriculum design and, in parallel, their teaching practice’.

The benefits of collaboration, with respect not only to the delivery, but also to co-designing teaching sessions, have been explored, providing further insights (Elliott et al., 2021; Voogt et al., 2011). Participating together in curriculum design has been observed as increasing the instructors’ understanding of different perspectives on approaches to engaging students in the learning process (Coenders et al., 2010; Hsieh and Nguyen, 2015). Working in collaboration may challenge the perspectives of an individual towards a teaching method, or an approach may be re-evaluated, prospectively providing for reflection on the production of teaching materials (Borko, 2004).

Collaborative lecturing

While pedagogical literature has considered innovations and the impact of collaborating, this rarely engages positively with lecturing. Perera et al. (2020), however, do provide some insight into the potential impact of lecturing as a team in a social science context, indicating that it can encourage deep-learning that promotes critical thinking. Alongside student benefits, Perera et al. (2020) indicate instructors were able to engage in reflection on practice from participating in collaborative delivery, although the lecturing was performed for eight MSc students and may be better described as a seminar programme with didactic elements (cf. Perera et al., 2020).

To summarise, expectations are that collaboration should provide an opportunity for those involved to reflect on their approaches towards instruction, from participating in a deep-learning experience. Working with others is perceived to potentially boost the confidence of the instructor, not only to deliver information but to consider and apply innovation. Finally, there is an indication that collaboration is appreciated and may encourage willingness to build knowledge alongside skill sets. The evidence collected does develop on these assumptions. However, findings also highlight limitations of collaboration, which have seldom been acknowledged.

Case

The case examined is situated in the United Kingdom. For those unfamiliar, or wishing to compare to other examples, the UK HE sector is highly internationalised, in terms of staff and students, and expects active learning. PhD candidates, who constitute most frontline tutoring staff in political science (and across the social sciences), while having the option to undertake teaching qualifications (e.g. the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP) – a Masters equivalent in HE pedagogy), are usually not required to undertake more than introductory seminars on teaching, and only if they decide to teach. Doctoral education in the United Kingdom occurs over at least 3 years and focuses on research training.

While there has been a gradual shift, with teaching qualifications becoming more a point of esteem, professionalisation has not come to characterise the system (Ellis, 2019). Lecturers are typically mandated to obtain PGCAP-type qualification with their first lectureship, but it takes place in parallel to teaching and often provides little instruction on lecturing. The UK represents an ‘on-the-job’ approach to the lecture method – all-too-often typical across HE (Race, 2019) – alongside its common use due to substantial undergraduate cohorts. The training session explored here, however, provided an alternative early intervention approach.

The lecture, which formed the core of the collaborative training exercise, was designed to provide an exam preparation session for a class of approximately, 500 first- and second-year students at a Russell Group ² university. The module was an introductory course in political science, focusing on liberal democracy and multi-level governance, and while many of the students were studying for undergraduate degrees in Politics or International Relations, with two degree tracks available, some had selected the module as an elective subject alongside a main degree path. For many students, this exam would be the first in their university experience and a potentially stressful time, justifying a preparation session.

The lecture was delivered at the end of the course and lasted an hour. The exercise, however, encompassed three stages: (1) coordination/planning, (2) collaborative delivery of the lecture, and (3) a reflective session. Each stage consists of actions to be collaborated upon by two participants, an early-career mentee and a mentor, both at similar career stages of a PhD in political science, or recent completion. This included PhD candidates working as course tutors, post-doctoral instructors on teaching fellowship contracts and early-career lecturers, based within the same political science unit.

The first stage began with the selection of the mentee. This decision was made in discussion between course coordinator and mentor, who had participated the year before as the mentee. The consideration of whom to select was based on the criteria of who would apparently benefit from the exercise the most in terms of supporting their confidence, were lacking a lecture delivery experience and having expressed strong interest in gaining further teaching experience, with a recognition that some may find the experience less ‘terrifying’ than others. The choice, therefore, was often made to not offer the chance to the most extroverted or introverted candidate, but to select a potential individual where it appeared the lecture could enhance their confidence in the method and would be productively reflective on the experience. Once a selection was made, the individual would be approached by the mentor, not the course coordinator (to avoid any extra pressure), and asked if they wanted to participate. In all cases, the individual was eager to do so. The planning stage would then commence. At this point, the course coordinator’s involvement ended.

A meeting would be arranged between mentee and mentor to discuss content of slides, revisions needed, allocation of content, and design of an active exercise. A template was carried over year-to-year for mentor and mentee to consider, mirroring how a lecturer would update lecture slides (ideally) each year. Although significant discretion was allotted to the presenters, with regards to the format of the lecture, certain points were required to be repeated on exam conditions. However, while some content remained constant, mentor and mentee were required to collaborate to organise the remaining material and an active learning exercise to be delivered. Discussion was also required on the division of the lecture, typically into two sections.

The first section of the lecture would involve a presentation on approaches to study and preparation, where the lecturer would outline the exam format, as well as inspire the students to consider and reflect on revision, to stimulate metacognitive development on planning and information retention. While this section was, usually, designed to be didactic, lecturers were encouraged to introduce active engagement ³ , to avoid a one-sided stream of consciousness.

The second stage of the lecture involved the delivery of the active learning exercise. This regularly took the form of a mock exam question on a political concept found in the course, developed in collaboration between mentor and mentee. Students were challenged, breaking into groups of four to five members, to develop a plan for answering the question. Students were asked to discuss a structure on how to tackle the question, formulating between them a brief statement answer, an introduction, and key points. Students were given 10 to 15 minutes. The lecturer leading the session would then encourage groups to share their plans, with the lecturer commenting. Once several groups had been engaged, the lecturer would offer an example of how they would organise a plan, while providing a brief overview of selected course content, to practise delivery of academic material.

If the mentee felt confident, they would be offered the option to lead the active exercise to gain experience. Alternatively, if the mentee lacked the confidence to execute the co-designed exercise, more content could/would be allocated from the first section, so the mentee could build confidence, while being encouraged to reflect on active engagement with students. Regardless, after completion of the lecture, an informal discussion would be held between mentee and mentor. Here a debriefing could take place, to allow for reflection, with the mentor offering advice and encouragement.

Design

Within this article, we treat participants as individual cases, to compare experiences. We develop a thick contextualised exploration to construct a building block for the conceptual refinement of the collaborative approach. Adopting a constructivist perspective, we consider knowledge built upon progressively by engagement in active and passive experiences (Taber, 2014); it is socially constructed, rather than constructed by the individual in isolation, which justifies our specific method of qualitative dialogue.

To understand the sessions’ impact, semi-structured interviews were conducted with all but one of the participants to create contextual understanding of lived experience (Rubin and Rubin, 2005). Semi-structured interviews were conducted to allow discussion to evolve naturally and for deep discursive reflection. This approach allowed for a rich understanding to be gained on the participants’ comprehension of experience, and for exploration of aspects not foreseen before the commencement of data collection. Six interviews were conducted in total. The sample contained five of the participants, three of whom had acted as mentee and mentor ⁴ , and the course coordinator, whose tenure covered the sessions’ full term. Because all authors were involved in the session, the reflective process extended into the co-authoring. Although one member of the team initiated the interviews, those being interviewed as co-authors also facilitated a reflective discussion on the interviewer’s experience, asking questions and engaging in dialogue. This lead interviewer was also interviewed on a separate occasion by another author to capture further reflection, helping to provide reflexivity on the nature of the experiences. The project was initiated by former participants, with the course coordinator invited to engage at a later stage.

To comment on the positionality of those involved, the participants represented a diversity of international backgrounds. This represented a sample covering the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, and East Asia. Of the mentees who took part, three possessed English as a non-native language. We highlight this context, as it did relate to affect the experience resulting from participation in the session. Background had some impact on the results. Those of a non-UK background entered the process with different contextual experiences of lecturing relating to a lack of engagement with active learning in practice or confidence in public speaking due to a lack of experience within past national learning environments.

Data generated were analysed using reflective thematic analysis. This choice was made in design and reviewed for appropriateness after data collection, as we perceived this study as providing refinement to the conceptualisation of collaboration, and due to the novelty of collaborative lecturing, in political science and HE. Transcripts were coded, after multiple reviews of the texts to become familiarised. Codes were proposed in reflective meetings of research team and applied by the data analyst. After discussion, refined codes were collapsed into themes. Salient defined themes which emerged, focused on confidence building in lecturing, reflection on practice encouraged by collaboration, and acclimatisation to application of active learning.

Findings

Several points emerged concerning the impact of this session on the development of those who participated, with regards to reflection on teaching practice, considering student engagement and acclimatisation to the application of active learning in large-scale lectures. Interviewees generally expressed a positive experience collaborating in delivery of this lecture: ‘while I was pretty nervous, it was [a] positive experience, doing this [session] together’ (Interview 6). Collaboration did appear to establish conditions conducive to a productive environment for reflection on the lecturing approach for those involved, but with some limitations.

Confidence building

An initial theme emerging from the interviews was that collaborative coordination and delivery appeared to build confidence in the lecture method for the mentees, and for the mentors – who found supporting the mentee did promote their own growth, taking on what constituted a (albeit limited) ‘responsibility’ for peer-development at an early-career stage (Interview 4; Interview 2, and Interview 6). Confidence was fostered, according to the participants, by the action of co-delivery and development of the session. Interviewees did assert that ‘[the] collaborative experience [was] helpful because you’ve got someone [the mentor] there to support you [the mentee]’, which created a positive environment as a condition to promote growth (Interview 2). The mentees drew self-assurance from having a collaborator who could be relied upon to guide them and have open discussions with, on engaging students in the lecture delivery, alongside providing practical support:

There was a second person [the mentor] accompanying me, someone who had more experience with the content, as well as the context in which it is presented. So, that was quite a relief, made things easier. Even if you are not clear enough on what you want to say, or you might worst case, lose focus, there would be a second person who can take over, the world is not going under. (Interview 4)

It was expressed by Interview 6 and Interview 1 that this helped to avoid a ‘deer in the headlights’ reaction to this first, or early, lecturing experience, mitigating the risk of negative initial impression, ‘turning you [mentee] off using the [lecture] method in future’ (Interview 6), to focus attention on the process of crafting a more sophisticated lecturing approach (Interview 1).

It emerged as the mentors possessed experience but were at similar career stages to the mentee(s), interviewees articulated that less pressure was placed on them to perform, as a mitigating factor, creating a positive environment to allow greater freedom to consider how to approach lecturing than if collaborating with an established lecturer in politics (Interview 1, Interview 6).

There’s a lot of putting pressure on yourself, on performing well, and in this context, I think it crucial to have someone else there who is not the convener, who is not a seasoned permanent staff member, but someone who understands you better in your own shoes (Interview 4).

‘Joint preparation for the session, rather than just [having] to go there and deliver, it made a difference’, to enhance the confidence of the mentees, as stated by Interview 1. This was, also, true for the mentors, who noted an apparent expansion in their confidence in the delivery of lectures, by performing this collaborative and supportive role (Interview 4, Interview 6). By giving them this responsibility, mentors appeared to reflect on their own practice and how they could work with someone to promote understanding of engagement, reinforcing also to the mentor ‘why we do active learning’, to gain a deeper consideration of how it affects attainment (Interview 6).

While the participants coordinated to achieve these ends, as this was a participant-led session, the aim of the coordinator who helped initiate the training exercise and provided a lecture slot on this course was, alongside practical considerations ⁵ , to give instructors an opportunity to gain confidence, and noted: ‘I saw I had some ambitious tutors who wanted to take the advantage of this, as an opportunity to get lecturing experience’ (Interview 5). This derived from an understanding that there are limited development options available at an early-career stage for lecturing, the coordinator did express having a desire to provide this, while achieving a positive contribution to the course (Interview 5).

Alongside confidence in delivery, building of confidence in commanding of the lecture space was a consequential outcome, as stated by Interview 2: ‘I don’t think it’s talked about, when you’re going to give your first lecture, but the physical space is quite important and how you conduct yourself in that’. This formed a discussion point for many mentees, noting that talking about the space with their mentors constituted a significant aspect of preparation; ‘We [mentee and mentor] met before and we talked about the distribution of labour, who would do what, and we talked [about], I asked about, the set-up’, reflecting on how ‘lecturers prepare’ and use the room, ‘in terms of the technology, the microphone, all those components’, and how this impacts delivery, alongside practicalities like ‘time management’ (Interview 1).

Many of the mentees felt discussion with their mentors, in preparation before commencement and upon entering the theatre, helped them to, more quickly, recognise that lecture space was important. According to interviewees ‘that was the first time I realised the practicalities of it, not just about your style and your delivery, but the room where you are delivering it, having to adapt’ (Interview 6) and that the quality of the delivery is partially dependent on this (Interview 1), alongside the technology available, and to be aware of this in the design of lectures to enhance impact (Interview 2, Interview 3).

Interview participants, also, reflected on a benefit of engaging in this lecture, which had an ease of entry, as a first experience of large-scale lecturing. Interviewees expressed that, as the session was designed to enable the unexpected to be less likely, this helped to build initial confidence in presentation (Interview 1, Interview 2). While being able to react to different situations in the lecture is an invaluable skill, and when it happens, it is always a useful learning exercise (e.g. an insightful and unexpected question on a political theory or concept which must be reacted to), this was an expressed concern many of the mentees had. The session involved soliciting audience response, but participants stated that having the mentor there and the provision of joint responses in this early engagement with students provided reassurance and built confidence in how to approach this.

While some may flourish from greater discomfort, this ease of entry of the experience was indicated as pertinent for those mentees from non-English speaking backgrounds undertaking this as a first lecture. According to Interview 1: ‘I could not imagine if I was there myself, I might [be] too nervous to speak in front [of the students], especially as a non-native speaker [. . ..] you lose your vocabulary’. Working in collaboration and having someone in the room to assist, offering alternative vocabulary (if requested) which can go missing under pressure to perform in a second language, was indicated as conducive to a more comfortable environment, allowing the non-native speakers who participated greater potential to excel and develop confidence in delivery. This allowed for attention of the participant to be focused on advancing technique of informational delivery and approaches to student engagement, rather than only presentation proficiency.

Reflection

A prominent theme that also emerged was the long-term effect the session had on the participants, in their views, from encouraging reflection on lecture practice and application of active learning, from the engagement in productive collaboration at an early-career stage. Collaboration appeared to encourage an atmosphere for reflection on lecturing, and the application of active learning, which may have become ingrained, or, at least, stimulated discussion on personal teaching approach to, potentially, broaden thinking.

In some cases, the mentees had been unfamiliar with the application of active learning in lectures before the session, stating, ‘I didn’t know that it exist[ed], I mean this wasn’t really on my radar’ (Interview 3). From participating, however, Interview 3 indicated ‘it help[ed] to get to see, this is also another approach. [. . .] Like this is how you could do it and put students more in the centre of the thought about what to deliver and how to deliver it’. While for others interviewed, participation was less revelatory, being to a degree aware of active learning’s potential application before involvement, the opportunity to practise student engagement in a safe setting, however, allowed for reflection to be promoted from an early stage on the importance of interaction, apparently challenging some presumptions on how lecturing in political science should be undertaken (Interview 1; Interview 2; Interview 4: Interview 6).

Participants identified that with ‘cooperative teaching [. . .], we [mentor and mentee] learned from each other and benefit[ed] each other in terms of an alternative way of delivering the same information’ (Interview 1). Collaboration did allow those involved to ‘have more understanding about the design and the delivery, the cost of creating the design and delivery of the lecture, so, you are understanding more about the links between the module, the teaching design, and the outcome’ (Interview 1). Mentees were confronted with these factors key to lecture delivery, in this first, or early, lecturing instance, expanding scope of thinking on the importance of these, how they could be addressed practically, and the realities of active learning’s execution.

Participants did identify their assumptions of lecturing were challenged, that as:

Early career staff with not much teaching experience, [we] would be focused on creating a static learning environment, giving definitions, bullet pointing things they [students] should [know], and really being narrow minded, narrow focused in what [we] advise and focus on advising rather than engaging. I think here we slowly developed a better understanding of active learning and that is to engage the student, we learned that this is something important. (Interview 4)

In addition to collaboration promoting conditions for reflection, interviewees who had participated in the lecture as mentee and later as the mentors, stated that repeated engagement allowed for the establishment of an identifiable reflection point. According to Interview 4, ‘doing it multiple times over the years, it becomes an opportunity as a reference point for yourself, to see how you are, being different, how you’re changing’ in approaching teaching. As noted by Interview 6 and Interview 4, this allowed for a ‘comparison’ in how development had progressed, and a recognition of this being a continuing process.

A lasting impact on practice was, apparently, evident, or at least claimed, for several participants upon their teaching. Interview 2 identified, on reflection, that ‘I don’t think I was consciously aware of it, until we started [the interview] and that I started thinking back to these sessions and then looking back over, and it is like ‘Oh yeah, that was hugely influential in how I teach’. This was predominantly manifest as an apparent greater willingness to apply, or consider, alternative active learning approaches: ‘participating in this did get you thinking, in a deep way, about your own teaching, and reflecting on your approaches in lectures’ (Interview 6) – but also in wider contexts. For example, attitudes towards peer-mentoring, for those involved who have since moved into senior academic roles, similarly, appeared to have developed, as, according to Interview 2, ‘it has shaped how I’ve approached this [teaching], not just in how I teach my modules, but how I deal with some early career academics too’. Interview 2 expressed that involvement had promoted consideration of a collaborative, rather than instructional, approach to supporting colleagues.

A notable example of potential lasting impact was seen when the participants appeared to reflect and expressed continued avoidance of static lecturing or became more comfortable to act dynamically (Interview 4). A common outcome of participation was reported as a realisation that performance and dynamism in presentation are important lecturer skills to develop. For several interviewees, this was manifested in identification that lectures are not a speech reading exercise, as noted by Interview 6 ‘it shouldn’t be just reading a script, as I had thought beforehand’. Interviewees who had one or two lecture experiences before participation in the session noted, their first time doing a politics lecture, they had attempted to write an inflexible didactic narrative, believing it appropriate (Interview 2). It was with participation in this session, discussing how the lecture could be delivered with the collaborator, that alternative and engaging approaches were considered, promoting or encouraging re-evaluation for the participants. While some interviewees described this outcome as ‘becoming more accepting to deviate from the words of the [lecture] slides’ (Interview 4), other participants defined greater confidence being instilled by the mentor to experiment with engaging delivery, employing, and considering active learning further (Interview 6).

Reappraisals of approach appeared to result from collaborative discussion, but, also, from active observation followed by practical action, as it was noted by Interview 6: ‘I’ve watched other people give lectures but standing there and seeing somebody else doing it and knowing you’re going to have to do it too, in that moment with them, was beneficial’, to reinforce presentation and audience engagement’s importance. This was different, according to Interview 1, ‘from you just watching a recording of someone teaching, or even you as a student watching what’s going on’, to gain a deeper understanding of lecture practice.

Acclimatisation

Alongside confidence building, reflection on student engagement, and the impact of this on continuing development, the collaborative lecturing experience was seen to have helped mentee(s) acclimatise to a different, and more active, learning style. Several participants, particularly those with international backgrounds, reflected that until this point of engaging in the session and working with a colleague to design and deliver the content, their experience of lecturing in political science had been as the student and the lecturing style they were familiar with was one-sided, as this is the approach applied in their home countries (Interview 1). As Interview 3 noted, ‘it was very different from my past’, where the approach to lecturing was, the lecturer ‘read from the book they had written’ and expected the students to passively absorb the knowledge.

Similar perspectives were expressed across the interviews of a common experience of one-sided teaching; ‘what I experienced was a traditional way of [lecturing], I wouldn’t call this necessarily a top-down approach to teaching, but one directional [from the lecturer]’ (Interview 4); ‘Lecturers would occasionally ask a question, but it was mostly a one-sided approach, with the lecturer delivering content, reading PowerPoint slides to us as passive audience’ (Interview 1). Even those participants involved with experience of being a student in political science within HE systems where active learning has long been promoted, noted experiencing limited engagement from lecturers (Interview 6). Lack of experience resulted in the majority of the mentees not having the chance to consider how they should approach actively engaging students. The session did appear to solicit the potential for productive and supported reflection on this by the participants between mentor and mentee.

Before the lecture the mentors reported that they had tried to encourage mentees to consider how to approach engaging students. According to Interview 6 when they reflected on acting as the mentor: ‘I wanted them [the mentee] to think and talk about how to make this interest[ing] and engaging for students, and recognise this was important’. The mentees were seemingly able to identify that, as illustrated by Interview 3, ‘there was an attempt to uniquely try to address the students [with active learning]’, which was intrinsic to the session, leading to an understanding of the significance. Mentees remarked that observing the mentor engaging the students was a ‘clarifying’ moment (Interview 1), recognising the benefits that were gained with more of a dynamic interaction, which appeared ‘more enjoyable for everyone than just talking at the students’ (Interview 6), to prospectively encourage deep-learning with an active experience. The theme which emerged, as set out by Interview 3, was, ‘the experience I got in this lecture was helpful to adjust to the shift [towards active learning] so that you are more, I suppose, that you are more student centred’.

Several participants also expressed they had taken this first experience of active learning in a lecture and continued to apply it when working internationally as lecturers in political science, where they found the teaching experience lacked active components. The lecturers did indicate they had been able to demonstrate alternative methods to new colleagues, to encourage student engagement in these systems, alongside a continued refinement of their active approaches (Interview 3, Interview 4), citing participation in the session as a motivator for propagation.

This session gave those who were unfamiliar with how to apply active learning in the lecture an early experience and chance to reflect on application. From collaborating with a colleague to enforce the importance of this approach, many expressed coming out of the lecture with a desire to consider other tactics or innovations to engagement (e.g. novel lecture technology (Interview 3)), to develop their lecture style. In comparison, without this early experience, the sentiment from the interviewees was that student experience would have influenced method, as they had the pre-assumption of didactic to be the only way to lecture.

Limitations

While themes of confidence building and acclimation for the application of active engagement was evident, which may encourage reflection on practice, some limitations did become apparent, which highlighted the challenges that could occur when undertaking collaboration for development. Dissatisfaction appeared to correlate with instances where deviation occurred in how the session was structured. In some cases, the preparation meeting did not address all concerns of the mentee. While key issues were covered in the initial meeting, the mentee felt less prepared than they could have been, on reflection, entering the delivery stage. This exposes the risk of a participant-driven initiative, which does not adhere to concrete structures, the design choices are the responsibility of the participants, thus, deviation can take place and concerns may not be covered to everyone’s satisfaction. Some evidence also emerged that collaboration may have had a constraining effect on the mentee, who felt they were conforming to the mentor’s approach for delivery and engagement, rather than being able to explore their own style.

A minor level of regret was also noted by the course coordinator that as their involvement ended after the recruitment stage, they did not provide further support to maximise benefits. For example, coordinators could potentially provide their own feedback, in the form of teaching observation, from watching the lecture or supporting the reflective stage. Furthermore, the coordinator could serve as a focal point for developing institutional memory of the collaborative teaching sessions and to further formalise a recruitment process. The overlap in mentees worked out well in our case, but it would not be guaranteed that this will always be achievable, especially in smaller political science departments with low numbers of doctoral students as tutors or incoming early-career lecturers/teaching fellows.

Discussion

To consider how the findings contribute towards refining conceptual understanding of collaboration as a development approach, the act of collaborating was observed to encourage reflection on practice and confidence in information delivery. The session acted as an early opportunity to allow participants a chance to build experience, which is often limited until substantive lecturing begins. We do find that collaboration could create an impression, from an initial stage, that discussion with colleagues is an important tool to develop instruction ability. Too often teaching takes place in isolation, becoming an automated or path-dependent process. Discussion and collaboration, we argue, should at least create opportunity for the instructor(s) to reflect on mind-set and technique for information delivery, to consider assumptions and avoid emergence of excessively dogmatic practice. This builds upon previous research (Chanmugam and Gerlach, 2013; Moghtader et al., 2022; Strubbe et al., 2019), emphasising and defining further the reflective benefits of collective work in this context of political science and the lecture. However, additional novel results also emerged.

Following the building of confidence and promotion of reflection, a novel finding is the impact of collaboration on those instructors from learning backgrounds where active learning is rarely applied. Collaboration should help those beginning to apply active learning to acclimatise to environments where this is encouraged. It prospectively encourages those unfamiliar with active learning, due to a lack of experience resulting from working in systems where it is not promoted, to develop understanding of its relationship to student attainment. The importance of active learning’s application across various aspects of political science instruction (Hendrickson, 2021; Huerta, 2007; Jeram, 2024; Lambach et al., 2017; Leston-Bandeira, 2013; Schaap, 2005) is increasingly recognised – but rarely has acclimatisation been considered in relation to promoting deep comprehension and skills development upon this.

Working with colleagues should promote the desire to develop instruction skill-sets – this appears to be increasingly apparent in the emerging literature on collaboration (Beninghof, 2020) and supported by evidence here in the political science setting. By providing those lacking experience with a sounding-board, who is potentially at a similar career stage, this should allow potential for productive discussion and conducive conditions for advancement. We identify this here as a safe environment, less pressure than collaboration with a senior colleague and existing as a formative exercise, for encouraging the acquisition of additional knowledge and deep attained understanding of the rationale of active learning. This has been observed as an increasingly important approach to encourage development for learners (Dolmans et al., 2016; Struyven et al., 2016). In addition, collaboration allows multiple participants at the same time to gain the benefits.

While we are drawing on a contained example, to provide refinement to conceptual understanding, the benefit of collaboration for acclimatisation appears as a significant finding. There are HE systems internationally which do not yet encourage, or fully embrace, active learning, remaining starkly didactic in their approaches to delivery of the lecture – the lecturer talks, you listen passively. This means that for many academics who find themselves teaching internationally, increasingly the norm in political science and across HE, encountering systems where active engagement is not only promoted, and expected by the student, but seen as a fundamental, this can be a jarring experience. There is a need to rapidly adapt to a style you have no experience with, even from perspective of previously being a student. Collaboration, where intervention can occur early, as observed here, should assist in the process of adjustment.

Conclusion

Building on existing insight, we provide a step towards refining conceptual understanding of collaboration as an approach for instructor development. The opportunity for early-career instructors in political science to collaborate on the design and delivery provides early lecturing experience, with the added advantage of creating an environment that promotes lasting personal growth. The approach described here allows for a more detailed reflection than solo lecturing; a mentor who is both participating and observing, can provide support in the moment and feedback thereafter. Such input is invaluable for the instructor, and their future students/colleagues – we have all sat in rather dull presentations, where the presenter may have benefitted from feedback earlier in their career. In our case, since the mentor is also at a nascent stage in their career, they are just as likely to benefit from the experience. Learning to work collaboratively with a colleague, taking on the role of mentor, and reflecting on their own practice are vital experiences. Although ‘mentor’ can often carry connotations of a degree of mastery, in this dynamic, both mentor and mentee are roughly in the same boat with respect to career stage and experience.

We argue that providing collaborative opportunities will likely provide those lacking experience in the application of active learning with a chance to adjust to expectations for such an activity, alongside the benefits of supporting confidence building. This may apply to those lacking experience from a lack of opportunity, due to being at early-career stages, or from only previously working in systems not requiring active learning. Despite the increased use of formal training across sectors, the ‘throw them in the deep-end and hope they swim’ approach to training in the lecture method – and being expected to apply active learning in this – is still all too often the default approach internationally to introducing early-career instructors to a key element of their professional craft. Sink or swim, however, need not be the only way, or the most profitable approach.