Co-teaching, co-authoring and co-publishing: Fostering student and teacher autonomy

In response to the perceived student passivity in university courses and for the purpose of enhancing students' and also teachers' (instructors') effective control over university learning and teaching (i.e., student and teacher autonomy in university education), this inter-departmental Teaching Development Grant (TDG) project was launched by four colleagues in the Department of Education Studies and the Department of History at Baptist University of Hong Kong (HKBU), with different academic interests (e.g., applied linguistics and second language education, literacy development, special education, history). The project extended over two academic years, a total of four semesters. Key elements of the project such as co-teaching, co-authoring and co-publishing were incorporated into the regular courses which the four investigators were assigned to teach in the academic years of 2012/2013 and 2013/2014. Co-teaching might take a variety of forms such as group work (e.g., peer teaching, peer seminars) involving all course participants (i.e., students and instructors). However, given the particular nature of a course that an individual investigator was teaching, the follow-up stages of co-authoring and co-publishing only involved volunteer students with carefully tailored guidance provided by the instructors and therefore would not be connected co grade awards of the base courses.