DRIVE: Delivering Results, Innovation, and Value in Enterprise
The Art and Science of Co-Teaching:
A Faculty Guide to Transdisciplinary Collaborative Praxis
This is not a scheduling arrangement. It is a pedagogical philosophy. This guide exists to help every faculty pair build a course that feels like it was taught by one integrated mind — because in the deepest sense, it should be.
Before You Dive In
This is a lot. That's okay.
You may have just opened this guide for the first time. You may have a first meeting with your co-instructor coming up, a development deadline on the horizon, or a live session that feels closer than you'd like. And you've just found a guide that covers pedagogical theory, co-teaching principles, course design architecture, async video strategy, regulatory threads, capstone integration, a fourteen-meeting development calendar, and a self-assessment checklist.

We know.

Here's what we want you to know in return: you don't have to have any of this figured out before your first conversation with your co-instructor. This guide is a resource you return to as you need it — not a gate you pass through before you're allowed to begin. The most important thing you bring to this work on day one is not mastery of the framework. It's the willingness to show up genuinely with another professional and figure it out together.

If you're feeling that mix of excitement and quiet overwhelm right now — good. That means you understand the stakes. It also means you're in exactly the right place to start.
Things Faculty Often Wonder
The courses that work best in this program are the ones where two people are genuinely passionate about what they have to share — and that enthusiasm shows. The engagement that comes from two instructors who are lit up by their material, by each other's perspective, and by the challenges participants bring into the room is what will set this program apart. You don't need perfect coordination. You need genuine investment. That's already there — it's why you're here.
Before your first meeting with your co-instructor: take a breath. Read the parts of this guide that feel most useful right now and leave the rest for later. The most important qualification you bring to this work is not expertise alone. It's the willingness to be genuinely present with another expert — and to let that be enough to begin.
"What if we disagree — and it gets awkward?"

It won't get awkward if you've named it in advance. Before your first live session, have one honest conversation: where are we most likely to see things differently? Not to resolve it — just to know it's there. Disagreement in front of a room is only awkward when it surprises you. When you've anticipated it, it becomes something you can turn toward rather than away from.

The move is simple: "We've actually talked about this and we don't fully agree — and I think that's worth you hearing." That's it. The room relaxes. So do you.

"What if I look like I don't know something?"

You will, at some point, not know something your co-instructor knows. That is the point. You were paired because your expertise doesn't fully overlap — if it did, there would be no reason for both of you to be there.

The moment you say "I hadn't thought about it from that angle — can you say more?" in front of participants, you have modeled the single most important executive behavior in the program: the willingness to learn from someone with a different vantage point. Your participants need to see that more than they need to see you be comprehensive.

"What if the participants know more about the subject than I do?"

Some of the people in this room will be experienced leaders with deep organizational knowledge. That is not a threat — it is the design.

You were not brought in to be the most experienced person in the room on every dimension. You were brought in because you can do something experienced leaders often cannot do easily on their own — help them see the structures, patterns, and mechanisms underneath their experience. Name what they have been living without a framework for. Surface the dynamics in a story they have told ten times without fully understanding why it went the way it did.

When a participant reveals expertise you don't have, the right move is simple: "That's beyond my direct experience — can you help me understand how that worked in practice?" You have just modeled intellectual curiosity and epistemic humility in the same breath. Every experienced leader in the room recognizes that as something worth emulating.

"What if our styles clash?"

They probably will, at least a little. One of you may be more structured; one more discursive. One may read the room and slow down; one may push through. This is not a problem to solve before you start — it's information to gather as you go.

After your first session together, take fifteen minutes: not "how did it go?" generally, but specifically — where did I feel like I was pulling against you, and where did it feel like we were in sync? That conversation, repeated after every session, is how a co-instruction partnership develops. You won't have it figured out in advance. You'll build it in real time.

"There's so much in this guide — do I need to have all of it figured out?"

No. This guide is a resource, not a curriculum you have to complete. Read the sections most useful for where you are right now. The philosophy exists for when you want to understand why the program is designed this way. Course Design is for when you're in the thick of building. The Readiness Guide is for when you're approaching your check-in with Suzanne, Julia, or Phil. You don't need to absorb it all before your first meeting. You need what helps you take the next step.

"What does a good first meeting with my co-instructor actually look like?"

A conversation, not a planning session. Before you open a shared document or divide up modules, spend the first thirty minutes on three questions:

  • What excites you most about this course in the program?
  • What do you most want participants to leave with?
  • What are you most uncertain about?

You will learn more about how to build this course together from those answers than from any agenda. The planning will go better once you know who you're planning with — and what lights them up.

The participants in this room are not looking for perfect. They are looking for real. Two professionals who are genuinely engaged with each other and with the material — who occasionally disagree, occasionally say "I don't know," and clearly respect each other's perspective — are more useful to an experienced leader than two people who have rehearsed every transition and ironed out every rough edge.

The rough edges are where the learning lives.
Navigate From Where You Are
Just met your co-instructor?
Roles & Integration →
Maps what each of you brings and gives you the seven principles that will guide how you build this together.
Ready to build the course?
Course Design →
The full development arc from first conversation through async weeks, panel evening, and full-day session — with a worked example.
Want to understand the theory?
The Philosophy →
The central question, the resulting framework, and the Nicolescu quote that anchors the program's intellectual foundation.
Ready for some tools to structure your collaboration?
Readiness Guide & Development Workbook →
Two tools to help you and your co-instructor do your best work. Download the PDFs to get started