Examples of how-to skills include note-taking, memorization techniques and locating main ideas and supporting details in passages" (Flanagan 2001). The other educator takes responsibility for helping students apply those skills. This might be one way for a younger and an older teacher to collaborate. The older teacher could teach a conventional unit on a particular type of subject matter, such as the Civil War, while the more technologically fluent younger instructor could show students how to use the Internet and other multimedia sources to research primary sources, such as soldiers' accounts from the battlefield, which would complement but not replace the need for the lecture. Using collaborative teaching often takes greater planning on the part of the teachers. For example, in team-teaching, the teachers must coordinate which teacher will teach what aspect of the lesson. This may be based upon content area, or the type of medium involved: one teacher may teach multiplying fractions, for example, using a filmstrip to supplement his or her lecture, the second might do the same with dividing fractions....

Or the second instructor might field questions, present the same information in a different way, or have the predominant responsibility for using technology.
Supportive instruction demands that the content of the lesson serves the need of both instructors and students must be oriented to their new partners, if working in conjunction with a new class is involved. Complementary instruction must also be executed so that the second half of the lesson is not confusing, and clearly reinforces the first part of the lesson. However, while collaborative teaching may require some extra effort, it can be rewarding when the lessons it conveys are more lasting than those imparted using only conventional teaching strategies. Instructors often appreciate the extra support from a colleague, just as students enjoy the added excitement of seeing a different face or approach in the classroom.

Reference

Flanagan, Barbara. (2001, Spring). Collaborative teaching 101. VCLD. 15(2).

Retrieved March 11, 2010 at http://www.vcld.org/pages/newsletters/00_01_spring/coll_teach.htm