"Now we help ourselves more" : Team-teaching and social classroom climate. Experience with Sport Education

The potential of team-teaching (or co-teaching) as strategy to promote the creation of effective learning environments, is still unknown. This study investigates its effect on one of the contextual variables that may influence the achievement of learning objectives as the social classroom climate, along a Sport Education season. A quasi-experimental design with pre and post intervention measures which had 112 students in 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grade was done. Four classes experienced the team-teaching (two teachers for two classes). Other two remained with the traditional setting (one teacher per class). After the analysis of the Social Classroom Climate scale, of the interviews, and the teachers' logs, it was found that team-teaching and the pedagogical intervention based on Sport Education improved the social classroom climate. The use of co-teaching favored the involvement and collaborative work of the students. There are multiple lines of research arising from this work, for example the analysis of persisted use of team-teaching and its effect on learning in other educational stages, but also its potential on the effectiveness of teacher education and professional development.