This session presents preliminary findings about team-teaching and student learning from our Star Stories research. Star Stories is a study embedded within an interdisciplinary course combining Storytelling and Astronomy that uses Design-Thinking* as an instructional framework. We address data relating to the successes, pitfalls, and benefits of teaching in tandem. We will also discuss the impact of team instruction on our professional development and activities and tools developed to enhance students’ curiosity, engagement, science literacy, and storytelling/communication skills.

We encourage anyone interested in building learning communities with students and colleagues to attend. We also hope that our interdisciplinary collaboration may serve as a practical model for encouraging creativity and curiosity among students and faculty on other campuses.

* Design-Thinking (promoted at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University) refers to collaborative practices that revolve around solving problems, innovating, team-learning.