Working With a Co-Teacher
With the rise in demand for support in Special Education and English Language Learners, co-teaching models are becoming more prevalent in classrooms. The traditional co-teaching approach involves one lead teacher delivering a lecture while a co-teacher works with students individually. However, alternative approaches are available despite the benefits of the traditional model.
Edutopia dives into the different models of co-teaching. In the article, Sean Cassel summarizes the six different strategies and dives into the pros and cons of each. To summarize, the different co-teaching methods include -
One Teacher provides instruction, and One Observer looks for student learning and engagement.
One Teacher provides instruction, and One Assists students in need.
Parallel Teaching: Both teachers provide direct instruction, relating to the same content, with two groups.
Station Teaching: Each teacher instructs different content as the students rotate between them.
Alternative Teaching: While one teacher provides instruction, the other teacher attends to small groups that require remediation, ELL support, or other assistance.
Team Teaching: Both teachers provide direct instruction at the same time.
While each model has their pros and cons, it is important to work with your strengths, preferences, and interests to ensure a harmonious co-teaching experience. It can be challenging for an experienced lead teacher to be thrown into a co-teaching model. Moreover, a new special-education teacher may struggle with the content, and may prefer the Alternative Teaching or the One Teach, One Observe model approach. Using our Co-Teaching Questionnaire is a terrific proactive strategy. This design aims to facilitate productive conversations between co-teachers, ensuring that they are both working in alignment with their strengths and preferences.
References:
Cassel, S. (2019, October 8). How to choose a co-teaching model. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-choose-co-teaching-model/
WebAdmin, S. (2017, January 30). Six approaches to co-teaching. State Education Resource Center. https://ctserc.org/component/k2/item/50-six-approaches-to-co-teaching