Before beginning a co-teaching relationship it is important to plan your strategy with your co-teacher. To help you prepare for your co-teaching experience, consider these key planning and discussion points with your co-teacher.
Co-teaching is often used as a way to support students; whether it’s a special education teacher working in a general classroom, team teaching, parallel teaching or station teaching. It can be a way to give more time and individualized attention to students. At it’s best, though, co-teaching also offers support to both teachers. A pair of experienced, successful co-teachers is like a finely tuned machine - every piece works together smoothly and the teachers are supporting each other in everything they do.
One teacher, one support teacher is the most common co-teaching model; however, any one of the other models might be a better choice depending on the lesson plan, the class dynamics, available preparation time, availability of materials, etc. Some models are more appropriate for certain grade levels or subject areas, or at certain times of the year, than others.
Wow! Can you believe that it's 2012 already! As I was spending time with my family over the holiday break I realized that we, as educators, might see things differently. For us, the "New Year" is really in the fall when school starts, while the actual changing of the year, for us, is a break in th [...]
While presenting to a great group of dedicated co-teachers from the Lake Hamilton School District in Pearcy Arkansas, we were discussing different ways to set up flexible grouping, During that discussion, Tonya Ross shared her experience with a program she learned about from fellow teacher Debbie Au [...]