Co-teaching and student engagement

If you happen to be lucky enough to be co-teaching this year, then we wanted to share a resource from a current issue of TEACHING Exceptional Children called "50 ways to keep your co-teacher." You might want to review this article to give you some tips to make it a great year; if you are a CEC member, you should have access to it. The article abstract can also be found here (Murawski & Dieker, 2008).

Co-planning
Also keep in mind to talk with your co-teacher about how he or she feels the co-taught class is progressing on a regular basis. All of us involved with posting this month have been involved in co-teaching, and we have found it to be a very rewarding experience. It is important when you co-teach that you plan as a team. There are two tools out there to help with planning. One is a traditional plan book that can be found in the CEC store. There is also an electronic planning tool by my colleague Wendy Murawski that can be found at http://www.2teachllc.com.

Whatever model you choose, planning is a key element to success.

Tip from my co-teaching experience
I would like to share with you the best tip I learned from co-teaching with my colleague in English. She suggests that in every classroom, every day, every kid should be: Reading, Writing, Listening, Speaking, and Viewing (Ousley, 2007). I think this a great rule. If you try to divide your co-teaching roles into each of these activities daily, you can embrace a range of learners and keep kids more engaged. This article can be found here.

Student Engagement
Speaking of engaged -- if you haven't seen the You-Tube video on the "Vision of K-12 Students Today," I recommend you watch it to help you think about how important it is to use the strengths of both teachers to engage all learners in today's classroom.

Happy Monday!
Lisa Dieker

Comments

[Johnna Chestnut]

This was a great article to read! I currently am a special education interventionist within my school, and I co-teach with third and fourth grade general education teachers on a daily basis. During my first year of teaching for the 2010-2011 school year, I found that the lack common planning times were a major hindrance to planning high-quality lessons for my students. I plan on sharing the electronic planning tool featured on the 2teach website with the general educators I work with, and I hope to encourage a more open line of communication and planning time with them. I also plan on utilizing PLC time more effectively to plan lessons and share ideas and strategies. This was an excellent resource to share, and I gained a great deal of insight and tips on co-teaching and collaboration that I plan on utilizing during the upcoming school year. Thank you for sharing this with your fellow special educators; I enjoyed reading your post and the valuable information that you shared.

[Lisa Dieker]

Wow - 5 teachers is tough. Remember to focus on the needs of students IEP's in each class and give yourself permission to use different types of co-teaching. For example, when I co-taught with 5 teachers, I only truly teamed with 2 and the others I was in either a support role or at times would do station teaching or alternative teaching. No matter which type of co-teaching I was using though I always reminded my colleagues I was there to meet the needs of students IEP's. What I am finding when there is great co-teaching both teachers have a clear role and there is data collected on students' IEP's regularly. I like to say the IEP is not jsut a document but a living breathing document in a true co-taught class.

Hang in there L and keep your focus on student needs and each year I think you will find co-teaching gets easier.

Let us know if you have specific questions we can help with related to 5 co-teachers.

Lisa Dieker

[L]

Great article! As a special education teacher/case manager, I'm co-teaching 5 different classes, this year, and I'm finding little time to fit planning time in, and get a real co-teaching experience. I need all the advice and input I can get.

[Lisa Dieker]

Pat,

Thanks for sharing and great to hear a positive co-teaching story. I love the idea of renaming the class. I also am glad you like the brown bag exam. Personally it is one of my favorite ways to assess learning -- novel, fun and very inexpensive.

[Pat]

Coteaching can be effective if done correctly. I have two friends who coteach and they renamed the class so it isn't considered one teacher's class. They have 2 full teacher desks in the room and do a lot of planning and collaborating together. I also like the article you mentioned with the Brown Bag Exam idea. Thank you for sharing it.