Resources for More Effective Collaboration and Co-teaching

Gone are the days when teachers spent the majority of their time alone in classrooms with students.  Collaboration has become an essential part of the teaching profession.  More and more we are required to work with other teachers and administrators to share ideas, make decisions, solve problems, and organize reforms. The chance to include a variety of perspectives in a decision making process is exactly why collaboration is so awesome, but it can also create challenges when people with different perspectives disagree.

(Images found here and here)                            

I encourage teachers struggling with collaboration to read Addressing Bumps in the Collaboration Road found on the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) website.  There you will learn how to watch for bumps and find useful tips for constructively traversing the occasionally rocky road of collaboration.

Co-teaching is another increasingly common way in which teachers collaborate.  What follows is a list of the six most common methods of co-teaching:

One Teach, One Observe:  In this method of co-teaching, one teacher leads instruction while the other observes and collects data on how certain students respond and behave.  It is important that both teachers take turns observing and leading instruction.  This way, both benefit from seeing the class in action.  Also, both teachers have the opportunity to earn credibility with students. 

Station Teaching:  In this method of co-teaching, the class is divided into three groups.  Two “stations” will have teachers helping students.  In the third station, students are working alone or with partners.  Students will move between stations throughout the class and benefit from instruction and independent work.                                                                                                                  

Parallel Teaching:  In this method of co-teaching, the class is divided into two.  Teachers will present the lesson to their half of the class.  This is advantageous for a few reasons.  First, students in these classes will have double the opportunity to comment and ask questions.   Second, teachers can focus on different learning styles and place students into groups that are most appropriate for their particular ways of learning. 

Alternative Teaching:  In this method of co-teaching, one teacher leads most of the class, while the second teacher instructs a smaller group.  Traditionally, the smaller group has focused on remediation.  However, other possibilities include focusing on pre-teaching with shy students, students learning to speak English, or students who just struggle—not only students with IEPs. 

Teaming:  In this method of co-teaching, teachers have an equal share of the leadership in the classroom.  The take turns teaching different concepts and cooperate through modeling, role-plays, dialogues, etc.  This method can be difficult if the two teachers have very different teaching styles. 

One Teach, One Assist:  In this method of co-teaching, one teacher leads the class while the other assists.  This method should only be used occasionally or the ‘assisting’ teacher ends up feeling like an ‘assistant’ teacher.  This probably isn’t the best use of two professionals in a classroom.  Also, students may become over reliant on help when completing tasks. 

Personally, I have found Teaming with occasional One Teach, One Assist to be most effective methods.  My work with a co-teacher in a Korean public school involved Teaming about 70% of the time.  My co-teacher and I were fortunate enough to have very compatible teaching styles.  This was especially effective with EFL because we were able to incorporate lots of role-plays into our instruction.  Also, my Korean speaking co-teacher could use the students’ native language to explain English language learning activities.  This allowed for far more productive English language activity time.  The only draw back to Teaming was that it required a lot of planning in order to determine who would lead which parts of the lesson.  I don’t think one method is better than the other.  I think effective co-teaching would involve all of these methods at different times depending on the needs of the students, the curriculum, and the teachers involved.

* For interesting data on how students react to co-teaching, read Patricia Dozier's article How Do Secondary Students Feel About Co-teaching?  also found on the CEC website.

* Interested in reading personal accounts and advice from other teachers about their co-teaching experiences?  Check out Co-teaching 101:  Lessons From the Trenches by Marie Huggins, Jennifer Huyghe, and Elizabeth Iljkoski.  As they mention in their article, "Teachers are the best resource for other teachers."