Co-Teaching PD

Four Approaches to

Co-Teaching and Best

Practices

Agenda

● Learning intentions and success criteria
● Student perception of co-teaching
● Four approaches to co-teaching
● Pick one, do one
● How do we get here?
● Questions

● I can understand four co-teaching approaches

and how can they can best be used in order to
increase student engagement and
achievement.

● I know I’ve got it when I feel comfortable

working with my teaching partner(s) to create
lessons where both teachers are contributing to
the overall goals of the class.

Learning Intentions and Success
Criteria

Open Ended

What do you believe students value in the classroom?

Focus Question: What do students value in
the classroom?

●

How do students feel about co-teaching?
○

Both teachers equally being in control of
instruction

○

Both teachers being knowledgeable with
content

○

If Ts are not on same page/answer questions
similarly, very confusing & impacts motivation

●

How do we get there?

Focus Question: What do students value in
the classroom?

●

What does student feedback reveal about what
they need?
○

Student want to build trust with their teachers

○

They like hearing multiple adult perspectives

○

When there are 2 teachers, they have questions
answered in half the time

● I spoke with 8 students during after school ELA

help.
○ 2 students had an IEP
○ 2 students had 504’s
○ 4 students had neither IEP or 504, but had at

least 1 other co-taught class.

How many and who were the students?

FOUR

APPROACHES

TO

CO-TEACHING

—Your Students, My Students, Our Students

“In true co-teaching, there is
co-planning, co-instruction,

co-assessment, and co-reflection.”

Alternative Teaching

What is it?

●One teaching partner takes responsibility for
the large group while the other works with a
smaller group.

○The groups change based on student
needs and not solely on having an IEP.

●Recommended for intermittent use

○The smaller group is not a permanent
group. These are students with and
without disabilities for various activities

■Enrichment, tiered intervention, to
present content using an
alternative method or strategy, or
pre-teach or re-teach skills or
content. Should be no longer than
10-15 minutes

Team Teaching

What is it?

●Both teachers lead large-group
instruction by either lecturing,
representing opposing views in a
debate, and/or illustrating two
ways to solve a problem.

●Recommended for intermittent
use
○Capitalizes on two teachers’
expertise and instructional
strategies, gives both teachers
the spotlight in front of the
entire class.

Parallel Teaching

What is it?

●Teaching partners divide the class into
two groups and lead content
instruction with both groups
simultaneously.

●Recommended for frequent use

○Allows for smaller groups and
more individualized teacher
attention during instruction while
maximizing student participation
and minimizing behaviors.

○Can take class into different room

○Can get different
responses/focuses

○Whole class share outs between
groups should be after meeting in
separate groups

Station Teaching

What is it?

●Teaching partners divide the class into three
or more ‘stations’ in order to teach different
aspects of a lesson at one time. While each
teacher leads a station, the additional
station(s) are used as independent stations.
Students move from one station to the next
to engage in activities within a specific
timeframe.

●Recommended for frequent use

○Smaller group size means that
students get more individual attention
and teachers can identify and address
gaps. Additionally, teachers can plan
their lesson based on their own
instructional strengths.

●What can you try?

○Alternative teaching

○Team teaching

○Parallel teaching

○Station teaching

●Set up meetings with co-teacher

○What responsibilities will I have on our team? What am I
responsible for creating? When can we meet?

○Multiple preps = creating a schedule

■2 preps - at least 2x/week for 45 each

■3-4 preps - 30 minute chunks on set days

●Set outlook meeting times to help with reminders

○Being clear about responsibilities for each person (writing
IEPs, grading, etc.)

■Grade half one teacher starts from start of the
alphabet, second teacher starts from the bottom of
the alphabet, meet in the middle.

Pick One, Do One

●Connect with your co-teacher
○When do you feel most effective as a teacher? Most
nervous?

○It’s okay to say no

●Once a person feels confident in content, more trust is
built

●Create lessons and activities together when unsure

●Still accountable even if this isn’t your content area
○Find a moment/activity/station where you are in
charge

○Coworkers will help refine activities

●Content teacher can pick activities for co-teacher based
on strengths
○Start with parallel or station teaching because of
shorter duration

How do we get here?

Next steps…

1.Self-reflect on teacher expectations sheet

2.

Compare results with co-teacher

3.

Plan on having a conversation over the next two days

●Must be accountability
○Think about barriers that are keeping you from trying

○Fixed vs. Growth mindset

●Continue the cycle - start small and build from there
○One item from first 3 categories

How do we get here?

THANK

YOU!

Please reach out if you have any

questions or would like any assistance.