Successful Co-Teaching 1

Successful Co-Teaching

Emily Flower

SERP 497E

Dr. Maria Nahmias

The University of Arizona

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Introduction

Co-teaching is one of the newest teaching initiatives to be implemented within schools in

order to better educate students, primarily those with disabilities. As co-teaching has become

more prevalent in our current educational system, there have been suggestions about how best to

implement co-teaching in the classroom. This essay identifies some of the important components

that must be factored into co-teaching by the general education teacher, special education

teacher, and administrator in order to create a successful co-teaching environment. Co-teaching

will be successful if the teachers work well together and have sufficient time to co-plan lessons.

Review of the Literature

Although the general education teacher and special education teacher in a co-taught

classroom share the majority of the responsibility for running an effective co-teaching

environment, the administrators at the school also play a part in the classroom’s overall success.

There are some aspects of the classroom that an administrator would not play a direct role in, but

it is in their best interest to ensure that co-teaching is implemented correctly. In an article from

Education Leadership, the authors discuss some of the important roles that administrators have

in a co-teaching relationship and some ways to support co-teaching in their school. Similarly,

another article from the National Education Association describes the steps that co-teachers

should follow in order to run a successful classroom together. Even though it may not seem like

these two articles would describe any similarity between the two perspectives of co-teaching,

there are many responsibilities that both co-teachers and administrators share in the effort to

create an efficient co-teaching environment for the students that they serve.

As previously mentioned, administrators do not play a direct role in the co-taught

classroom. The majority of what they do in regards to co-teaching are things that school
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personnel, families, and students do not realize. For example, according to Wendy Murawski and

Philip Bernhardt (2016) it is important to partner the right teachers together by “having faculty

complete surveys on learning preferences, multiple intelligences, personal dispositions, and

relationship dynamics.” By using the information that faculty convey on these surveys, the

administrator can find teachers with complimentary personalities that they think would work

well together in a co-teaching environment. Once chosen to work together, the general education

teacher and special education teacher must evaluate how they are going to work well together by

identifying their teaching styles and strengths and weaknesses in the classroom. Co-teachers

have to become accustomed to differentiating their instruction not only for their students based

on needs but also between each other while giving a lesson. By taking the time to really identify

the instructional strengths and weaknesses of each teacher and each individual’s teaching styles,

the teachers “can use [those] styles to complement one another and thus enhance the lessons and

the delivery of instruction” (Marston, 2015). Overall, both administrators and co-teachers can

contribute to the effectiveness of a co-taught classroom. The administrator can take the time to

choose teachers that they believe will work well together based on interest style surveys and the

co-teachers can identify their individual strengths and weaknesses in order to create a cohesive

classroom.

Furthermore, one of the most important aspects of co-teaching that both the administrator

and co-teachers play a role in is planning. It may not seem like an administrator would be

involved in the classroom planning with co-teachers, but they actually can have a drastic impact

on the effectiveness of co-planning. Regardless of the type of classroom or how many teachers

are in the classroom and giving instruction, planning time is one of the most sacred times of the

day for teachers. Planning time allows teachers to create lesson plans and prepare things that are
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necessary for the next day. However, planning time becomes much more elaborate when

involving co-teaching because there are multiple teachers with different specialties to consider.

In addition to creating lesson plans and preparing for the next school day, co-teachers also have

to plan how they are going to be a unified team. Co-teachers are responsible for the same duties

as any other teacher, such as classroom management and grading, but they have multiple

opinions that need to be heard in order to reach a compromise. It is important for co-teachers to

be consistent, so they must “determine [their] roles in advance so that [they] do not contradict

each other or foster misunderstandings” (Marston, 2015). Co-teachers must be seen as a united

front by students, parents, and other school personnel in order to ensure that everyone is on the

same page.

Also, co-teachers’ lessons must be differentiated to fit the various needs of the students in

the class so that each student has access to the curriculum based on their individual needs. A co-

taught classroom is meant to incorporate students with IEPs and other special needs into a more

accessible general education classroom. Therefore, there will be multiple students in the class

that have special needs or are at a different level than their peers and need the lesson

differentiated to meet their specific needs. The co-teachers must not only take the time to plan an

effective lesson, but they also must plan how they are going to differentiate the lesson so that it

makes sense to each and every student. As one can see, the intensity of planning time for co-

teachers is high and there is a lot of important information that must be covered for each lesson

in order to deliver effective instruction to all students. According to an article by Lori Howard

and Elizabeth Potts (2009), there are “various factors that form the foundation of a sound co-

teaching ‘marriage,’ [but] co-planning time is a factor that shows up time and time again,” which
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is why the administrator’s role of strategically scheduling effective planning time for co-teachers

is so important to the success of a co-taught classroom (p. 3).

Administrators have the power to schedule planning periods for teachers throughout the

school day. However, this “power” is only effective for co-teachers if they are given a planning

period at the same time. If a department or grade-level team already has a common planning

time, it is important for the administrator to “ensure that the special educators working with those

teams have a planning period at the same time so they can assist teams in creating universally

designed lesson plans that incorporate opportunities for differentiation” (Murawski & Bernhardt,

2016). By scheduling a particular time in the day specific for co-planning, an administrator is

ensuring, and essentially enforcing, that co-teachers sit down and plan their lessons and other

materials according to the diverse needs of their students. This in turn results in effective co-

teaching and a successful co-taught classroom of diverse learners.

Summary

Although it may not seem as though the general education teacher, special education

teacher, and administrator all play an important role in the process of creating a successful co-

taught classroom, by working together they can create ways to make instruction more effective.

The two co-teachers are directly responsible for identifying their teaching styles and strengths

and weaknesses as well as using planning time to sufficiently differentiate their instruction and

become a united team. It is the administrator’s job to ensure that co-teaching is effective by

choosing teachers that will work well together based on interest style surveys and also allocating

specific co-planning time throughout the day for co-teachers to come together and plan their

lessons in order to make the curriculum accessible to each student’s individual needs. Overall,

the compilation of each party’s responsibilities will lead to successful co-teaching.

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References

Howard, L., & Potts, E. (2009). Using Co-Planning Time: Strategies for a Successful Co-

Teaching Marriage. TEACHING Exceptional Children Plus, 5(4), 1-12.

Marston, N. (2015). 6 Steps to Successful Co-Teaching. National Education Association.

Murawski, W., & Bernhardt, P. (2016). An Administrator’s Guide to Co-Teaching.

Educational Leadership, 73(4), 30-34.