Have you been asked to co-teach? Are you currently struggling to “make it work” in a co-taught classroom? These five tips will help you feel more confident as you start out co-teaching and /or will help make it flow better as your year goes on. 

Clear Communication: Just as in all other aspects of life, communication is key to success. We have to listen more than we speak and give everyone else the opportunity to talk. In order for successful co-teaching to occur, there must be open communication from both sides. Both parties are professionals and should be treated as such. A “safe space” is not only vital for students but also for you and your partner. 

My co-teacher and I set specific times to meet and always make it a priority to discuss plans and any changes to the upcoming schedule. Currently, we eat lunch together every day because that is not only our break, vent, and build up time, but also our time to casually plan and discuss the coming days. These check-ins are key to being on the same page, supporting each other, and giving our students what they need day in and day out.

Understand Roles and Strengths: One of the biggest struggles for general education teachers who are starting out with co-teaching is understanding the roles and strengths of both professionals. Knowing that both professionals are bringing strengths to the classroom is important to being successful. Some knowledge strengths of a special education teacher include true differentiated instruction, behavior management, specialized supports, and the legalities of 504s and IEPs. While the general education teacher is the one who will have a strong understanding of the curriculum, grade level standards, and pacing for the year. 

Once both parties accept the strengths of the other and use that knowledge to build on and support one another, clarifying roles and responsibility within the classroom becomes important. The roles should switch day to day depending on the models each party is comfortable with, the lesson topic, and the students in your classroom. It is not best practice for one teacher to always lead and the other to support. The co-teaching model should be flexible and change often. 

In our classroom, my co-teaching partner and I balance each other out, as it should be. She keeps me up-to-date on all accommodations and modifications that our students need. She is the master at behavior management and being the “calm in the storm”. On the other hand, I am the one keeping us on track with pacing, the curriculum, and what we need to do day-to-day in terms of standards. 

Ideal Co-Teaching Models: Now that you and your co-teacher are communicating and using each other's strengths to your advantage, it is important that you both understand the different co-teaching models. Varying these models depending on your styles, knowledge, and students will allow the most effective flow. The goal in a co-taught classroom is for the students to see the teachers as equals, not as a teacher and an assistant. Here are my favorite four models to start with.

• 1 Teach, 1 Assist: This is the most stereotypical model when people hear about a co-taught classroom. The standard thought is the general education teacher is teaching and the special education teacher is going around and assisting students. However, the roles should be alternated often to allow both teachers to teach and both teachers to assist. Although this is the most thought of model, this should not be the every day model. 

• Team Teaching: This is where both the general education teacher and the special education teacher are BOTH teaching. They are both actively teaching the students, going back and forth with the instruction. In this model, an observer should not know which teacher is the general education or special education teacher. 

• Parallel Teaching: In this model, the class is split between the two teachers who will be teaching the same lesson to each of the groups at the same time. The class should be split into two groups and there should be mixed abilities in each group. The special education teacher should not just have all of the special education students. They should be in both groups, getting the differentiation they need from whichever teacher they are with. 

• Station Teaching: This model is often known as small group instruction because teachers teach their lessons during the math center/ small group time. With station teaching, both teachers would be doing different activities with the students they have pulled at their table. This is different from parallel teaching because there are students not with a teacher who are doing independent or center work. Again, the special education teacher should have a mixture of students, they should not only be working with “their” students. 

Fostering a Positive Environment: Having a positive learning environment allows for all students to feel valued, supported and loved. In a co-taught classroom there is typically a large span of student levels, on top of the already diverse class of students. In my Trauma Informed Teaching blog, a positive learning environment is also one of the principles to helping students who have suffered from trauma be able to successfully learn and thrive. With these differences, it is our job to push a positive environment for them, so they can successfully learn. 

• Culturally Inclusive: Students come into our classroom from all different countries, backgrounds, and experiences. We need to make sure we are using these amazing differences to our advantage. Make students feel loved and valued by celebrating what they enjoy, their family’s culture, and who they truly are beyond their grades and how good they are in math. My co-teacher and I are part of different religious groups, therefore, we share about our different holidays but we also try to include activities from around the world during holiday time. Whether our students celebrate them or not. (Side note- we are not teaching anything about religious beliefs, only traditions like food and activities.) 

• Collaborative Problem Solving: Not all students have had the opportunity to learn how to work with other students effectively. Although many of us know how to work with others, this is a skill students need to be taught. With students in fluid groups, working in partners, and having whole class activities, students get to practice working with classmates who are different from themselves. As you know about our classroom, we focus heavily on math centers and small groups. This allows us to easily push collaborative centers and teamwork while students are working outside of our group. At the start of the school year, I heavily focus on students working with everyone, even if they aren’t friends. We discuss having to be respectful and kind to everyone, however, they do not have to all be our best friends. 

• Provide Social Skill Support: Social skills are a common struggle across students who suffer from trauma. In most circumstances, the special education teacher has experience with teaching social skills and this is a strength of theirs. Therefore, they can use this strength to facilitate peer interactions with students who struggle with social skills to help them feel better supported, which leads to a positive classroom environment. In our classroom, my co-teacher is awesome at noticing social skill struggles early on in the year and she will provide strategies and practice with them during morning time and any time peer interactions is needed. 

Reflect & Adjust: Lastly, taking time to reflect and adjust what did or didn’t work is a key to co-teaching effectively. It is important to always look back at your day/math block and think about what we need to adjust. Whether the mini-lesson didn’t go well, the practice problems, or the small group activity, it is important to discuss why it wasn't a success. As a team, teachers need to admit when something didn't go right. We also need to be able to communicate, and give and accept constructive criticism. My co-teacher and I always discuss over lunch what we could do better or what we felt really worked. This all starts with being able to communicate!

Being part of a co-teaching partnership can be overwhelming and exciting. Focusing on each others’ strengths and then balancing out weaknesses can make this type of relationship successful. Students can feel more seen and heard with two or more professionals in the classroom, and this can ultimately lead to a fantastic year for all!