Co-Teaching, the practice of having two or more educators in a classroom, delivering or assisting in the daily lesson, is becoming more common in today’s school. The No Child Left Behind Act, more standardized testing and the inclusion laws require schools to find alternative ways to deliver instruction and meet the needs of a larger variety of students.  Co-teaching has been defined as an instructional delivery approach in which general and special educators share responsibility for planning, delivery and evaluation of instructional techniques for a group of students; general and special educators work in a coactive and coordinated fashion, which involves the joint teaching of academically and behaviorally heterogeneous groups of students in integrated settings. Although co-teaching integrates components of collaboration and team teaching, it is not solely collaboration or team-teaching. In co-teaching, the teacher to student ratio is decreased.   Typically, co-teaching is used to provide services for students with mild to moderate disabilities in the general education setting. General and special educators are present while co-teaching in the general classroom, thus maintaining joint responsibility for specified classroom instruction. Research shows that general educators have expertise in knowledge of the curriculum while special educators have expertise in instructional processes used to teach individual students who may learn atypically. There are a variety of co-teaching approaches. Each approach is designed to enhance different types of activities or for learning environments. (Sileo 2005)

CoTeaching Methods

Several articles give guidelines and the responsibilities for the two teachers who are co-teaching. The following information, from “Collaborative Teaching”, explains several different models of co-teaching require different efforts on the parts of the teachers.

For example:

1. One Teaching- One Observing: This method takes little joint plan time, but gives the non teaching teacher a chance to see the curriculum in play, train in co-teaching situations, and gives an extra person to meet the needs of all students.

2. One Teaching- One Drifting: This method takes little joint plan time, special education teachers can be used as an aid for all students. Allows resource teachers to visit/help a variety of classrooms.

3. Station Teaching:Both teachers have specific responsibilities in the classroom. Lower teacher/student ratio. Students with disabilities can be included more often in groups.

4. Parallel Teaching: Lower teacher/student ratio, creativity, independent lesson planning

5. Alternative Teaching: reteaching, small groups, ADD/ADHD students in particular benefit

6. Team Teaching: Shared Responsibility in teaching and planning, creative freedom for teachers

From: http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php?title=Co-Teaching&oldid=45289