Co-Teaching

Name : Victoria Agcaoili SPED 843  Dr. Aronin  Spring 2011

Co - Teaching

__Description of Intervention Method __ Co-teaching is a unique blend of direct and indirect services in which a general educator and a special educator jointly instruct pupils in a single classroom. Co-teaching occurs when two or more professionals jointly deliver substantive instruction to a diverse, or blended, group of students in a single physical space.

In co-teaching, both professionals coordinate and deliver effective instruction. Specifically they plan and use unique and high-involvement instructional strategies to engage all students in ways that are not possible when only one teacher is present. It is important to keep in mind that two qualified teachers or other professionals can structure instruction in a number of creative ways to enhance learning options for all students. With two teachers delivering instruction and increasing the instructional options for the students, all students have more opportunities to participate actively in their learning.

Co-teaching allows teachers to respond effectively to the diverse needs of their students, provides another set of hands and eyes, lowers the teacher-student ratio, and expands the professional expertise that can be directed to student needs.

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__Types of Students Who Benefit from the Method__

One can apply this intervention to almost all types and level of students

__Qualifications for Using the Method__ Individuals who use co-teaching should be licensed teacher or teachers presently working on their certification. Para-professionals can assist but then they need to be supervised by a licensed teacher. Below are the requirements to become a teacher.

Education Requirements to Become a Teacher

Aspiring teachers have several options available to them. Some teachers begin their careers by earning a bachelor's degree in education from an accredited college. Depending on the grade level they wish to teach, they take courses in child psychology, curriculum design, teaching methods and literacy instruction. Future teachers who plan to work in middle or high schools major in the subject they wish to teach but also take courses in teacher education. They may double major in their content area and in education. After earning a teaching degree, graduates apply to the state for a teaching certificate, which qualifies them to teach in public schools. Those who wish to teach in private schools are not required to earn certification. Alternative Certification Routes

An increasing number of professionals come to a teaching career after years of working in other fields. Since many school districts experience a shortage of qualified teachers, some education colleges offer alternative certification to those who already hold a bachelor's degree in a major other than education. According to the U.S. Department of Education, preference is given to prospective teachers who already possess strong content knowledge of the subject they wish to teach (www.ed.gov.) Once admitted to an alternative teaching program, professionals work as school teachers under the supervision of a mentor teacher. The new teachers also attend teacher education classes, eventually earning full state licensure.

Link : http://education-portal.com/qualifications_for_being_a_teacher.html

__Costs of Using the Method__ Teachers should be trained and be oriented with the different types of model of Co-teaching. This can be done during Wednesday in-service or during PLC meetings.

__Potential Risks with Using the Method__ Below are disadvantages of Co-Teaching for teachers and students :

__Teachers__ Time required for planning Possible conflicts with co-teacher

__Students__ Larger class size may be difficult for some students Possible confusion as to who is in charge of classroom If co-teachers are incompatible, students will be uncomfortable (Robinson and Schaible, 1995)

__Benefits of Using the Method__ The benefits of co-teaching are :

1) Two heads are better than one : teachers collaborate to share their expertise and skills

2) Students benefit from the teaching style of two teachers

3) Co-teachers serve as role models to students by demonstrating healthy adult interaction.

4) More instructional time on learning because teachers can divide whole class into smaller parts.

5) Shared student responsibilities

6) Instructional time is sustained because students are not leaving the classroom for special help instead the support is totally geared toward the class/subject matter content with the entire class

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__Settings for Method Use__ Co-teaching is usually happens in General Education classroom when the general educator and a special educator jointly instruct pupils in a single classroom.

__Field’s Attitude Towards the Method__ Austin’s (2001) survey of special educators and general educators indicated teachers felt positive about the reduced student-teacher ratio resulting from two teachers teaching together. Most co-teachers asserted they shared most teaching duties, but both felt the classroom teacher held more responsibility within the co-taught classroom. He also said special educators were more likely to agree in the usefulness of placing student teachers in collaborative settings, and providing pre-service courses on collaboration.

Students had positive views toward the co-teaching model. When compared to a pull-out program, learning-disabled students reported having more friends and felt their educational needs were met more adequately. Pugach and Wesson’s study commented on the co-teaching itself: They found parity in co-teaching teams increased over time. The first year the specialist tended to take the support role; the second year, the lead rotated and the division of instruction was more equitable.

Overall, the few attitude studies indicate that co-teachers hold positive attitude toward co-teaching, and that students in co-taught classes also hold positive attitudes toward co-teaching. Student teachers did not tend to hold these positive attitudes toward co-teaching; yet student teachers are not as experienced in co-teaching, and may have had difficulty mastering the approach during a student teaching placement.

Summary of Research Study Aliakbari, Mohammad, PhD, “Implementing a Co-Teaching Model for Improving EFL learners’ Grammatical Proficiency” (2010). [|www.pixelonline.net/ICT4LL2010/]common/...pdf/ILT17-Aliakbari.pdf

__Description of Subjects__ The research was conducted in a junior high school in Ilam city, Iran. There was a group of 58 first-level students studying English at the first stage. They were all male and eleven to thirteen years old. The study also took advantage of three male English teachers aged twenty three to twenty seven years old. These teachers had MA degree and were graduated in the major of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). They have gained a good experience in teaching English in EFL contexts for several years.

The present study was an attempt to examine how co-teaching may affect the learning process in general and the grammar proficiency in particular. To do so, a group of 58 first-grade students studying English in junior high school were assigned to two classes receiving two different treatments in grammar instruction. In one group, learners received grammar instruction from co- teachers while in other group grammar instruction was delivered by a single teacher. The findings of the study revealed that the difference in method of grammar instruction did not lead to significant difference in participants’ performance in the grammar test.

__Description of Research Design__ A quasi-excremental design was exploited for the present study. Two intact English classes in the EFL context were used in the study. The first class comprised 28 students and was held on Tuesdays. It was the experimental class co-taught by a pair of teachers. The other class, considered as control group, included 30 students who came to the class on Wednesdays. The language proficiency of the control and experimental groups was assessed by a proficiency test. In the former group the grammar points of the lessons were instructed by just one teacher. While in the latter, the grammar focuses were taught by two instructors. These two teachers cooperatively co-taught the grammar points based on team teaching model which made the study distinguishable from the traditional view of teaching. Co-teachers have cautiously planned the way these grammar parts in the book should be taught in advance. They even mutually shared their opinions about when and how each of them should fulfill the role. Meanwhile, some factors were taken into account in order to establish an effective co-teaching process in the co-teaching contexts. These factors have been cogently elaborated by Olsen et al [1997] who maintain that effective co-teachers:

• Are tolerant, reflective, and flexible; • Accept responsibility for all students; • Maintain positive relationships with each other; • Adjust expectations for students with disabilities in the general education classroom.

The evaluation of the students’ grammar proficiency also took advantage of co-teachers collegiality. Therefore, collaboration and consensus between co-teachers determined every issues of the teaching process. In short, these groups were worked with for 10 sessions; each session taking almost one hour and quarter.

__Dependent Variable__ The dependent variable was the effect of co-teaching in the learning process in general and the grammar proficiency in particular.

__Independent Variable__ The independent variable was the implementing co-teaching strategy.

__Summary of Results__ Supported by two indexes of range and t- test, English competency of the experimental group was to a large extent congruent to that of the control group. Data presented that there was no meaningful difference between two groups of the students with respect to the t-observed (f=0. 864) at P<.05. Thus, it can be argued that the difference in instruction method has not influenced the learners' grammatical proficiency. In other words, the results of the empirical study described here illustrated that no significant difference was found between the experimental and control groups.

The result of the study showed that co-taught students did not out perform the students who received traditional method of teaching. In other words, co-teaching model in this particular environment did not contribute to better results in the grammatical proficiency than the single instruction approach. Therefore, it might be argued that the model could not be suitable to be implemented in every educational system in order to co-teach grammar points.

The non-significant result of the study can be attributed to a number of issues. The presence of two teachers in the classroom might have the students entangled in a baffling context. As long as they used to have a single teacher in the class, coping with two teachers might seem a challenging issue.

In addition, as it was observed, co-teaching appeared not to work in some cultures like the Japanese one. Cultural background of the students could pin down such a result. Finally, since the autonomy of the class has been quite emphasized for a long time, perhaps it was suffered by the presence of two teachers in one class. Such an occasion may also lead to an inconvenient context for the students who were not familiar enough with two co-teachers. Therefore, it seems that appointing each co- teacher his responsibility was an influential factor in blurring what-to-do tasks for the co-teachers.

Moreover, this study suggests that more in-depth studies are needed to investigate other variables that might affect co-teaching methods including the cultural aspect of education, genders, and level of education.