On May 21, 2014, the ARI Region 4
team participated in a professional development session on
Co-Teaching/Co-Planning led by Dr. Pamela Howard (University of Alabama) and Dr. Donna Ploessl (Stillman College). The first part of the session was spent
learning about professional expectations for collaboration between the general
education teachers and the special education teachers. We began to understand
that collaboration and inclusion are not to be used interchangeably because
they have different meanings. Inclusion is a belief system and not
an approach or a style name for a classroom. Collaboration work is a
style of interaction that has co-equal practice, is voluntary, and has a common
goal. By understanding the difference, we were able to learn more about the
service delivery approach called Co- Teaching.
“Models are our Friends” became the phrase for the next part of our learning. There are six
different approaches/models, as identified by Marilyn Friend and Lynn Cook:
station teaching, one teach/one assist, parallel teaching, alternative
teaching, one teach/one observe, and teaming. Dr. Ploessel and Dr. Howard modeled
these Friend and Cook co-teaching
models throughout their facilitation. There are advantages and disadvantages to
each, but the development of the co-teaching relationship stands out as being
valuable to the success for all involved in this service delivery method.
In order to plan for success with
co-teaching we also began to learn that co-planning must also occur as a
regular part of the co-teachers’ schedules. The link at the bottom is a
wonderful example of detailed planning between two professionals. The co-teaching
definition that ARI Region 4 was able to take away is as follows: Co-teaching can
occur when two or more credentialed professionals with different primary areas
of expertise share in planning, instructing, and assessing all students.
look forward to supporting you in any way possible.
