What is Co-Teaching?

 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. 

Region 4 is excited to continue our co-teaching learning with you. Recently, we have had several districts requesting information on this topic as well as districts that have already begun implementing the co-teaching models. We would love to hear about your experiences with co-teaching as well as learning from you. Please share with us and as always we 
look forward to supporting you in any way possible.

Click to watch co-planning in action