NYC Educator: Co-Teaching--Making it Work

NYC Educator: Co-Teaching--Making it Work

Co-Teaching--Making it Work

There's a lot of talk about what a successful co-teaching partnership entails. A few things are indisputable. One is that if it's genuine co-teaching, there should be genuine common prep time. Any administrator who assigns three or four co-teachers to one human cannot reasonably expect cooperation, let alone anything so productive it resembles success.

My experience suggests the primary selection method entails either A. eenie-meenie-miney-mo or B. These two teachers have the same free period, so they're a team. To my mind, neither is ideal, and both are borne of fundamental laziness on the part of the administrator. When they fail, the first response is generally some list of possible co-teaching methods. This one leads, and that one works with individual students. They take turns. This one leads the big group, while that one facilitates small groups. Whatever.

The thing is, if there's no common prep time, it's absurd to think this pair will not only plan together, but also decide an arrangement for which person will do what. In fact, in these instances, it's likely one teacher will do all the planning and execution while the other takes no part whatsoever. In fact, that's probably the best plan.

Last year, I was placed in a class with a teacher who taught it two periods in a row. I was only there for the first session. It was clear to me that the teacher needed to teach both classes, and needed to cover the same material. The best thing I could do for him was stay out of his way and CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Co-Teaching--Making it Work