Chapter 3: Collaboration and Co-Teaching

Introduction  

Have you ever played a group sport? Have you ever worked on a group project? Have you ever planned an activity with a friend? If you reflect on these experiences, there are likely many fond memories of how these situations played out, but also memories of struggling through the situation. Almost everyone has had some positive and not-so-positive experiences working/ collaborating with someone else or with a group of people.

While the questions above are not directly tied to co-teaching, the principles you likely used when negotiating the abovementioned situations may be quite similar to the ones used in a co-teaching situation. Each of those situations required more than one person to achieve a goal. Each of those situations required two people to determine a plan for success.

This chapter will include information regarding co-teaching. Co-teaching is an effective teaching method between two educators. This chapter provides information on what co-teaching is as well as different co-teaching models. Information is provided on how to ensure an effective co-teaching experience for both teachers and students, and how to use co-teaching to motivate students. The chapter ends with suggestions on how to work with paraeducators to convey information to students after the initial instruction has been provided by the classroom teacher(s).