Effective Co-Teaching Strategies

By: Dr. Richard Villa With inclusion on the rise, teachers are sharing classrooms more than ever and becoming an effective co-teaching partner is a teaching essential. Several collaborative teaching approaches have proven to be successful to guide educators who work together in co-teaching partnerships to differentiate instruction. The approaches include:
1. Supportive Co-teaching - where the one member of the team takes the lead role and the

other member rotates among students to provide support

2. Parallel Co-teaching - where support personnel and the classroom teacher instruct

different heterogeneous groups of students

3. Complementary Co-teaching - where a member of the co-teaching team does

something to supplement or complement the instruction provided by the other member of the team (e.g., models note taking on a transparency, paraphrases the other co-teachers statements)
4. Team Teaching - where the members of the team co-teach alongside one another and

share responsibility for planning, teaching, and assessing the progress of all students in the class. Some co-teaching approaches (e.g., complementary and team teaching) require greater commitment to, comfort with, and skill in collaborative planning and role release (i.e., transferring ones specialized instructional responsibilities over to someone else). It is recommended that collaborative teams select among the co-teaching approaches, as needed, based up the curriculum demands of a unit or lesson and student learning characteristics, needs, and interests. When deciding which approach to use in a given lesson, the goal always is to improve the educational outcomes of students through the selected co-teaching approach. Many beginning co-teachers start with supportive teaching and parallel teaching because these approaches involve less structured coordination among the co-teaching team members. As co-teaching skills and relationships strengthen, co-teachers then venture into the complementary teaching and team teaching approaches that require more time, coordination, and knowledge of and trust in one anothers skills.

Co-Teaching Strategies Chart How are the Co-Teaching Strategies similar? Two or more co-teachers in the classroom. Capitalizes on specific strengths & expertise of co-teachers. Provides greater teacher/student ratio and brings additional 1-1 support for students in the classroom. All approaches have benefits and cautions associated with their use. Students are heterogeneously grouped by mixed abilities and interests. Shared responsibilities. Requires trust, communication, planning time, and coordination of effort. (Note: The need for all of these elements increases as you move from supportive to parallel, parallel to complementary, and complementary to team teaching co-teaching.)

How are the Co-Teaching Strategies different? Supportive CoParallel Co-Teaching Complementary Teaching Co-Teaching One co- teacher is in the Co-teachers work withThe co-teachers share lead role; others provide different groups of responsibility for support. Who is in lead students in the same teaching the whole and who provides room. (There are class. One takes a lead support may change numerous different content role and the during the lesson. options for arranging other facilitates access the groups.) to the curriculum.

Team Teaching

Both co- teachers are equally responsible for planning, instruction of content, assessment, and grade assignment.

One co- teacher teaches content; the other clarifies, paraphrases, simplifies, or records content.

Requires the greatest amount of planning time, trust, communication, and coordination of effort.

One co-teacher may pre-teach specific study or social skills and monitors students use of them; the other co- teacher teaches the

academic content.

What are potential problems with co-teaching? Supportive CoParallel Co-Teaching Complementary CoTeam Teaching Teaching Cautions Cautions Teaching Cautions Cautions Beware of the Velcro Beware of creating a Beware of not Beware of not effect, where a special class within monitoring the monitoring the supportive co-teacher the class and lowering students who need it. students who need it. hovering over one or student achievement selected students, by homogeneously stigmatizing both grouping lower students and the coperforming students Beware of too much Beware of too much teacher. together (Marzano, teacher talk, repetition, teacher talk, repetition, Pickering, & Pollack, and lack of student- and lack of student2001, p. 84). student interaction. student interaction. Beware of making the supportive co-teacher the discipline police, Beware that noise Beware of materials copier, or in- level can become typecasting the coclass paper grader rather uncomfortably high teacher delivering than an instructor. when numerous content as the expert activities are or real teacher. occurring in the same room. Beware of ineffective use of expertise of Beware of failing to supportive co-teacher plan for role release, (e.g., special educator) Beware failing to so all co-teachers get adequately prepare to teach the content other co-teachers to ensure they deliver Beware of resentment if instruction as intended, since you the skills of the supportive co-teacher cannot monitor each (e.g., special educator) other while you all are are not being used or the simultaneously coteaching. lead (e.g., content teacher) co-teacher feels an unequal burden of responsibility. Beware of staying in the

supportive role, due to lack of planning time.

Additional Co-Teaching References

Villa, R. Thousand, J., & Nevin, A. (in process). More students, More Resources: Unleashing the Power of Students in Instruction, Advocacy, & Decision-Making. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Pres. Nevin, A., Villa, R., & Thousand, J. (2009). A Guide to Co-Teaching with Paraeducators Practical Tips for K-12 Educators. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Pres. (800) 8187243 Villa, R. Thousand, J., & Nevin, A. (2008). A Guide to Co-Teaching: Practical Tips for Facilitating Student Learning (2nd. Ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Pres. (800) 818- 7243 Villa, R. Thousand, J., & Nevin, A. (2008). Co-Teaching: A Multimedia Kit For P Professional Development. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Pres. (800) 818- 7243 Villa, R., Thousand, J., & Nevin, A. (2008). Co-Teaching at a Glance. A laminated TriFold Reference Guide. Port Chester, NY: National Professional Resources. (800) 453746 T Thousand, J., & Villa, R., & Nevin, A. (2007). Differentiated Instruction: A Multimedia Kit for Differentiated Instruction. California: Corwin Press (800) 818- 7423 T Thousand, J., & Villa, R., & Nevin, A. (2007). Differentiated Instruction: Collaborative P Planning & Teaching for Universally Designed Lessons. California: Corwin Press (800) 818- 7423 V Villa R., & Thousand. J., (Eds). (2005). Creating an Inclusive School. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. (800) 933- 2723.