Co-Teaching Approaches - Texas SPED Quick Learns

Welcome to Texas Sped Quick Learns, a micro learning video series designed to give you quick but vital information about special education in Texas. In this video, we will explore the six co teaching approaches. This content aligns with the resource documents Guidelines for Co Teaching in Texas Teachers and Guidelines for Co Teaching in Texas Administrators, which can be found on the Texas SPED Support website. We encourage you to pause the video now and download these documents to use as supportive resources. As co teachers consider students' needs and abilities, as well as the instructional objectives for a particular lesson, they select the best way to structure both teaching and learning. Doctor. Marilyn Friend, one of the foremost experts on co teaching, identifies six arrangements that are commonly found in co teach settings. These six approaches are station teaching, parallel teaching, alternative teaching, teaming, one teaching, one observing, and one teaching, one assisting. Over the next few minutes, we will take a deeper dive into each of these models to illustrate their purpose and provide examples for implementation. It is important to remember that when implementing any of the co teaching models, both the general education teacher and the special education teacher work with all students during the entire class period, having equal responsibility for instructional planning, delivery, and evaluation. The first three co teaching approaches, station teaching, parallel teaching, and alternative teaching, are the approaches that should be used most frequently. These approaches emphasize both teachers having clear instructional roles and students learning in small groups that can be arranged in many ways. These high impact approaches provide a smaller student to staff ratio with direct access to the general curriculum, enabling lesson flexibility and variability. The first high impact arrangement is station teaching. This approach allows teachers to create small group activities that are responsive to a wide variety of student needs. Teachers begin by dividing the content into three segments that can be taught in any sequence. Teachers then divide the students into homogenous or heterogeneous groups, also called mixed groups, so that one third of the students begin with each part of the content. Two groups are teacher led and the third group works independently. During the lesson, the students rotate through the stations until they complete all three sections of the content. Station teaching should be used frequently and is best utilized when content is complex but not hierarchical. When part of planned instruction is a review or when instruction includes multiple topics. For example, one station may discuss the characters of a specific text, while a second station identifies the plot and setting, and a third station reviews the themes seen throughout the text. In this fifth grade English language arts example, the class is divided heterogeneously into three equal groups following several days of content instruction. The general education teacher begins at one table group guiding students through a worksheet activity focused on identifying the author's purpose. The special education teacher assists a second group table in discerning the central idea and key details using a technology application. Lastly, the third group table works independently while engaging with a content video and review questions. The co teachers use a visual timer and rotate to each group throughout the period, ensuring all students receive guidance on each aspect of the lesson. Through the station teaching approach, students gain more opportunities to comprehend lesson content, enabling educators to pinpoint struggling learners and provide necessary interventions while also allowing for deeper exploration of the lessons, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills or TEKS. The second high impact approach is parallel teaching, where two teachers divide the class in half and lead the same instruction in both groups without rotating. Student groupings are flexible and based on students' needs in relation to the standards being addressed. Parallel teaching should be used frequently when a lower adult student ratio is needed. This approach is best utilized when students need enrichment or additional assistance or when the lesson content would benefit from additional direct instruction. Parallel teaching can be used to support differentiation in order to meet various learning modalities. For example, one teacher may instruct a group using a hands on approach through manipulatives while the other teacher provides modeling through a video or demonstration using technology. In this sixth grade mathematics classroom, the general education teacher and the special education teacher collaborate seamlessly to deliver a lesson using the parallel teaching approach. They have divided the class in half and are conducting simultaneous instruction on the same content. Separating the class into two equal groups enables teachers to foster increased student discussion. This gives each student more opportunities for active engagement with the lesson. The teachers can also provide more personalized attention to each student. The parallel teaching approach ensures that every student, regardless of their learning needs, can actively engage with and advance through the general curriculum. The third high impact approach is alternative teaching, in which one teacher manages the large group while the other teacher works with an identified group. In this type of joint teaching, more planning time is needed to ensure that the logistics of pre teaching or re teaching can be achieved. Also, the teachers must have similar content knowledge for one teacher to take a group and reteach or preteach. To use this approach effectively, co teaching pairs must ensure that the smaller group is not missing content instruction. Alternative teaching should be used frequently and is best utilized when the range of mastery is great or when enrichment is needed. One teacher may work with a small group of students to pre teach, re teach, supplement, or enrich instruction while the other teacher instructs the large group in reviewing previously introduced concepts. For example, in this high school English two classroom, one teacher conducts an extension activity with the large group while the other teacher works with the identified students in a small group on a scaffolded activity supporting the same content. This approach enables students that have quickly mastered certain concepts the benefit of enrichment. Students in need of more individualized instruction are provided much smaller student to teacher ratio. The smaller group provides a safe environment to foster increased student engagement and provides a time for intensive instruction on specific skills. The alternative teaching approach allows teachers to target the unique needs of a specific group of students by using student data to create an alternative lesson without students missing content instruction. The next three co teaching approaches, teaming, also called team teaching, one teaching, one observing, and one teaching, one assisting, have value in some situations but have a lower impact on student engagement. These approaches should be used less frequently because they involve adult centered large group instruction. However, you can use these co teaching approaches in conjunction with other approaches to maximize student impact. Let's take a closer look at how this might look in the classroom. In teaming or team teaching, teachers share the responsibility of planning and leading content instruction. The students remain in a large group setting while teachers work as a team to introduce new content, work on building skills, clarify information, and facilitate learning and classroom management. While roles may shift throughout the lesson, the key characteristic of teaming is that both teachers are fully engaged in the delivery of the core instruction. Teaming should be used sparingly and is best utilized when teachers are trying to clarify confusing concepts or when instruction lends itself to two models. There are many ways teaming can be used in the classroom. For example, one teacher could model while the other speaks. One could demonstrate while the other explains. The teachers could role play or they could take turns delivering instruction. For example, during the large group mathematics session in this early childhood special education classroom, students participate in an interactive activity sorting their shoes into groups. Both teachers jointly lead instruction for the large group and are actively involved in delivering the lesson through modeling, demonstrations, and guided prompts. The teaming approach empowers co teachers to design highly engaging activities that may pose challenges when managed by a single teacher. By involving both teachers in the lesson simultaneously, it ensures that each has a voice in the instructional process, drawing upon their respective areas of expertise to address the diverse needs of students effectively. One teaching, one observing occurs when one teacher provides instruction to all the students while the other teacher gathers data. Since student decision should be based on data, this approach allows one teacher to provide instruction while the other collects valuable data on the student's academic performance, behavior, or social skills that can be analyzed and used to determine the impact of specially designed instruction, lesson planning and internalization, and measure the effectiveness of the teaching strategies. With this approach, the teacher should decide in advance what types of information are to be gathered during the observation and should agree on a system for gathering the data. Afterward, the teacher should analyze the information together. This co teaching approach should be used for data collection in short periods of time. Either teacher may gather the data, which can be used to inform instruction and document student progress. For example, during the large group literacy session in this early childhood special education classroom, students engage in an interactive book and rhyming activity facilitated by one teacher while the other teacher collects data on the student's performance. Given the wide range of students' abilities within the class, the data gathered during this activity covers a broad spectrum. The co teacher collecting data notates students who demonstrate interest, those capable of utilizing rhyming words, and those who can identify and generate rhymes relevant to the lesson activities. The one teaching one observing approach offers a distinct advantage to co teachers by facilitating more thorough observations of students throughout the learning process. This enables the development of lessons that are tailored to address the diverse range of needs present in the classroom. The one teaching, one assisting approach places one teacher in the lead role while the other functions as a support in the classroom. The teacher in the supportive role monitors student work, addresses behavior issues, manages materials, and assists with student questions. Teachers must be careful when using this approach to avoid a learning environment in which the general educator provides all instruction and the special educator serves as an assistant. Of all the co teaching approaches, one teaching, one assisting should be the least frequently implemented. This could look like one co teacher providing the direct instruction while the other co teacher monitors learning and identifies students who can provide a correct answer during oral questioning. In this manner, the teachers work together to elicit correct responses from all students, increasing student confidence and engagement. For example, during whole group instruction in this fifth grade English language arts classroom, one teacher plays the lead role in providing direct, explicit instruction to the whole group, While the other teacher monitors student progress, addresses behavior issues, and manages materials, and assists with student questions. Notice that the teacher monitoring for student progress is continually moving around the classroom while supporting instruction. She is able to non verbally signal the instructing teacher to coordinate support, explanation, or student discussion from her role within the classroom setting. Additionally, the assisting teacher can ask the lead teacher a question to clarify a concept or direction that she has noticed is a problem for one or more of the students. The one teaching, one assisting approach aids in content instruction and enhances class management, ensuring that every student in the classroom comprehensively grasps all aspects of the general curriculum before advancing to new concepts. When co teachers are a new partnership, they tend to start with approaches that involve limited coordination between team members such as parallel teaching. As co teaching skills and relationships strengthen, teachers gradually incorporate more approaches and variations based on students' needs and instructional content requirements. This illustrates that co teaching is developmental, requiring time, coordination, and trust. For more information on co teaching, check out the guidance documents, guidelines for co teaching in Texas teachers and guidelines for co teaching in Texas administrators, which can be found on the Texas SPED support website.