Co-Teaching

Amy's story perfectly illustrates some of the main issues and challenges that arise in co-teaching scenarios. Especially when one or more parties are unfamiliar with co-teaching, miscommunications and misunderstandings are inevitable. Amy's story also demonstrates the importance of training co-teachers, educating them as to the various models and methods of collaborative teaching in heterogeneous classroom environments. Many of the challenges that arise during co-teaching can be solved by simple common sense communication and interpersonal skills.

The actions proposed for Amy and her co-teachers like Joe include the collaborative development of a lesson plan; regularly scheduled meetings for lesson plan development as well as constructive criticism and feedback; implementation of one or more different co-teaching styles; and improved communications with the principal of the school.

Collaboratively developed lesson plans will eliminate the discomfort Amy initially felt when she first entered Joe's classroom as a co-teacher. The rationale behind a collaboratively...
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