"The Human Mind is our Fundamental Resource." - John F. Kennedy
Collaboration that is Grounded in the Curriculum
Effective collaboration will only be successful if the classroom teacher can see how it will benefit the students in attaining curricular outcomes. All collaborative planning and teaching must therefore be grounded in the curricula. Before the support teacher solicits the idea of co-teaching, he must first have an idea of how he can truly help all students meet the outcomes of the curriculum. Below is a link to the Manitoba Education website where you can find K-12 curricular documents.
Precision Reading
Precision Reading is a quick and efficient research-based activity that improves students' reading ability in the following key areas: Reading Automaticity; Word Recognition and Comprehension; and Passage Comprehension. This is a one-on-one instructional activity that takes as little as 5 minutes a day to do. This activity is therefore one that lends itself well to co-teaching as one teacher can focus on teaching the main lesson while the other teacher can do precision reading in a quiet corner of the classroom. Since Precision Reading is so quick, students' are able to participate fully in the main lesson. See the Link Below for more information about Precision Reading.
2 Teach, LLC
Finding the time to co-plan a lesson is very hard. This website attempts to support the co-teaching effort by providing quality K-12 lesson plans for various subjects. These lesson plans include the co-teaching model used, the actions that each teacher performs, and any considerations that need to be addressed. While each classroom is unique, these lesson plans provide a base from which to build from. Please visit the site by clicking on the link below.
Maryland Learning Links
This comprehensive website takes you through what co-teaching is and what it is not. However, this site goes beyond just providing information about co-teaching. It helps you to facilitate professional development on this topic within your own school. The site provides all the tools and resouces you need to facilitate a professional development session, and the best part is that it's free. To visit the site, please click on the link below.
Words Their Way
This is a spelling program that utilizes assessment to determine the spelling skills of students. This program lends itself well to co-teaching as the students are divided into groups based on their prior knowledge of words (eg., initial consonants, prefixes, root words, etc.). Some of the groups may be able to work independently while the one teacher works with a group who needs instruction in a new feature of spelling. The other teacher can work with a different group in extending their knowledge and linking it to words they use in different subject areas. Alternatively, one teacher can focus on the content (features of words) while the other teacher can focus on classroom management, making sure each group stays on task. Click on the link below for more information.
Co-Teaching Manuals
These handbooks provides tips for implementing co-teaching in your school and a co-teaching readiness check list for administrators and teachers. Included in the books are detailed description of each model of co-teaching and diagrams of the classroom. The latter part of the manuals have frequently asked questions and lists of resource sheets to use in the classroom. Click below to access.
Book on Purposeful Co-Teaching
The book, Purposeful Co-Teaching, linked below, is a helpful resource for a teacher wanting to implement co-teaching. There are personal anecdotes from teachers who use co-teaching as a teaching strategy in their classroom. These insights are invaluable. Also included are practical and useful tips in administering this model into a classroom. All an educator would want to know on why we would co-teach, how to plan for co-teaching, and practical tips on how to be successful.
Our Peers' Website
The following link is another website about collaboration that extends upon the knowledge we present here. The creators of the website are Manitoba educators who were in the same course as us. The sharing of each other's websites is yet another example of teacher collaboration at work. Modern technologies, such as the Internet, make this type of collaboration easy to do. We thank the other presenters for allowing us to add their website to our own.