Workshop 2 | Co-Teaching Pairs
Workshop introduction
This is a second online workshop of the Mentoring Teacher Candidates Using Co-Teaching online workshop. It was designed to support co-teaching pairs of cooperating teachers (CT) and teacher candidates (TC) during co-teaching in student teaching placements.
This online workshop is to be completed by the co-teaching pair (a cooperating teacher and a teacher candidate), at the same time over a virtual meeting or in person, within the first two weeks of a student teaching placement. As a new co-teaching pair, you will be provided with 90 minutes of engaging activities focusing on:
- reviewing of the co-teaching model and how it differs from traditional model
- selecting and implementing co-teaching strategies
- identifying roles of co-teaching triad members
- relationship building, collaboration and communication
- implementing co-planning strategies
The cooperating teacher and teacher candidate must plan for 2-2.5 hours to work together through the exercises and activities. Upon completion of this workshop activities, participants will be able to submit a short reflection form and claim their CEU certificates (2 units).
Copyright information
This online workshop was developed, with permission from Drs. Bacharach and Washut Heck, as an alternative format for University of Minnesota-Twin Cities’ school partners seeking co-teaching professional development online.
This website’s content is not to be replicated by other institutions or schools.
Co-teaching strategies
Co-teaching is an attitude of sharing the classroom and students. Co-Teachers must always be thinking: “We are both teaching!” (Bacharach & Heck, 2011)
You need to think carefully about your co-teaching needs to make sure you select a strategy that would be right for your co-teaching classroom.
One teach, one observe
One co-teacher has primary instructional responsibility while the other co-teacher gathers specific observational information on students or the (instructing) teacher. The key to this strategy is to have a focus for the observation.
One teach, one assist
One co-teacher has primary instructional responsibility while the other co-teacher assists students with their work, monitors behaviors, or corrects assignments.
Station teaching
The co-teaching pair divides the instructional content into parts and the students into groups. Groups spend a designated amount of time at each station. Of-ten an independent station will be used.
Parallel teaching
Each co-teacher instructs half of the students. The two co-teachers are addressing the same instructional material and present the lesson using the same teaching strategy. The greatest benefit is the reduction of student to teacher ratio.
Supplemental teaching
This strategy allows one co-teacher to work with students at their expected grade level, while the other co-teacher works with those students who need the information and/or materials extended or remediated.
Alternative/differentiated teaching
Alternative teaching strategies provide two different approaches to teaching the same information. The learning outcome is the same for all students; however, the instructional methodology is different.
Team teaching
Team taught lessons that are well planned exhibit an invisible flow of instruction with no prescribed division of authority. Using a team teaching strategy, both teachers are actively involved in the lesson. From a student’s perspective, there is no clearly defined leader, as both teachers share the instruction, are free to interject in-formation, and available to assist students and answer questions.
For more information on co-teaching strategies please see:
© 2012, St. Cloud State University. Used with permission by the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities’ Office of Teacher Education (OTE) for the CEHD Partner Network
The student teaching triad
In student teaching, a cooperating teacher and a university supervisor support the development of a teacher candidate. These three individuals form a triad.
Each member of the triad has particular roles that provide the foundation for a successful student teaching experience. Because the triad works together it is important to know the responsibilities and expectations for each member.
For information on building rapport in a triad please see:
The following relationship building activities are designed to help you get to know your co-teaching partner better.
What are your perceptions about student behaviors and attitudes?
This list is designed to help you compare your perceptions about appropriate and inappropriate student behaviors in the classroom. Please discuss similarities and differences in your perceptions using guiding questions below. Are these behaviours acceptable or unacceptable?
- Student arrives late to class.
- Student does not complete homework.
- Student frequently misses school the day of test or major assignment.
- Student often requests help or approval of work in progress.
- Student is inattentive (talking, doing another task, sleeping).
- Student hits or shoves another student.
- Student uses profanity or inappropriate language.
- Student argues with or is rude to teacher.
- Student verbally/sexually harasses another student.
- Student makes frequent requests to leave the room.
- Student hums, sub-vocalizes, taps pencil, etc.
- Student frequently requests extra credit or special consideration.
- Student does not participate in classroom activities.
- Student throws pencils/paper wads, shoots rubber bands.
- Student makes irrelevant comments or gives silly answers.
- Student interrupts others.
- Student comes to class without paper, book, pencil, etc.
- Student whines or tattles on other students.
- Student's work from home exceeds quality or work in class.
Discussion
- What is your rationale for the degree of acceptance/tolerance you have for different behaviors?
- How does this affect your rapport with and regard for students?
- What behaviors do you demonstrate to promote success for students?
- What behaviors do you demonstrate to compromise success?
- Do some of those behaviors appear to be opposite of your co-teacher?
Communication and collaboration
Communication is the key to a great Co-Teaching Partnership. It is like throwing a ball. The purpose is to learn how well others catch information and throw it back. We develop and build relationships by practicing chit chat, e.g., what is your name, where do you live, what are your hobbies, etc. But there are levels of communication beyond chit chat.
As relationships develop and deeper communication is desired, discussing an issue becomes more like tossing a slippery egg. Be careful not to:
- Save them for a long time and hurl them!
- Throw them hard and fast because you cannot hold on to those slippery eggs!
- Avoid the person so that you do not have to toss those slippery eggs.
- Wrap those slippery eggs with so many layers of expectations and apologies that no one is sure you have tossed them.
Try to recognize when you have the slippery egg and toss it with great care and understanding, being assertive enough to communicate your issues. Always watch body language and tell the truth in a caring manner.
How do you "throw your slippery eggs"?
The following activity presents different role play scenarios for cooperating teachers and teacher candidates.
The cooperating pair, a CT and TC, should work together and take turns discussing the following scenarios. Both CT and TC will have two opportunities to role play different scenarios.
Round 1: cooperating teacher leads
Read the following scenario (don't let your TC peek) and discuss it right now with your TC…
Tardiness
-
Your teacher candidate is continuously tardy to school.
-
Address this issue and solve the problem.
Round 2: teacher candidate leads
Read the following scenario (don't let your CT peek) and discuss it right now with your CT…
New ideas
- Your cooperating teacher is not allowing you to try new ideas or ways of doing things.
- Address this issue and solve the problem.
Round 3: cooperating teacher leads
Read the following scenario (don't let your TC peek) and discuss it right now with your TC…
Co-teaching strategies
- Your teacher candidate is reluctant to try all the co-teaching strategies.
- Address this issue and solve the problem.
Round 4: teacher candidate leads
Read the following scenario (don't let your CT peek) and discuss it right now with your CT…
Co-planning time
- Your cooperating teacher does not use co-planning time to work with you.
- Address this issue and solve the problem.
Collaboration Self-Assessment Tool (CSAT)
It is often assumed that people know how to collaborate. However, collaboration skills are rarely identified, let alone taught. When collaborative efforts become strained or are successful, it is important to evaluate our own role in the process. There is a difference between cooperation and collaboration. Collaboration is a philosophy of interactions with the focus on the process of working together; cooperation stresses the product of such work (Myers, 1991).
Below is a self-assessment worksheet. It will help you reflect on and evaluate your own collaboration skills. The beauty of this self-assessment tool is that we can identify the areas in which we can improve in an effort to become better collaborators. (You do not have to share your scores with your partner.)
Please take some time to complete Collaboration Self-Assessment worksheet. Make sure you save the file to your desktop before entering your responses.
When finished, consider the following:
- What have you learned about yourself by completing this rubric?
- When collaboration is ineffective, the following issues are often voiced to justify the situation:
- Personal style
- Size of the group
- Designated role in the group (facilitator, recorder, etc.)
- Group history
We challenge you to ask yourself: What is at the heart of these issues? Could citing these variables possibly be a smoke screen to hide the fact that you are not using skills needed for successful collaboration?
*Cross-cultural communication
Often, Cooperating Teachers and Teacher Candidates are from different generations and/or cultures, and these differences often result from significant historical events, cultural trends, and individual experiences. Ultimately, this results in varying world views and attitudes toward the workplace. Communicating with one another is key.
Take a moment and discuss the following questions with your co-teacher:
- What is one value or belief you learned about communication from your childhood?
- What is one norm you were taught about how to resolve conflict?
- What do you wish others knew about your style of communication?
- What do you need from others when in conflict?
Tips on how to work together across cultures and generations (Krumrey-Fulks; Ting-Toomey, 2012; Fisher-Yoshida, 2005; Mezirow, 2000):
- Mindful Listening: Note the cultural/personal assumptions being expressed. Check in that you’re accurately interpreting both the verbal and nonverbal expressions.
- Mindful Reframing: Remain in the moment and consider your current perspective, then consider other perspectives to frame what you’re hearing/experiencing/feeling.
- Collaborative Dialogue: Build on the mindful listening and reframing to participate in dialogue and work to understand the differences/similarities of what is being communicated with how you’re understanding it.
- Culture-based Conflict Resolution Steps: If you’re still feeling in conflict, then you can try to use this 7-step model to “identify the background of a problem, analyze the cultural assumptions and underlying values of a person in a conflict situation, and promote ways to achieve harmony and share a common goal”:
- What is my cultural and personal assessment of the problem?
- Why did I form this assessment and what is the source of this assessment?
- What are the underlying assumptions or values that drive my assessment?
- How do I know they are relative or valid in this conflict context?
- What reasons might I have for maintaining or changing my underlying conflict premise?
- How should I change my cultural or personal premises into the direction that promotes deeper intercultural understanding?
- How should I flex adaptively on both verbal and nonverbal conflict style levels in order to display facework sensitive behaviors and to facilitate a productive common-interest outcome? [Facework are communication strategies that people “use to establish, sustain, or restore a preferred social identity to others during interaction” (Samp, 2015). It varies from culture to culture and influences our conflict styles - Krumrey-Fulks shares more examples]
*This section was updated in March 2021 based on user feedback. These new materials are not from St. Cloud University’s original co-teaching training/workshop."
Co-teaching planning
Planning for co-teaching is VERY important. Use the planning time wisely, focusing on lessons to be co-taught. Prioritize the time and don’t allow outside distractions to take over.
The goal is to have the cooperating teacher and teacher candidate actively engaged with students as much as possible. However, EVERY teacher candidate DOES need time to manage the classroom on their own.
Full time responsibility means the teacher candidate leads all aspect of the classroom, including how the cooperating teacher and other adults will be involved.
Phase I: Beginning
CT is the "instructional lead"
- Determine content to be taught
- Plan lessons and share materials with TC
- Decide what co-teaching strategy to use, with TC’s input
- Communicate with families to welcome your co-teaching TC
TC is to:
- Communicate and co-plan daily with the CT
- Engage students in learning by trying out each co-teaching strategy at least twice with your CT
- Build relationships within the school community
- Balance coursework requirements with the school’s expectations
Phase II: Middle
TC is the instructional "lead"
- Plan and lead lessons in the co-teaching team for the period of time the licensure program requires
- Communicate with CT to pre-determine which co-teaching strategies will be used in the classroom
- Complete TPA and other
CT is to
- Provide guidance regarding content and standards to be addressed
- Co-plan and support TC in their adoption of the role of instructional leader
- Engage students using pre-determined co-teaching strategy
- Provide feedback
Phase III: End
TC shares/phase out the instructional "lead"
- Share or slowly give up the lead instructional role in the co-teaching relationship
- Co-plan and co-teach using the strategies
- Complete other university requirements
- Provide feedback to the university supervisor
CT is to
- Share or slowly take back the primary responsibility of instructional lead in the co-teaching relationship
- Continue to co-plan and co-teach using the strategies
- Provide feedback to the TC and to the university supervisor
FAQs
Due to state requirements for a variety of experiences at multiple levels, most secondary and K-12 programs cannot dedicate a teacher candidate to a single site for the full year placement. A pre-service math teacher, for example, must have experience at a middle school and a high school level. Therefore, most secondary and K-12 placements are between 8-14 weeks in length and occur multiple times during the academic year (fall and spring).
"The Power of Two" article is about a professional development school (PDS) elementary site where the University of MN-Twin Cities places elementary and early childhood candidates for the entire school year in the same classroom.
The timing of when the teacher candidate fully assumes the role as lead teacher is negotiated by the triad (cooperating teacher, university supervisor, and teacher candidate) and varies by classroom and situation. The cooperating teacher and university supervisor work together to gradually scaffold the teacher candidate into assuming the lead role in co-teaching. The supervisor, cooperating teacher, and candidates (called the “triad”) also pre-determines in advance the length of time that the teacher candidate serves as the lead teacher. Licensures in elementary and secondary programs may have different requirements as to how long the candidate should serve as the lead teacher. In other words, this is a shared decision between the members of the triad and will be different for each candidate.
Only one teacher candidate is placed in the classroom with a cooperating teacher for the co-teaching field experience. The co-teaching occurs between the cooperating teacher and one teacher candidate. Some UMN-TC programs place practicum (pre-student teaching) students in pairs with willing cooperating teachers for short field experiences. However, pre-student teaching placements are not co-teaching placements.
Teacher candidates in co-teaching settings are mentored using co-teaching strategies to become a licensed professional who will more likely stay in the profession. As the co-teaching findings indicate, leaving all classroom responsibilities and instruction to a student teacher without employing co-teaching as a mentoring model can not only be detrimental to the P-12 students learning and engagement, but it can frustrate the novice teachers so that they leave the profession. The cooperating teacher should work to scaffold the teacher candidate’s induction into teaching, assuring that the TC takes on more of the instructional lead role as they gain confidence and skill with P-12 students. As a profession, we must work to dispel of the idea that pre-service teachers must be left entirely on their own to sink or swim in student teaching to prove that they can teach.
It is important that the cooperating teacher works to mentor and model how to lead, build relationships, and manage classrooms rules and routines. In co-teaching, the researchers found that TCs had more opportunities to become more effective classroom leaders than they did in traditional student teaching settings. The cooperating teacher will need to make room for the teacher candidate to implement effective classroom management strategies and build confidence by creating a classroom space that assures sharing leadership of the classroom. HINTS: Discuss, as a co-teaching team who will have management responsibilities each day, so as new situations arise there are many opportunities for the teacher candidate to gain confidence with clarity about whose responsibility it is to handle the issue at that moment. Have a signal (e.g. stand under the clock, pull your earlobe, or flip over a visible item on the desk) when you or your co-teacher needs the other to step in.
Teacher candidates must have opportunities to teach alone. The amount of time a candidate is left totally alone varies and is based on their skills in managing a classroom, the type of instruction/lesson designed for the students that day, etc. It is important that the teacher candidate demonstrates that they can handle a classroom all by themselves. Drs. Bacharach and Washut-Heck recommend a 70-30 ratio with 70% of the time spent with students using co-teaching strategies to utilize both teachers’ expertise in facilitating student learning and 30% of the time spent with the TC or CT solo teaching.
In order to co-teach effectively, the cooperating teacher and teacher candidate must have shared planning time. Early in the co-teaching relationship, we recommend setting aside 1 hour a week to co-plan to co-teach. During this time co-teachers often review the curriculum and instructional goals for the upcoming week, determine which co-teaching strategies will best support students to meet the learning objectives, and decide who will be instructional lead or supporting co-teacher for each co-taught lesson. NOTE: It may take more time to co-plan in the early stages of co-teaching. However, the benefits of spending time to co-plan are exciting. Teacher candidates get a much deeper understanding of the entire curriculum through co-planning, cooperating teachers have an opportunity to share the work load with another adult, and the co-taught lessons lead to increased academic performance and engagement of P-12 students.
No, that is not true. For a period of time, each teacher candidate will lead the planning, organization, delivery, and assessment of instruction in a co-taught classroom. The teacher candidate will also be responsible for directing other adults, including the cooperating teacher, thus learning the skills necessary for effectively managing the human resources in a classroom. The teacher candidate will be the instructional lead but the cooperating teacher will be available to support learning during co-taught lessons using the strategies to improve student learning and engagement.
In many schools today, very few teachers are the sole adult in the classroom. To accommodate large class sizes, students with special needs, English Language Learners, and the push in model of Title 1 and special education, today’s classrooms will often have special education teachers, paraprofessionals, and volunteers working alongside the classroom teacher. It is rare to find a classroom where the assigned teacher is always working solo. The need to collaborate with other adults in the classroom is a necessity in our schools. Experience is co-teaching, whether as a cooperating teacher or candidate, is an important and attractive professional experience for current and future potential employers.
Co-planning takes place before the formal lesson plans are written. Once a cooperating teacher and a teacher candidate co-plan, the instructional lead takes the information and writes up lesson plans, which will be reviewed by their co-teacher prior to instruction. If the candidate is the instructional lead, then the teacher candidate writes the formal lesson plans and submits them to their cooperating teacher.
It is not a problem; it is a benefit. We are all uniquely different. Teacher candidates entering the workplace must be able to work with a variety of learning and teaching styles. Through workshops, teacher candidates and cooperating teachers are made aware of many different types of learning and teaching styles, how they work, and how to work together with individuals who have different styles.
When a supervisor observes a teacher candidate co-teaching with a cooperating teacher, they focus the observation on what the candidate is doing. If the candidate is leading a small group, it may be helpful to move closer to that group to observe them. If the teacher candidate is teaming with their cooperating teacher, the university supervisor will focus the observation on the candidate’s teaching skills, ability to collaborate with the cooperating teacher, management skills, organizations, etc.
All involved in co-teaching are asked to attend a face-to-face sessions or take the two online workshops—each taking 1½ to 2 hours.
- The “Foundations Workshop” is only required once for cooperating teachers, teacher candidates, and university supervisors.
- When a teacher candidate is placed with a cooperating teacher, a second 1½ to 2 hour “Pair’s workshop” is provided early in the semester so that both can begin the co-teaching collaboration with shared expectations. The Pair’s workshop needs to be repeated each time a cooperating teacher accepts a new teacher candidate as a co-teacher.
Download FAQ file for you records.
The University of Minnesota- Twin Cities will make every effort to partner with school districts to offer these co-teaching professional development opportunities at a time that is convenient for all involved. Continuing Education Units (CEUs) will be made available to all participants who complete the workshops.
OTE created the resource, Co-Teaching Strategies During Remote Learning, to aid cooperating teachers and teacher candidates in planning for co-teaching during remote learning.
Contact us
Questions and comments about the UMN-TC Partner Network and co-teaching should be directed to:
© 2012, St. Cloud State University. Used with permission by the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities’ Office of Teacher Education (OTE) for the CEHD Partner Network