Co-Teaching … Not Just a Textbook Term: Implications for Practice

Abstract

The author investigated the construction of a co-teaching collaboration between a general education and special education teacher in 2 8th-grade United States history classes. The teachers' roles, the spaces they shared and divided, as well as the affordances and constraints inherent in this service delivery option are discussed. The results of this investigation both support and extend previous findings and demonstrate that conversations between co-teaching partners are beneficial to addressing issues of roles, providing instruction, and handling classroom management and discipline, as well as issues such as loss of professional autonomy. Finally, the results suggest that researchers should next explore how co-taught classrooms affect student outcomes.

Keywords:

• co-teaching
• collaboration
• inclusion
• roles