Married...

Oddly, a lot of talk about co-teaching uses the marriage metaphor.  But, since it's out there, I will go with it for this reflection.

The principal scheduled co-teach check in meetings for all the co-teaching partners in our building.  We met with him and our partner to discuss the ups and downs and for him to ask if we needed anything to move forward.  Like a couple's therapy session.

I hope you're humming "Love and marriage..." like I am.

This is the first year any of us have been involved in co-teaching so what we really need is more training, more outside consulting and more time for co-planning.  But, through the first quarter, it has become apparent that those things are not really happening.  Like a hesitant young couple, afraid to admit that anything is wrong, we both said, "No, we don't need anything."  

But, actually, Mr. B and I are doing pretty well with our co-teaching gig. I think the biggest key has been open communication.  We figure out together how to pace lessons, accommodate for struggling learners (not just the kids with Special Ed needs) and which parts of a lesson we'll each teach.  Open communication:  good for co-teaching, good for marriage.

At that meeting with our principal, he looked at a list of co-teaching models (similar to those I posted yesterday) with us and asked which we were doing.  Well, we've been using a mix of approaches.  Our default model is One-Teach / One-Assist (also known as Support Teaching). In this model it's typically Mr. B delivering instruction, with whatever accommodations, scaffolding or supports we pre-planned, and I swoop around the room offering assistance as needed.  We've made our seating chart so the kids with Special Ed needs are easily accessible, so I focus on them, but assist every student.  

We've also used Parallel Teaching where we each deliver the same instruction to smaller groups of students.   Alternative Teaching involves teaching different material to different groups.  We've used this, also, delivering specific content to different sections of the class who then "teach" it to the other part of the class.  Alternative Teaching will also start to come into play more as I "pull out" the Special Ed students for mini lessons focused on writing fundamentals or reading comprehension, per their IEP needs.  

One model we haven't used yet but really want to is the Station Teaching. Small groups rotate between independent work, a Mr. B station and my station.  This could be a way to slip in the Alternative Teaching in a more inclusive way.   As we met with the principal, we talked about all these approaches, based on what we think will best serve our students.  As a married couple, we realize that variety is the spice of life, I guess.  

I don't actually think of my relationship with my co-teacher as a marriage.  It's been a really cool, professional partnership that I think will only improve with time.

Reflective Teaching Challenge: Day 27

Day 27:  What role do weekends and holidays play in your teaching?

I was just talking with a teacher friend about her summer plans to visit Vancouver, BC for the Women's World Cup.  She seemed a teensy bit embarrassed that, in the middle of September, in the first month of the school year, she's making plans for next summer.

I say, go for it! 

I think breaks are necessary for engaged teaching!  I think travel is so needed to recharge our minds, spirits and the informational well from which we draw daily in our profession. Teachers are molding citizens of the world and we must be part of that world.  Time to pause, reflect and plan only increases our excitement and preparedness for instruction.

So, for me, weekends and holidays are sometimes great for getting a huge unit of planning done all at once, a major classroom redecoration, or serious mid- or end of quarter grading catch up.  But more often than not, weekends and holidays are opportunities for me to connect with friends and family, read, travel and recharge.  The week (or school year) ahead will be upon us soon enough.  A few moments or hours of relaxation are always needed for this special educator.  

One Teach / One Observe

Today was my co-teacher's first observation.  We decided that in the future we would make sure to rock a co-teaching lesson for an observation but for our first observations for the year, we each wanted to fly solo.  We teachers have a hard time putting our ego aside sometimes.

We decided this would be a great time to use the One Teach / One Observe model.  There is a certain student of concern that we'd like to refer to Special Ed and we thought this would be a good day for me to start collecting some observational data.  (I am SO excited to be on this 'side' of the process!  Usually I am receiving student data from a referring Gen Ed teacher or working with a Gen Ed teacher to collect data / make observations.  But this time, my co-teacher and I get to be the one's who say, "Hey, this kid needs extra support!"  Of course, since he's in a co-teach classroom, he is getting some in-class support already but we both think he would benefit from IEP services, especially after hearing from some of last year's teachers that these behaviors are not new.) 

I'm the red dot far away!

One Teach / One Observe sounds really boring.  It WASN'T!  I had a Functional Assessment Observation Form all ready to roll with the behaviors of concern that I wanted to document.  Interestingly, the student of interest ended up going to the office within the first 10 minutes of class so at first I didn't think I would have much to do.  Then I remembered a method for collecting peer data to get a classroom baseline against which I could compare our student the next time he's in class. So, I whipped up a sloppy grid, picked 6 kids, fired up an online stopwatch and just...observed for the next hour.  It was actually pretty engrossing, especially since my observation windows were only 60 seconds long.  

I'll have to dig up some grad school books to figure out exactly how to tally and report my findings.  More observations (especially with the student actually in the room!) will have to be done but this day of observation gave me a good foundation from which we will hopefully build one or two things:  A behavioral perspective that will help us better structure his classroom day so he can be more successful, or a case for Special Education services.  I'll keep you posted as this process progresses.   

If you are co-teaching, how often do you use the One Teach / One Observe model? 

You Do Everything

As you may have read, I was thrown a major change up this past week.  I went from co-teaching 2 humanities blocks and a reading intervention class to co-teaching only 1 of those blocks and adding a double period of Special Ed math and a period of Special Ed Language Arts.  Worse than my switch was the change for a number of students who were pulled out of their Gen Ed classes with no warning and minimal explanation.

I learned about the switch on Monday, I only had 2 days left in my 8th grade co-teach classroom so I told my co-teacher, let me know what I can do, I'll just support you in whatever way you need as you get ready to teach on your own. (BTW, this is her first year teaching so the co-teaching thing was a real wild pitch at the start of the year.  She might have been pleased for this particular change up and getting the room back to herself!)  And we went along and co-planned for the next two days.  We were reading "The Treasure of Lemon Brown" by Walter Dean Myers.

There are some resources out there for co-planning.  2 Teach LLC has a number of lesson plan example for co-teaching with elementary and secondary templates to use that allow you to clarify who's doing what, when and with whom.  My co-teachers and I haven't gotten this specific but we will need to.  Mostly our planning time is: "What do we want to do today?  I'll take this part, you do that part."  Which is how my soon to be non-co-teacher and I left it that Monday morning.

I teach in different rooms all day long.  So, after a minute (second??) or two of debrief with my last teaching partner, I pass in the halls with the students and hope to get to my next class on time.  As I rushed in on Tuesday, my co-teacher says with a smile, "You're doing everything today."  

Wait. What??  I'm internally yelling, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, this isn't how co-teaching works!!"  And, "You don't tell me what to do!"  With a little whine, "I don't FEEL like doing everything and what exactly are we doing anyway?"  

But part of my inner dialogue sounded like this, "Dang, teach, tell it."  I was proud of her for being directive and taking the period pretty much for herself to catch up and solo plan as needed.  I had told her I would support her in any way she needed and what she needed was the blessing of time.  And she got it.  

I L.O.V.E. reading out loud with students.  I love reading to them, listening to them read, watching 8th grade lips move as they read along with a reader, hearing little gasps and groans of understanding along the way.  Love it.  And these kids were pretty amazing at detecting an upcoming twist.  I think modern stories need to be filled with ever greater twists and turns to surprise young readers because they seem to take very little at face value in a story.  They EXPECT a twist so they're out-twisting the author sometimes.  Did you think maybe Lemon Brown's son was Greg's dad?  This was one theory in the class.  It's not the actual twist in this tale but I think it would make a great story.  

So, I happily did everything for the period while my colleague, a first year teacher, got herself together to make it through another day.  Not exactly the co-teach model but it was exactly what she needed.  I also needed a day with these kids before I said goodbye to most of them.  I was happy to leave the class on this note.  I hope I was helpful to my partner and that the kids enjoyed reading together as much as I did.