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What is Co-Teaching when you boil it down?

Date: August 28th, 2014
By: Polly Bath

Watch this video [1:01] for my thumbnail sketch of Co-Teaching. Something we ought to have in every classroom.

Co‑teaching is really all about communication, folks. There is no big, huge magic around co‑teaching.

It’s all about being able to have one person step in when it’s not working for the other person. It’s knowing what I’m good at, what you might be good at, and how we each can contribute to this lesson. It’s about constantly bouncing off of each other, and being on the same page.

I always explain the assignment in two or three ways, to the entire class, not just to that one child—we have got to break down these barriers between special ed and general ed. We’ve got to stop calling them “my kids” and “your kids.”

We really have to be able to tag team off of each other. If I have a child with a special education identification in my classroom, and they need to be taught a different way, I teach the entire class that way as well.