Improving my understanding of Collaboration and Co-Teaching Part 3

 WHAT?

The third session with Mark Osborne, again started with a review of the culture of co-teaching and the positives and negatives of setting up the culture so that you have a way forward. 

In this next session, we learnt about the specific approaches of co-teaching. The tree metaphor was used again to help cement our understanding. 

Being in a co-teaching situation, it is important to complement each other’s teaching and to make the most of the fact there are 2 teachers in the space. So if one teacher is leading a direct instructional sequence, the other could be taking notes on the whiteboard, making a mind map, asking questions, refocusing, working with a student who is struggling to follow. If one teacher is giving out a set of instructions, the other teacher is writing out the instructions on the white board, sitting with students who need extra help writing the instructions in their book, organising materials and resources needed for the activity. We were then given the opportunity to work collaboratively using a google doc on the specific co-teaching actions to add to possible ideas on what we could do while one teacher is teaching the main group.

We were introduced to 8 teaching approaches for co-teaching.

There are 4 large (L) and 4 small (S) group approaches -

LG#1 - One teach; one observe (1T,1O). One teacher leads the learning while the other observes. The observer could be learning by observation, providing feedback to a co-teaching partner, or gathering data about the teaching or the class. This is a time sensitive approach - 20 minutes review of learning.

LG#2 - One teach; one drift (1T,1D). One teacher leads, while another drifts to support the learners. The drifter could be clarifying and answering questions, refocusing and supporting positive behaviour, extending and/ or checking understanding.

LG#3 - One teach; one support (1T1S). One teacher leads while another supports or assists. The supporter could be taking notes, writing vocabulary, capturing questions, mind mapping, summarising, holding the equipment or operating the technology.

LG#4 - Team teaching (TT). When both teachers take equal responsibility for the teaching of the group. They could both be demonstrating together, role modelling a conversation or Q&A, hot seating, or checking each other’s work (role modelling tukana teina).

SG#1 - Parallel teaching. Teachers are doing the same activity with the same text to ensure the whole group has consistency of experience, working with groups of mixed ability rather than differentiated or targeted groups.

SG#2 - Station Teaching. Teachers are teaching in a small group setting. The children are offered a variety of activities, manages limited resources efficiently, it utilises teacher strengths to facilitate different activities. The children will rotate through the activities.

SG#3 - Targeted teaching. The teachers are running clinics and workshops targeted at the learning they need. It is a way maximise engagement by ensuring students are working on a skill that is appropriate and tied to their next learning step. It is also a way to keep a tight loop between student goals and learning activities.

SG#4 - Alternative teaching. The teachers are offering targeting support for a smaller group or individual. One teacher could be teaching a larger group, while the other is teaching a smaller more specialised group, supporting those children with specific learning needs.

Mark also gave us a number of scenarios of co-teaching and possible actions of the other teachers. He shared his code for the different approaches e.g. 1T/1S/Alt - One teach/ one support/ one takes an alternative (asessment / clinic).

 

Mark also stressed that here are not prizes for using all these approaches. At best 2 -3 for each learning experience.

SO WHAT?

 

By filling in the specific co-teaching actions with my partners, it will help with our expectations of each other and won’t leave too much to chance.

 

There are strengths and cautions of all of these approaches. 

 

 

It would be great to use the code for these approaches in our planning so we can evaluate the effectiveness of these approaches and create deliberate acts of teaching. Also being mindful of the effective use of time to use with the large and small groups to gain engagement for our learners.

 

NOW WHAT?

 

I need to work with my co-teachers and share the latest video so that they know what I am going on about. I would like to incorporate the code into our planning or colour code so we each know what is expected and what the deliberate acts are and make changes during our feedback sessions.

Part of me feels that I can do this as this is what I have done with student teachers in the past but this time I need to be mindful that we are on the same footing as far as teaching as co-teachers.

 

 

 “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” ~ Socrates