Co-Teaching

Co-teaching is described as 'a restructuring of the teaching procedures in which two or more educators work in a co-active and coordinated fashion to jointly teach academically and behaviourally heterogenous groups of students in integrated educational settings' (Brauwens & Hourcade 1995, p46, cited in Rice & Zigmond 2000). In theory co-teaching sounds like a great idea. There is more than one teacher to assist the children meaning that each child can receive increased assistance should they require it. There is also opportunities for a greater variety of teaching practices such as station teaching where the class is split into groups and spends a short amount of time on one task before moving to a new station and starting a new, but still related, task.

However, despite the benefits, co-teaching is very rarely used consistently in Primary schools. This is due to a multitude of reasons, not least of which is that some schools struggle to find one teacher to teach a class, let alone two. In a large number of cases the only co-teaching environments some childen come across is where a students with special needs is in their class (Foreman P, 2008). A co-teaching environment is often seen as being synonymous with students with additional needs, however the benefits to the rest of the students are often overlooked. For example, the students or students with additional needs no longer take up additional teaching time as the second teacher in the room can assist them and allow the rest of the class to continue working uninterrupted. Whilst on practicum it was witnessed that only the special needs classroom had two or more teachers on a consistent basis. The mainstream children had to make do with one teacher or on rare occasions a parent of one of the students would help with guided reading, art etc.

After reading the benefits of co-teaching in Foreman (2008) it is clear that co-teaching holds an advantage on students learning as compared to a single educator teaching. There are a number of different and effective strategies that can implemented with co-teaching that can be of huge benefit to the students. Some of the strategies are shown in the video below in a practical real world classroom.

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Co-teaching is not always a viable option for some schools, and even when it is, successfully implementing and planning for such a classroom presents problems in itself. However, when it is done effectively, the education of all the students involved is improved.

References : Foreman P (2008) //Inclusion in Action// (2nd Edition) Cengage Learning Australia Pty Limited.

Rice D & Zigmond N (2000) Co-teaching in Secondary Schools: Teacher Reports on Developments in Australia and American Classrooms. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 190-7.

YouTube Video (2009) Co-Teaching Strategies (Video File) Retrieved from [], accessed 27/06/2011


 * Team Teaching is one form of Co-Teaching. For more information see the Team Teaching Wiki**