Reflection Paper On Co-Teaching

Before attending the co-teaching DVD session, I had never heard of the term. Co-teaching occurs when 2 or more people who have equal licenses actively engage in teaching. There are essential elements of co-teaching, but I believe the most important elements is shared system of beliefs and collaboration. I never observed co-teaching until watching the DVD. I had no idea there were different methods of co-teaching. After watching the video, I would like to try co-teaching because it seems to be beneficial to the students as well as the teachers. The first type of co-teaching method that I observed was One Teach/One Observe. In this method one teacher teaches while the other teacher observes for student goals and understanding. The teacher observing is gathering data. I like this method because the teacher who is giving instruction is able to get feedback from another teacher. This method works great for collecting data, but shouldn’t be used frequently. Although I like this method, I wouldn’t want to use this method in my classroom because I feel like too much pressure is put on one teacher and the

I favor these two methods because both teachers are actively engaged and the students will respect both teachers equally. I feel that the other methods tend to put one teacher as the lead and I believe it should be equal. I favor Station Teaching because you are able to cover more material at once and scaffold, but I also like Parallel Teaching because each teacher is covering the same material. I would use both methods in my classroom, but the method would depend on the situation. Station Teaching is good for scaffolding a lesson and Parallel Teaching is good for teaching in small groups while using various methods. I would love to be able to co-teach because it would allow me to have different perspectives on lessons and someone to share the workload