MODULE 8. Where do teachers find support (co-teaching, educational technologists, student assistants)
In the Module participants will:
- learn about the existing co-teaching models
- learn about co-teaching in online/hybrid situations
- learn about planning co-teaching lessons organized in hybrid classroom situation
- collaborate in identifying co-teaching partnerships from inside and outside of school, that could help them to be more efficient in hybrid classroom settings.
Hybrid learning: it’s a new world of education, and since the beginning of the generalized online/digital education due to the pandemic situation, many teachers and students have been feeling overwhelmed by the unfamiliar educational situations that have been created.
Many of the educators searched for methodological solutions and technical support that could answer both remote and face to face learning, as well as for hybrid educational setups. Despite the fact that tens of thousands of teachers from all over Europe joined in-service teacher training programs, although we experienced a serious technological boom in developing new and efficient digital apps, programs, tools and devices there are still many new challenges to be faced.
One of the most important changes that has been the consequence of the digital transformation, besides technological and methodological developments, is that many educators are searching for support from fellow teachers or other professionals from inside or outside schools.
We are witnessing a constant professional need and openness for co-working, co-teaching and collaboration between teachers or those of educators with paraprofessionals, parents or other specialists. Educators realized that the challenges of a digitalized onsite, remote or hybrid education can be faced much more easily in teamwork, than individually.
The main objective of this module is to contribute to the growth of this mentality as well as by providing ideas and tips fit for hybrid education, good practices and encouragement to ensure the open mindfulness necessary for this, and also by encouraging them to search for creative and innovative new solutions.
8.1. Co-teaching and co-teaching partnerships from inside and outside of school
What is co-teaching?
Co-teaching involves two or more teachers working together — sharing the planning, organization, delivery, and assessment of instruction, as well as physical and virtual spaces.
Co-teaching (also known as collaborative team teaching) is frequently used in inclusive, integrated education where often general education teachers collaborate with special education teachers working together in the general education classroom. Also in some educational systems alternative pedagogies (e.g. Step By Step or Montessori education) are using several models of the six basic setups of co-teaching being based on the collaboration of two ore even more educators.
For an efficient and engaging, successful co-teaching educators are expected to go through the cycle of co-teaching, being considered the most powerful way to improve teaching practices. The co-teaching cycle includes the following stages:
- co-planning
- co-teaching
- co-reflecting and
- co-debriefing.
By following the stages of the co-teaching cycle educators plan lessons together and teach together to support the diverse academic and social-emotional needs of all students.
Co-teaching allows educators to support each-other in facing the challenges of differentiation needs, to support group work or to more easily manage/implement educational projects. Also in a mixed or hybrid situation, or even in a fully remote educational setup co-teaching helps managing efficiently all special situations, that might occur.
Although much co-teaching research still emphasizes collaboration between specialist and generalist educators, elsewhere the focus has widened to include other educational roles both from inside the school (such as teacher librarians, language specialists, counsellors, student assistants and technology support personnel) and both form outside school (specialists, volunteers or parents).
According to Friend, Reising and Cook (1993) there are six models of co-teaching used in classroom settings.
For a better understanding of these models, please, watch the videos below.
What is co-teaching?
Teachers+Teacher librarians=Better learning
Reference
Co-teaching in contemporary learning environments: a handbook of evidence for educators, at: https://education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/en/home/teaching-and-learning/school-learning-environments-and-change/future-focused-learning-and-teaching/Co-Teaching_Handbook_.pdf
6 models of co-teaching, at: https://www.understood.org/articles/en/6-models-of-co-teaching
Friend, M., Reising, M., & Cook, L. (1993). Co-teaching: An overview of the past, a glimpse at the present, and considerations for the future. Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 37(4), 6–10. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1045988X.1993.994461
Teachers+Teacher librarians=Better learning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKtZ_unsHHo&t=83s
Additional readings and videos
https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-choose-co-teaching-model
Co-teaching handbook. Utah guidelines. at: https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1583541712/davisk12utus/vkbe748ncmi5m2qlvhby/USBE-Co-TeachingHandbook.pdf
Co-teaching models: Strategies and planning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDTrcG4NuZ8
Co-teaching explained:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToGUD5rz7lo
Co-teaching and teacher collaboration:
https://youtu.be/kkgmOATcC1c?si=74jkzf1MW5a8buo7
Tutorials for collaborative platforms:
Padlet Tutorial for Teachers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC69Sr-Oqik
How to create and share a Padlet with students:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X98bn-8zEMg
Creating a Nearpod Collaborate Board:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRv1VrW5YMA
How to use MURAL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep-4EhmWfQI
How to use Miro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpV5gQaPxYE
How to use Jamboard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1qS6avlnaE
How to use Google Jamboard for remote learning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9m4HCjOkcA
Assignment: Create a collaborative panel
After watching the videos:
Imagine that you are an educator in one of the co-teaching setups seen in the video, and:
Create a collaborative panel (using Jamboard, Padlet, Miro, Nearpod etc.- see tutorials below) and describe this situation in max. 50 words. Please mention an imaginary topic of the lesson of the class, the subject(s), that you teach, the number of the students from this class, why did you chose this model or any other relevant information.
Create post-its/topic sections on your panel/board and answer to the below questions:
Post-it 1. Co-teaching with teachers:
What subject teachers would you invite to be your co-teaching partner? Why? Would you consider interdisciplinary team-teaching? If yes, how? If not, why?
How could your partner help you? What tasks he/she could have according to the chosen model?
How could you support each-others work?
Post-it 2. Co-teaching with paraprofessionals or other partners outside school:
- Who else would you involve in co-teaching from school staff specialists?
- How could they support teaching?
- Who could you have as teaching support from outside the school?
- How could they contribute to co-teaching?
- How could your partner help you?
- What tasks he/she could have according to the chosen model?
- How could you support each-others work?
Post-it 3 to 6. My/Our imaginary S.W.O.T. analysis on co-teaching.
Make a short S.W.O.T. analysis formulating one sentence that shows the benefits (Strengths), the challenges (Weaknesses), the Opportunities and the Threats of using the chosen co-teaching model.
By sharing the link of your collaborative panel invite fellow learners, your trainers and/or colleagues from your school or professional network to comment on your post its and/or open a discussion forum in the MOOC.
Provide at least one feedback, reflection to other fellow learner’s collaborative panels/discussion forums.
8.2. Implementing co-teaching models in hybrid education. Teaching partnerships in hybrid classrooms.
The co-teaching model can transform the general education classroom into a more inclusive environment where students receive remediation, interventions, and individualized instruction.
Two educators (and/or paraprofessionals, volunteers or other partners) co-teaching and collaborating in the room (virtual and/or in-person) means more opportunities to build meaningful relationships with students, differentiate instruction, provide evidence-based interventions, efficiently meeting and answering student’s needs.
Pandemic situations created a variety of educational situations that had to be faced by schools. From the entirely face to face education, schools had to switch to fully remote learning, facing hybrid situations as well. All over Europe quarantine regulations divided student communities in two, creating hybrid educational setups, situations in which groups of students had to attend classes online, other groups being present in the physical classroom. In these situations, co-teaching strategies, different collaboration models between teachers or those of teachers with paraprofessionals and other educational partners, proved to be a valuable educational support.
Moreover, in-service teacher training programs have been ruled into a fully remote system, and hybrid setups were experienced following partial relaxations from the pandemic situation.
Can we imagine the co-teaching models adapted to hybrid situations?
How can teachers support each other’s work in hybrid situations?
Can co-teaching and collaboration with other specialists, paraprofessionals, assistants etc. work in hybrid educational setups as well?
Could the supporting teaching partnerships make hybrid education more efficient and engaging?
Reference
Co-teaching: Strategies that work in hybrid models and beyond.
https://blog.betterlesson.com/co-teaching-strategies-that-work-in-hybrid-models-and-beyond
Additional readings and videos:
Meeting Students Where They Are: Strategies that Increase Engagement. Teaching strategies for remote, hybrid, or in-person learning environments to support all students – especially students with disabilities. https://info.betterlesson.com/hubfs/Collateral/Whitepapers/Guide_Meeting%20Students%20Where%20They%20Are_Siesfeld.pdf
How can technology be used to facilitate teacher teamwork? Digital Co-Teaching. https://hundred.org/en/innovations/digital-co-teaching#adadd0c5
Co-Teaching Strategies for Remote Learning
https://www.albert.io/blog/coteaching-remote-learning/#Common_Co-Teacher_Models_for_Remote_Learning
Co-teaching in remote and hybrid learning environments.
http://tregoed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Co_Teaching_Handout_Virtual.pdf
Co-teaching: Strategies that work in hybrid models and beyond. https://blog.betterlesson.com/co-teaching-strategies-that-work-in-hybrid-models-and-beyond
Assignment: Co-teaching
- Read and study the below resources about the adaptation of co-teaching models to remote/hybrid teaching situations.
https://www.albert.io/blog/coteaching-remote-learning/#Common_Co-Teacher_Models_for_Remote_Learning
https://blog.betterlesson.com/co-teaching-strategies-that-work-in-hybrid-models-and-beyond
Choose one preferred model and adapt it to an experienced/imagined hybrid educational situation. Think of educators/co-teaching partners` online/offline presence, platforms used, roles and tasks, strategies etc. Watch again, if necessary, the What is co-teaching? (Unit. 1) video about the 6 six co-teaching models.
Make notes about your ideas on one of the sheets of the Jamboard panel below. https://jamboard.google.com/d/11Kw_FRmSHGU8xrVdSWCodu97QWYBjmadAm4VTceXbI8/edit?usp=sharing
Don’t forget to fill the first post-it with your name and country. - In the How do we co-teach? video you can meet two Hungarian teachers as a native language teachers from Romania, teaching in lower secondary schools located in different regions of Transylvania. To support each-other during the pandemics they chose to develop a Google sites page as a shared educational resource for themselves and their students.
Watch their video carefully and adapt their idea/good practice to the earlier chosen co-teaching model.
The following questions could guide you:- What model could I suggest Kata and Krisztina to support each other’s classroom activity in a hybrid situation?
- Which one of them should be offline/online?
- What tasks could they have according to the characteristics of the chosen model?
- What should they pay attention to in planning/implementing?
Would you suggest involving other specialists / paraprofessionals / technicians / teacher assistants / student assistants / librarians etc.?
Could you identify 3-5 tips as advice to those two teachers?
Complete your notes in the Jamboard sheet that you started earlier. Don’t forget to fill the first post-it with your name and country. https://jamboard.google.com/d/11Kw_FRmSHGU8xrVdSWCodu97QWYBjmadAm4VTceXbI8/edit?usp=sharing
After finishing the Jamboard, check out the other students` ideas from their Jamboard sheets and provide feedback to fellow colleagues’ ideas in a Discussion forum.
Reflection question Unit 8.2.
As an introduction, please reflect on the below questions/situations:
Have I ever been in a hybrid educational situation during the pandemics?
Or
Have I ever had students staying at home for different reasons, who could have participated in my onsite classes remotely?
What educational challenges was I facing in that hybrid situation?
Knowing the 6 models of co-teaching, how could I have helped my absent students by implementing one of them? What strategy would I have chosen?
Make notes on your thoughts and post them as a Discussion forum.
8.3. Tips for planning a hybrid lesson using co-teaching
In a hybrid educational environment, planning is especially important, even for co-teaching partners with considerable experience. Initially, it includes clarification of roles and expectations in both physical and virtual setting, development of an ongoing planning schedule and process, and selection of data collection strategies. In ongoing planning, co-teachers separately prepare for planning sessions by addressing their own primary areas of responsibility; when they periodically meet electronically or in person, they discuss upcoming instruction, co-teaching approaches that will facilitate student learning, and data to be gathered.
Whether you’ve worked with your co-teacher for years or your new partners, it’s always beneficial to prepare together everything in details before the class. If your classroom is switching to a hybrid setup, your conversations will look a little different than past years.
Collaboration with your co-teaching partner should be purposeful, detailed, productive, and enjoyable. The online environment changes the way these conversations might look, but it doesn’t change its essential content.
Planning is key to the success of any course or lesson, and this is especially true for hybrid. You want to make sure that what you ask students to do online are a good fit for online, and that the same is true for the face to face component. Each class session, regardless of format, should seem like a natural fit for the medium, that what students are doing should be done in that particular format.
The most challenging part of planning a hybrid class is figuring out how to integrate the two experiences – the face to face and the online – so that they capitalize on and amplify each other. In this last unit you will go through a couple of tips and steps, advices about what to focus on when co-planning a lesson in hybrid educational situation.
Watch the Tips for planning a hybrid lesson using co-teaching video and do the assignment below.
References
Co-teaching in remote and hybrid learning environments
http://tregoed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Co_Teaching_Handout_Virtual.pdf
An Introduction to Hybrid Teaching https://www.codlearningtech.org/PDF/hybridteachingworkbook.pdf
How to create Co-teaching Lesson Plans for Remote Learning
https://www.albert.io/blog/coteaching-remote-learning/#Co-Teaching_Preparation_and_Planning_What_to_Do_Before_You_Co-Teach_Virtually
Additional readings:
Co-teaching in remote and hybrid learning environments
http://tregoed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Co_Teaching_Handout_Virtual.pdf
Hybrid teaching: tips for smotther lesson planning and task design
https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2021/03/19/hybrid-teaching-tips-for-smoother-lesson-planning-and-task-design/
Six planning best practices for the hybrid classroom
https://www.ringcentral.com/us/en/blog/6-planning-best-practices-for-the-hybrid-classroom/
Plan for hybrid learning to maximize your time and build connections with students
https://avidopenaccess.org/resource/start-with-the-big-picture-when-planning-for-hybrid-learning/
How to plan for hybrid teaching and learning
https://www.commonsense.org/education/articles/how-to-plan-for-hybrid-teaching-and-learning
Effective instructional models for a hybrid schedule
https://www.edutopia.org/article/effective-instructional-models-hybrid-schedule
Reimagining co-teachers within remote learning environments
http://katienieves.com/supportiveedtech/co-teaching-reimagined-the-six-models-within-remote-learning
How to teach in a hybrid classroom
https://resources.owllabs.com/blog/how-to-teach-in-a-hybrid-classroom
An Introduction to Hybrid Teaching
https://www.codlearningtech.org/PDF/hybridteachingworkbook.pdf
Co-teaching in contemporary learning environments: a handbook of evidence for educators
https://education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/en/home/teaching-and-learning/school-learning-environments-and-change/future-focused-learning-and-teaching/Co-Teaching_Handbook_.pdf
Flipped classroom model: why, how and Overview
https://youtu.be/BCIxikOq73Q
Flipped classroom model
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdKzSq_t8k8
Assignment: Common expectations
As you could find out from the video, to hold each other accountable and get on the same page, both teachers can sign a co-teaching contract (Links to an external site.). Among other topics defining common Expectations in the contract is considered to be very important for a successful co-teaching partnership.
- Make a list of common Expectation ideas, that you would include in such a contract.
- Focus on a hybrid educational setup. Start a Discussion forum by presenting this short list of common Expectations.
Reflection question Unit 8.3.
What are your biggest hopes for your work as co-teaching partners in a hybrid educational situation?