Teacher World

Well, here I go again, the end of another school year, and a time to look back and reflect on the successes and the failures of this past year.

First, let me remind you that we tried something new this year; a self-contained, co-taught classroom at the fifth grade level. We worried going into this about how the parents and students would respond since all of the other fifth graders switch classes between two teachers. We were so gratified by the positive response from our parents who seemed to sincerely appreciate everything we did for their kids. Since we were with their children all day, we were able to develop a deeper relationship with each one, and that seemed to be appreciated by the majority of our parents.

Because our students had our full attention all day and did not divide their time between our classroom and that of another teacher’s, they thrived on the extra attention they received and the extra time we had to get to know them better. That extra time allowed us to better identify their strengths and weaknesses, which proved instrumental in our ability to individualize instruction.

Another success we experienced this year was the flexibility to break students down into groups when it was clear that they did not understand the material, and also to challenge those who were ready to move ahead. With three adults in a classroom: me, an intervention specialist, and a paraprofessional, we had a flexibility that you normally only dream about.

Again, because we were self-contained, our schedule was extremely flexible. If students were struggling with a concept, we could adjust our schedule at a moment’s notice and continue with that concept until they got it, or if they seemed to catch on quickly, we could forge ahead and move on to other plans faster. That kind of flexibility is a luxury which we thoroughly enjoyed, since it is a rarity in a team teaching scenario.

I also believe that, because we got to know our students so well, they were not as reluctant to admit when they did not understand something we were doing. In a traditional setting, that is often not the case. Our students were comfortable enough with each other and with us to be more honest about their needs.

Finally, I believe that our students learned to be more respectful and understanding of each other’s differences. They learned very early on not to question differences in assigned work, whether in content or quantity. And our general education students were very willing to work with our IEP students and peer tutor them, which our IEP students thoroughly enjoyed. This aspect of our experiment was a win-win situation for everyone.

As to the failures of our experiment, I honestly can only think of one: I think it held our Gen Ed students back a little bit. We sometimes had to move slower than they needed to move, which I know was frustrating to them at times. Information which they could process quickly took longer for the IEP students, which sometimes led to visible frustration and boredom. Frankly, finding the appropriate balance between the pacing of material for Gen Ed versus IEP students is a problem in any classroom, I just feel it was more pronounced in ours since we had an equal number of both students.

Next year we will be going back to traditional team teaching due to a reduction in staff. While I am unhappy that much of what we spent hours creating and preparing will probably go unused next year, I am so very grateful that I had this opportunity. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and the lessons we learned will help us be better teachers in the future.

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With Thanksgiving looming, we all begin to count our blessings and enumerate what we are thankful for. Most of us probably list our families, our health, our friends. But I can’t help but also think of my job and all of the things I have to be grateful for this year professionally.

I am grateful for my co-teacher and my paraprofessional. I am so fortunate to have hard-working but easy-going adults to work with. Our personalities blend beautifully and effortlessly. We have never had a disagreement or even a difference of opinion. We appreciate each other and come in to work each day with a great attitude and with plenty of enthusiasm. The atmosphere is positive and cooperative, and our students see this and react accordingly. I am so grateful that I have had the opportunity to work with these two ladies and can’t imagine working any other way at this point.

I am grateful that I am able to teach in a co-teaching classroom, and that we are really getting it right this year. We are using the techniques we learned in our training classes and have found them to be very effective. We have dabbled with acting as we teach, and our students love it. In one of our conferences, the parents told us how much their daughter enjoys it when we act things out. They commented upon how rare it was to see teachers get into teaching as we do. We are just hams enough that we love being a little silly and entertaining our students whenever we can. As a result, we are working hard, but we are having a great time doing it.

I am grateful that we have a wonderful group of students this year, especially since this is the first time we have tried a self-contained co-teaching classroom. I can’t imagine if we had kids who were discipline problems when they are in your classroom all day except for specials. So, how lucky we are to have a group of students who are respectful of each other, willing to help each other, and so sweet! They aren’t perfect, but pretty darn close, and we are exceedingly grateful for that.

I am grateful for my other coworkers. We have, in my opinion, an exceptional staff comprised of truly caring teachers and aides. And we generally coexist very peacefully. Oh, from time to time there is a minor skirmish or two, but they are usually settled quickly and life goes on as normal. I am grateful that due to our hard work, we have been acknowledged as a school of excellence and distinction. I just wish that it didn’t take test scores to make that determination.

In general, I am grateful for our parents. For the most part, we have very involved and concerned parents who work diligently and in tandem with our school. We have many parents who volunteer their time to come and help teachers or to work with students to review concepts such as math facts. These parents help our school run more smoothly.

The year is young, but I feel so very grateful for the bountiful blessings I have experienced already, and look forward to what is to come. I hope all of you who are reading this have been as blessed as I have been. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

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In my last blog I told you how much I have grown as a result of my new assignment in a self-contained, co-teaching classroom. But I am not the only one growing. I am so proud of my co-teacher and how she has grown, too.

In the past, any intervention specialist I worked with was never an integral part of the lesson planning process. Instead, I would plan out my lessons and tell her what I needed her to do. That was then, this is now! We do all of our planning together making all decisions in tandem and sharing equally in who does what. This is all new to my co-teacher, but she has jumped in whole-heartedly. We blend our styles and ideas to create lessons that have been well-orchestrated and predominately successful.

Traditionally, you must understand that an intervention specialist in an inclusion setting has been an observer during the general education teacher’s lesson, during which time they might circulate to make sure their students are focused and listening. At the end of the lesson, they were often seen circulating to help those students who didn’t understand what they were doing or pulling small groups to reteach or intervene. That was then, this is now! My co-teacher is an equal participant, as am I, in every lesson we teach. This is not always a role an intervention specialist is comfortable with. Their expertise is in reteaching in small groups or one-on-one. They are not used to delivering a lesson in front of a whole classroom. So this is a huge stretch for my co-teacher, but again she has jumped in with both feet, willingly agreeing to costumes and acting out parts, role playing, etc. If someone were to walk into my classroom who didn’t know either of us, I think they would have a difficult time determining who was the general education teacher and who was the intervention specialist. That speaks volumes for my co-teacher’s willingness to do whatever is asked of her.

Intervention specialists are trained to understand the minds and thought processes of students on IEP’s, but now we are asking them to understand the minds and thought processes of the general education student as well. Now, that may not seem like a big deal, but believe me, it is a completely different way of thinking and requires a different way of teaching. It’s more hands-off at times, offering minimal guidance as needed. This is foreign to an intervention specialist who is used to restating and reteaching until the light comes on. The challenge is to not give too much help, which might result in the general education students relying too heavily on her when they might not need that extra help. She is doing an excellent job getting to know both the IEP students and the general education students and determining their actual needs.

Hats off to my co-teacher! I admire her so much for the uncomfortable things she is doing while making it all look so comfortable. We are both growing and stretching, and will continue to do so. I will speak for both of us and say that we are working more but loving the work we do.

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One of the things I love about co-teaching, especially as we are doing it this year, is that it demands that both the general education teacher (that would be me) and the intervention specialist (that would be my friend) move outside our comfort levels and grow in various ways in order to meet the needs of a true co-teaching classroom. This growth is beneficial to everyone involved. Let me explain how it is changing me.

As a general education teacher, I have worked with Learning Disability tutors, as they used to be called, for years. This is how that translated: I would teach a lesson with the LD tutor and their students in an inclusive setting. Then, the tutor would either move from desk to desk helping these students to understand the follow-up activity involved or pull them in a group out in the hall or to another room to work with them. It was no fuss, no muss for me.

Now, that’s changed. Our groups are always fluid; the only time IEP students are pulled separately is to have tests read aloud to them if that is part of their IEP. For the first time, I am just as responsible for whether these students understand the concepts being taught as the intervention specialist. This adds hugely to my job description, but instead of resenting this additional responsibility, I am enjoying it immensely, as it has me thinking and growing in ways I would never have thought or grown before.

I have always admired my co-teacher’s patience, and slowly but surely, I feel it rubbing off on me. I am learning not only to be okay with the tedious task of explaining and re-explaining, but I am actually starting to like it as I am learning to think more like my intervention specialist. I, too, am pondering how my students process information; why some have so much trouble seeing what seems so apparent, or why others are so darn literal. And, it is making me a much better teacher. I find myself building deeper relationships with these students and enjoy discovering their strengths and weaknesses. It is a wonderful feeling to be needed and wanted by these amazing kids.

I have also learned to let my guard down and have fun with my students in a way I would never have allowed myself to do before. My co-teacher and I role play, dress up and act out parts, sing, and enjoy teaching in a way I have never done before. It is such a freeing experience, and our students love it. I can’t begin to tell you how many times we have been clapped for or begged to “do it again”. I think our students see us as adults who are serious about our jobs but also know how to have a good time teaching, and as a result, they have fun learning.

I know that in a very short time I have made more improvements as a teacher than at any other time of my teaching career. And I know I will make many more before this year is over. Change is good in teaching, and this is a change that has been exceptionally good for me.

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In a past blog, I told you that co-teaching is a marriage; a marriage between the general education teacher and the intervention specialist.  As you know, this year my intervention specialist and I are in a full-time marriage as we are self-contained. So, now that I am in a more committed relationship, you might ask how our marriage is going so far this year.

I love it!!!!! Imagine having two teachers working in tandem at all times. That old adage that two heads are better than one is proven daily. Where I hesitate, my co-teacher jumps in, and where she falters, I fill in. As Jerry Maguire would say, “She completes me.” We complement each other so fluidly that our teaching is becoming seamless.

There is never a time when one of us is just sitting. We team teach, parallel teach, orchestrate centers, or work with individuals and groups throughout the day. There is never a time when I feel unsupported by her, or she by me. We role play, act out what we are teaching, and thoroughly enjoy both our students and each other. I can’t say that I have ever enjoyed the actual act of teaching quite so much. I am so grateful to have this opportunity.

I spent considerable time over the summer wondering whether the choice we made to be self-contained was a wise one. I worried about teaching subjects I had never taught before. But I needn’t have worried. And if I needed any proof, I got that at the end of this past week when another one of our school’s intervention specialists, who has stopped in often throughout the past two weeks asking for advice or just to see what we are doing, told us that she wished she could be doing what we are doing because it looked like we were so much more effective and the kids seemed to love it. She talked about feeling like she was being pulled in two different directions as she moves from teacher to teacher. I always called that the yo-yo effect. I think for the first time in three years my friend and co-teacher does not feel like a yo-yo, and I don’t feel short-changed. So, I love this marriage, and I hope to stay in it for a long time.

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As I have explained in previous blogs, this year my co-teacher and I are experimenting with a self-contained, co-teaching classroom. Since we are trying something so different, I plan to spend time blogging on a regular basis about what is happening in our classroom and how our efforts are paying off. So, here goes:

Day one down, only 180-some to go!!!!! Yes, today was our first day of school, and I am so glad it is over, although all in all, it went quite well. Our focus today was to set forth the important premise that there is no “unfair” in our classroom. To get this point across, we used two exercises to underscore the fact that we all come into the classroom with different abilities, and our job is to provide the tools to ensure that everyone will have the same opportunity to succeed. In this blog, I will describe one of those activities.

In our first exercise, we hung two large candy bars from the ceiling at a height we knew our tallest student could reach. We then asked him to come and take the candy bar of his choice. He did so easily, and then we picked a significantly smaller student and invited her to do the same thing. Of course, she could not reach the last candy bar, and she began to complain that it wasn’t fair because it was too high for her to reach. I asked what we could do to make it fair. She first said that I could reach it for her, and I said that I was willing to help her, but I wasn’t willing to do it for her. She thought for a minute and asked if she could use a stepstool I had in the room. I said sure, and helped her to use it to retrieve the candy bar.

We all celebrated her victory, and then I asked the class what was unfair about the candy bar exercise. Interestingly, no one said that it wasn’t fair that they didn’t get a candy bar, but everyone agreed that it wasn’t fair that we had placed the candy bars where only the tallest student in the class could reach them. I asked if they thought it was fair that I let the shorter student use a stepstool. They all agreed that using the stepstool made it fair for the student who could not physically reach the candy bar. At this point, we asked how learning was similar to this activity. After much discussion, we arrived at the conclusion that everyone comes into the classroom with different abilities and everyone also has areas which are a challenge for them. We asked them if they thought it would be fair for us to ask a student to do something they couldn’t do, or if it would be fairer to give them a leg-up and give them the tools (just like a stepstool) to achieve their goals. Everyone agreed that giving struggling students the necessary tools would be the fair thing to do. I asked them why they thought I wouldn’t just give the shorter student the candy bar when she asked. We all agreed it doesn’t help them if we simply give them the answers.

So, what did we conclude? They agreed they will not say, “That’s not fair!” when we provide students with the help they need, or their peers have a reduced assignment to complete, or a different activity to reinforce the same skill is used, etc. We agreed that our goal to make sure everyone in the classroom is successful is the fair thing to do. How awesome to have students reach this conclusion on their own!

So, as I write this, even though I am exhausted, I am optimistic about this group and its potential, and I think it is going to be an awesome year! I’ll keep you posted.

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Okay, some of you have read my blogs all year about co-teaching and the class I had this year. If so, you know that my team teacher and I were given a large number of low-achieving Gen Ed students, and my homeroom specifically was comprised of a homogeneously low group with no real leaders. We worried and stressed over the OAA’s, and I can honestly say that we never worked harder than we did this year to prepare our students. The dreaded news arrived last week that the test results were in. As I opened my email which would disclose the dire news, it was a feeling akin to facing your executioner. I forced myself to study the numbers which flashed on my screen, in spite of the knot tightening in my stomach. And, guess what?

Our students’ scores were awesome! Unbelievable based on the difficulties we faced! Our combined classrooms had a 90% passage rate for both reading and math and 100% for science for our general education students! Amazing! And our SPED students did a wonderful job as well. The passage rate for reading was 60%, and for math and science it was 50%. This was a huge improvement over last year’s SPED results. My first reaction was total elation and a sense of pride that our hard work really paid off. There was no way, judging from last year’s test results, that we should ever have achieved such an outcome. After I came down from the ceiling, I began to ask myself what these test scores had taught me. So here goes:

1. Co-teaching works. Pure and simple! The methodology behind co-teaching sounds great, but we proved it is great. The ability to restructure a classroom in dynamic ways with the aid of an intervention specialist and a paraprofessional is hugely responsible for the results we attained.

2. Homogeneous grouping of children, especially of lower achieving children, is a huge and unnecessary stress on teachers and is unfair to students. I cannot emphasize enough what a constant struggle we faced with my students to get them to progress. Statistically, my homeroom had a lower passage rate by one student for both reading and math on the OAA. But I can hear you saying, “Hey, quit whining! That’s just part of the job you signed up for.” And to an extent, you would be right. We all know we will have students who will need extra time and help from us to be successful. But I did not sign up for a classroom where the majority of the students fell into this category. Maybe I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that we believe in the philosophy of inclusion. If it’s good for the SPED population, shouldn’t it be good for the Gen Ed population as well?

3. As much as I am celebrating our victory, I am fearful of the message it sends to others, especially our principal. You see, I am afraid that some people will look at what we achieved and say, “See, we knew they could take on this difficult task and succeed. All of the concerns they voiced last year were proven wrong, so we can load up the co-teaching classrooms in the future just like we did this past year. They will make it work!” Maybe we performed way beyond even our own expectations, and maybe we were just lucky. I would rather not be thrown back into the fire to see which it was.

4. It felt so good to see those exceptional results, but I am already dreading the stress that these tests will make me feel again next year. And that’s what’s wrong with these tests. They have become too important to teachers whose very jobs may someday ride on the outcome of random questions which, supposedly, are the criterion for determining how effective they are, not their students, but they are as teachers.

So, for now, I celebrate our students’ success, our success, and try very hard not to worry about next year’s tests. (At least for a couple of weeks…)

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It’s that time of year again; that busy time spent packing up and wrapping up another school year. This time of year, I think teachers everywhere spend some time counting their successes and targeting areas that still need improvement. This is a necessary exercise as it shapes our next year and helps us to make critical decisions about the future. So, here goes! Here are some of my triumphs and some of my works in progress.

* I am grateful that I was able to receive training for co-teaching and have had the opportunity to practice all of the teaching strategies. My goal next year is to start the year out right. No “my class/your class”. And a good balance of tried and true approaches to presenting curriculum. My co-teacher and I had time to sit down and tentatively map out our hopes and dreams for next year, and I am so excited that I wish I could jump in right away! I am grateful, however, for the summer and the time to make our plans more concrete so we will be well-prepared for next year.

* I am encouraged that my voice was heard regarding the need to establish a classroom which has a better heterogeneous mixture for next year. I am confident that we will be more successful as a result. This year’s homogeneous grouping of students stifled many of our attempts to raise the bar academically, but we have higher hopes for next year’s students.

* We successfully addressed the issue of bullying this year. I worked hand-in-hand with our guidance counselor to introduce anti-bullying curriculum, and incidents involving bullying were dealt with quickly and effectively. This is an on-going goal which will require time and effort every year.

* It has been an awesome reprieve for me to only have to prepare students for the reading OAA test, since the social studies test has been removed for this year and next. But, I realize how difficult a task it will be for me (since I will be teaching a self-contained fifth grade class) to cover all that I am required to cover to prepare students for three tests next year and all four the following years. Yikes! It comes as no surprise to you, if you have been following my blogs, that this is the least favorite part of my job. But I take the OAA seriously; therefore, I realize I have my work cut out for me.

* I have learned how to share my space this year, and actually enjoy having another adult in my classroom. I have even learned to give up the reins more frequently and rely on my co-teacher to share my job. This is a work in progress for me, as it is not natural for me to give up control in my classroom. Luckily, we get along very well, and I trust her judgment. We also agree philosophically on what is best for our students. I look forward to making decisions mutually and truly sharing every aspect of the classroom.

All in all, this has been a great year. I have grown professionally and have been challenged, which keeps teaching from growing stale. Next year the challenges will be even greater. I can’t wait! And I hope you will follow my continued journey throughout the summer and into a new year. Good luck to all of you teachers out there as you close out your year. God bless you for the job you do.

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I am here to tell you that I love co-teaching! Now that the intervention specialist and I are more aware of what we should be doing and we are trying correct approaches to co-teaching, we firmly believe that it is the best way to service most special education students, and I am so glad to be involved in this experience.

Since participating in the class taught by Marilyn Friend, we have been experimenting with different techniques. My team teacher, co-teacher, paraprofessional, and I blocked off the whole morning one day last week to set up six stations, three in each classroom, to do a variety of math and reading activities that would reinforce and/or review concepts we have been teaching. Students circulated in groups that were strategically planned to provide a heterogeneous mixture and a blending of the two classrooms. The activities were fun but content aligned. The students loved it and expressed their desire to do this again. So we just finished stations with activities to reinforce the differences between homophones, homonyms, and homographs. Again, the activity level was high, kids were physically and mentally involved in each station, and the day was a success.

The intervention specialist and I have also been utilizing parallel teaching. The benefits I see to this technique are numerous. It is advantageous to the students to work in smaller groups allowing us to better determine understanding of the concepts we are covering. There is better opportunity for students to get their questions answered. The movement from group to group provides a break between activities which many of our students really need. The intervention specialist and I have learned that we need to watch our volume when we teach. There are times I find myself listening to what my co-teacher is saying rather than to my students, and she admitted the same to me. So this is something we will continue to work on. 

We have a long way to go, but this is so exciting! We sense it, and so do the kids. We are on the right road, and working hard to make up for lost time. And my fervent hope is that I will be able to do this again next year. Now that we know what we are doing, you’d better believe we will do whatever it takes to get it right!

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We have missed the mark when it comes to co-teaching. Oh, don’t get me wrong! I firmly believe that co-teaching is the right strategy for effectively teaching our special education population. But at the administrative level things break down when the time and the money is not spent to educate all teachers in a school system as to what co-teaching is and how it works before they ask them to become involved in a co-teaching classroom.

Teachers are pragmatic, content-driven, goal-oriented, problem-solving souls. But to be successful, we need all of the information up front that will help us to accomplish our task. Teachers are wired to work in a unique way. When faced with the need to make significant changes in our teaching assignment, we need to do our homework (reading about and studying that new technique) and our planning (aligning our curriculum and creating the strategies and materials we will need to support that new technique) before we are comfortable with the changes we are asked to make.

So, along comes co-teaching. A significantly altered way of teaching and running a classroom than most of us are used to. Now, what happens when we are asked to teach in a co-teaching classroom but we have not had any training or been provided with the opportunity to gain the expertise we will need to be successful? Panic, fear, stubborn unwillingness to comply, anger, frustration! The reactions are usually negative because this is not how we work. And then our administrators are surprised when we don’t get all excited about the prospect of this new assignment.

Train us first. Make sure we are comfortable with the concept and even excited about the potential. Give us time to do the research and practice the techniques. Let us even observe co-teaching at work. Then come and ask us. I guarantee that in most instances, the reaction will be so much more positive. Now, I am not naive.  I know that there are going to be a few teachers who will dig in their heels and be unwilling to put forth the extra effort that it most certainly takes to teach in a co-taught classroom. And there will be some, no matter how much they are trained, who will never be comfortable in this type of classroom and probably should not attempt it as a result. But I am sure that most teachers would be much more willing if they knew what they were getting into first.

Instead, teachers are usually asked first and trained sometime later, if at all. Our training was way too late, and I know of some teachers involved in co-teaching who are still waiting to be trained. Where else would this ever happen? (Certainly not in business, medicine, law, etc.) And then when we don’t meet AYP with our sped population, how can they wonder why?

Come on! Let’s get this right! Train us and we will come! Train us ahead of time and watch the excitement and success rate increase. We are in this career because we love education, so give us what we love. Give us a thorough education in co-teaching before you ask us to co-teach, and we might just surprise you by our willingness and even desire to be a part of this awesome experience!

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