Teacher World

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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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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In previous blogs, I have told you that I have been co-teaching for a year and a half but have never had the opportunity to be trained by Marilyn Friend, the co-teaching guru. Well, that changed recently when I had the privilege of attending a two-day class with her which was both informative and exciting.

Okay, true confession! We thought we were co-teaching, but we most definitely were not! Oh, there were brief periods of time when we came close, but after taking this course, we realize that we have a long way to go.

One of the biggest mistakes we unwittingly have made is not blending our classroom in such a way that there is no “my kids, your kids”. Our grouping has most frequently been the traditional pulling of SPED students to work on skill building and reinforcement. Only occasionally has our grouping been heterogeneous. We thought we were providing instruction in a way that would be most helpful to these students, but the research proving otherwise is quite compelling, so this is a mistake we will work diligently to rectify.

We are also reevaluating the approaches we use in delivering instruction. We learned about the various co-teaching approaches: one teach, one observe; station teaching; parallel teaching; alternative teaching; teaming; and one teach, one assist. We were asked to evaluate which techniques we use and to what extent. Again, I must confess, we have missed the mark. Our approach has been pretty traditional, relying primarily on the general education teacher to do the teaching with the intervention specialist assisting. Occasionally we did some parallel teaching, but not often. We are working now to balance our instruction and intervention allowing for a better balance between our team members. And we are also collaborating as a team to utilize a variety of teaching approaches increasing our opportunities to gather important data to determine the effectiveness of our instruction and to provide proof of student progress.

My only regret is that we didn’t have the opportunity to take this course before our first year of co-teaching. I regret the lost opportunity to do so much more with last year’s students and look forward to working more productively for the remainder of this year. And if given the chance to co-teach again next year, which is my hope, we will set the right tone from the start, and I have no doubt that it will be a better experience for all those involved. That’s one of the joys of teaching; it is never stagnant. It is always changing as we strive to deliver effective instruction to optimize the opportunity to turn out successful learners. And that’s just what we plan to do.

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As I mentioned in a previous blog, the U.S. Department of Education will by holding meetings to look at a variety of educational issues. I would like to address another one of the issues they will be discussing: assessing students with disabilities. This is an issue that has become extremely problematic since the introduction of NCLB, which has created the impossible expectation that all students, including those in special education, are expected to pass their state achievement tests. Teachers everywhere shook their heads in disbelief when this was added to the list of expectations by our government.

Before NCLB, we administered achievement tests to all students, but SPED scores were usually not factored into overall school’s scores because, for most of these students, the tests were extremely difficult and tedious. Through no fault of their own, this population of students struggle with the regular education curriculum and require accommodations and modifications, which are delineated in an IEP, in order to be successful in the classroom. Now, with the push for inclusion and co-teaching, most of these students are in a regular education classroom all or most of the day. Let me be clear that I am all for inclusion and for pushing these students to participate in as much of the regular education curriculum as they can. But even with my higher functioning SPED students, curriculum needs to be adjusted regularly to allow them to experience success. Accommodations and modifications range from shorter assignments, extended time to complete assignments, tests and selections read to them, etc. So we make all of these provisions for them knowing that it would be difficult or impossible for them to be successful without them, and then we sit them down in the spring and make them take the same test that the regular education students will take with no reduction in length, and the only modification they have is that the directions and questions can be read to them. The numerous selections on the reading test cannot be read to them, and calculators cannot be used on the math test. Then we take their results and include them with those of the regular ed population. Does this seem reasonable or fair?

Why don’t we test and evaluate these students in a more meaningful manner? What if we looked at their progress to determine if they have achieved AYP? Isn’t that a more meaningful measure of success for these students than expecting them to somehow miraculously perform on tests in a way that their IEP would collaborate is not their most effective way of performing? When I think of the stress we place upon these students to pass these tests, it seems preposterous to me. Wouldn’t we better serve them by striving for yearly progress in their educational journey, and setting realistic and attainable goals to help them be successful in that endeavor? Don’t get me wrong! If a SPED student is capable of passing these tests, let their scores by factored into their school’s scores. But for those who can’t, let’s evaluate them fairly and not make them feel any less able than they already do.

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Should schools back down to parental demands out of fear of reprisals, or should we stand firm and face the consequences? Let me explain the situation that leads me to this question we all have faced or will probably face eventually.

I have a student on an IEP who is capable of so much more than her parents will acknowledge. They hide behind her IEP and use it to limit her education instead of pushing her to be all that she can be in spite of her disabilities. This girl has learned that if she complains enough about the work she has to do, her parents will clamor to reduce it. The truth is that she is capable of so much more than her parents will make her do, but she is becoming increasingly lazy and sloppy in her work habits because they are allowing her to decide her performance level.  

In her recent IEP conference, additional modifications were demanded by her parents and additional restrictions were made regarding how their daughter would be evaluated. This was the opportunity to point out that these modifications would only be reasonable if she were truly unable to perform at the level we are expecting. But that point was not made, and most of the additional modifications and restrictions that they were demanding were added to her IEP.

Now, who was hurt by this? While I am annoyed to be told that I must follow this amended IEP, I only have her this year. She will move on to another teacher in the fall who will have to deal with a girl who is so much more capable than her parents let her be, and the parents who will continue to make demands and continue to lower their expectations for their daughter. The ones that will be hurt in time are the parents and this little girl. I think they will look back someday and wish they had pushed her harder to rise above her disability instead of using it as an excuse. This girl, who has so much potential, will look back someday and wish she had made better use of the education she could have gotten so that she can get a good job or maybe even attend college someday. (All options which will be greatly reduced due to the decisions being made now, supposedly on her behalf.)
It’s a shame, but it happens all the time because we live in a sue-crazy world, and it paralyzes school systems, even when they know they should not give in. It is a sad state of affairs and one that hurts more than it helps.  I, for one, am not proud of the decisions we make when we are under pressure to conform to parents’ demands. And I have seen too many situations like this where we give in when we should stand firm. The sad truth is that no one really wins in the end.

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For the second year in a row, I have been working in a co-teaching classroom, and, while I love the premise behind this innovative approach to teaching SPED children, I contest that something may be getting lost in translation. Is the purpose to improve the motivation and job performance of the SPED student, or is it to overload these classrooms to such an extent that success is difficult, if not downright unattainable?

I team teach with another colleague, and both of our classes have a 25% SPED population. Now, that alone is a significant challenge, but there seems to be a misconception that our classrooms should be used for those other at-risk students who might benefit from small group and one-on-one instruction, too. Unfortunately, as a result, our classrooms are so overloaded with students who did not pass last year’s OAT tests for math and reading that we feel that we have been set up for failure. How do we provide services to our IEP students, even with an intervention specialist or paraprofessional in our room, when so many of our regular education students require the same degree of intervention and additional instruction as our SPED students? Making matters even worse is the fact that between the two of us, we do not have even one gifted child. Zero, zip, nadda! Does this sound like a formula for success?

I think the premise behind co-teaching is awesome. I saw its benefits last year when we had a more heterogeneous grouping of children, and we were very successful. And that is the key: there needs to be a range of students from gifted to SPED students to make this teaching strategy work. That means that teachers need to alter their view of the co-teaching classroom. They cannot make promises to parents of every struggling regular education student that they will place them in the co-teaching classroom where their needs will more adequately be met. Because, frankly, when the number of students who require extra services far exceeds those who do not, everyone in that classroom suffers, including the teachers who can never do enough to keep up with the wide variety of demands in their classroom.

If co-teaching is worth doing, and I believe it is, it’s worth doing right!

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This year I volunteered to work with Resource Room children in a co-teaching classroom. I have taught the LD tutored students for years and was looking forward to a change. And what a change it has been! In many ways, I love it and it has taught me both patience and new teaching strategies. But it can also be very frustrating, and we find ourselves questioning whether some of the students would be better serviced in a traditional resource room.

First, the positives: A co-teaching classroom is ideal for those students who need less academic support and perform better when challenged by their peers. Their desire to be in a regular education classroom creates a strong work ethic, and they are extremely successful as a result. It is these students who have made significant growth in our classroom this year. It has been such a pleasure to see their growth and self confidence as the year has progressed. We are hopeful that the OAT tests will reflect their academic progress this year.

I also have had the honor of working with an excellent special education teacher who has taught me so much about how these children process or have difficulty processing information. The techniques she has taught me, her unbelievable patience, and her love for these children has helped me to see them through new eyes. There is an innocence and playfulness in many of them that we often don’t see in our traditional I-need-to-be-cool regular education students. It is refreshing, and I have appreciated their candid nature.

Now, the negative: One of the most pressing concerns of co-teaching is that it drives down test scores on state achievement tests in co-teaching homerooms, and this is a major consideration for teachers. We all know that our test scores are publically scrutinized, and there is no disclaimer that explains the wide range of academic potential in our classrooms. This simple fact is a huge deterrent for many teachers who work hard for good test scores.

Another legitimate concern of co-teaching is that it is not always the best model for reaching the needs of the special education student. We have at least two students this year who we feel would have made more progress in a traditional resource room setting. In retrospect, we wish that option had been available to these students.

I would love to hear from other teachers who have had the opportunity to be involved in a co-teaching classroom. What worked? What didn’t? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the co-teaching model? Let’s do what teachers do best and learn from each other.

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