A Guide to Co-Teaching: Practical Tips for Facilitating Student Learning

"A Guide to Co-Teaching is a must-have. All members of the school community will find something useful in this book, and what they find will guarantee that student learning is improved."
Douglas Fisher, Associate Professor of Teacher Education
San Diego State University

"The book provides a road map for how special and general education teachers can work to effectively meet the needs of students with and without disabilities while working in classrooms that model cooperation and respect."
Mary Falvey, Professor of Special Education
California State University, Los Angeles

Collaboration tactics that boost student learning and teacher satisfaction!

Teachers across the country are abandoning the isolation of the past and are turning to their colleagues as a gratifying way to meet the demands of today′s rigorous standards. This comprehensive guide highlights the benefits and challenges of co-teaching as a way to address the No Child Left Behind requirement that all students have access to highly qualified teachers, as well as IDEA′s requirement that students with disabilities have access to the general education curriculum.
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In A Guide to Co-Teaching, you are guided through the planning, implementation, and reflection phases with the help of these practical features:

• Tips on why some co-teaching arrangements work where others fail
• Straightforward self-assessments to make sure your goals are being met
• Chapters dedicated to each of the different approaches to co-teaching: Supportive, Parallel, Complementary, and Team Teaching
• Quotes and advice from teachers and students who have been successful in co-teaching experiences
• Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about implementing co-teaching, and its effects on teachers, students, and their families
• Ideas for empowering you and your partners to thrive as co-teachers
• Discussion of how administrators can support teachers to move toward co-teaching

Masterfully written by authors who practice the co-teaching they preach, this manual provides vignettes from elementary, middle, and high school classrooms that illustrate how real teachers have answered the tough questions about the sharing of responsibility, the organization of students, and the division of responsibility for teaching, learning, and assessing.

Richard A. Villa is president of Bayridge Consortium, Inc. His primary field of expertise is the development of administrative and instructional support systems for educating all students within general education settings. Villa is recognized as an educational leader who inspires and works collaboratively with others to implement current and emerging exemplary educational practices. His work has resulted in the inclusion of children with intensive cognitive, physical, and emotional challenges as full members of the general education community in the school districts where he has worked and consulted. Villa has been a classroom teacher, special education administrator, pupil personnel services director, and director of instructional services and has authored 4 books and over 70 articles and chapters. Known for his enthusiastic, humorous style, Villa has presented at international, national, and state educational conferences and has provided technical assistance to departments of education in the United States, Canada, Vietnam, and Honduras and to university personnel, public school systems, and parent and advocacy organizations.

Jacqueline S. Thousand, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita at California State University San Marcos, where she designed and coordinated special education professional preparation and Master’s degree programs in the College of Education, Health, and Human Services. She previously taught at the University of Vermont, where she directed Inclusion Facilitator and Early Childhood Special Education graduate and postgraduate programs and coordinated federal grants, which, in the early 1980s, pioneered the inclusion of students with moderate and severe disabilities in general education classrooms of their local schools. Prior to university teacher, Dr. Thousand served as a special educator in Chicago area and Atlanta public schools and as the coordinator of early childhood special education services for children ages 3 through 6 in the Burlington, Vermont area. Dr. Thousand is a nationally known teacher, author, systems change consultant, and disability rights and inclusive education advocate. She is the author of 21 books and numerous research articles and chapters on issues related to inclusive education, organizational change strategies, differentiated instruction and universal design, co-teaching and collaborative teaming, cooperative group learning, creative problem solving, positive behavioral supports, and, now, culturally proficiency special education. Dr. Thousand is actively involved in international teacher education and inclusive education endeavors and serves on the editorial boards of several national and international journals.

Ann I. Nevin is professor emerita at Arizona State University and visiting professor at Florida International University. The author of books, research articles, and numerous chapters, Nevin is recognized for her scholarship and dedication to providing meaningful, practice-oriented, research-based strategies for teachers to integrate students with special learning needs. Since the 1970s, she has co-developed various innovative teacher education programs that affect an array of personnel, including the Vermont Consulting Teacher Program, Collaborative Consultation Project Re-Tool sponsored by the Council for Exceptional Children, the Arizona State University program for special educators to infuse self-determination skills throughout the curriculum, and the Urban SEALS (Special Education Academic Leaders) doctoral program at Florida International University. Her advocacy, research, and teaching spans more than 38 years of working with a diverse array of people to help students with disabilities succeed in normalized school environments. Nevin is known for action-oriented presentations, workshops, and classes that are designed to meet the individual needs of participants by encouraging introspection and personal discovery for optimal learning.