COTEACHING PARTNERSHIP, THE

Childhood Education, Spring 2008 by Aldridge, Jerry

THE COTEACHING PARTNERSHIP. Friend, M. Educational Leadership, 2007, 64(5), 48-52. The old adage "two heads are better than one" is echoed in this article, with the emphasis that two teachers are better than one. Friend begins by using several vignettes of coteaching, providing specific examples of how general and special educators work together to provide appropriate and individualized instruction for all students. After providing a brief history of coteaching, Friend explains why coteaching partnerships are so unique. The reduction of the student-teacher ratio, as well as the unique backgrounds the two teachers bring to the class, make coteaching a much more productive model than pull-out programs.

Friend is quick to point out that coteachers also face challenges, such as the special educator's potential unfamiliarity with the general education curriculum and the general education teacher possibly not knowing how to effectively communicate and work with the special educator. Finding time for planning is also a critical challenge.

One answer to overcoming these obstacles, according to the author, is professional development and preparation. With this in mind, Friend makes concrete, practical suggestions for administrators to help implement coteaching programs. Some of these include building professional relationships, encouraging coteachers to visit successful classrooms that use this model, developing communication strategies, and celebrating successes.

Still, one of the biggest problems with coteaching is scheduling, which appears to create more challenges than traditional, pull-out programs. Specifically, if you have only one special educator in a small school, she cannot continually coteach with every general education teacher in that school. The author makes several recommendations for finding solutions to this dilemma.

This article would be a great resource for professional development and schools that are still in the early stages of coteaching implementation. The scenarios provided, the challenges described, and the solutions suggested in the article could make for great discussions about how to implement successful coteaching.