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Five ways to make co-teaching a go
04/15/2021

Carol Pierobon Hofer, National Board Certified Teacher, teaches ENL at Fox Hill Elementary in Indianapolis and is a 2020 – 21 WIDA Fellow in bilingual and multilingual education. She shared her tips for successful co-teaching in the winter Advocate. Here are more tips from Pierobon Hofer.

  1. Acknowledge what you can and can’t control. You might be told who to teach with, where and when. If so, focus your efforts on how to devise and divide the plans with your new partner.
  2. Start fresh. Don’t base a co-teaching relationship on past interactions or colleagues’ comments.
  3. Try to test-drive the co-teaching experience. Co-teaching can take many different forms: tag-team teaching, parallel teaching, teach/observe, teach/assist and station or alternative teaching. Planning a couple lessons or a unit together helps you know what’s a good fit and lets you work out some kinks.
  4. Depend on each other’s strengths and likes – who naturally is more organized, techy, artistic, spontaneous or cool under pressure? You will enjoy the job more if you’re doing what you like and do well. For mutual dislikes – flip a coin or rock-paper-scissors it.
  5. Realize that it’s not all 50/50 all the time. If the assignment is an essay, even with a rubric, it may be better for one teacher to grade them all instead of each grading half.  
  6. Accept that some students will gravitate toward one of you more. Human relationships and chemistry are complicated. It’s not a popularity contest. Be grateful that the student has options.
  7. Be aware that some students will try to play one against the other. The “divide and conquer” aspect of co-teaching works both ways and can boomerang negatively on you and your co-teacher (“But Ms. Smith said I could…”). Make sure that you both agree on issues such as assignment deadlines and leaving the class.
  8. Share your classroom, materials, ideas, grievances and concerns with your co-teacher. Don’t be territorial and don’t suffer in silence.
  9. Find a co-teaching social media site that fits your needs – there are many full of great ideas and resources out there. Same goes for finding checklists online.
  10. Give it time. Co-teaching is like making a double batch of Jello – it takes longer to gel but yields twice the amount.

Celebrate that you’ve stretched yourself as an educator by trying a new way of teaching. You’ve demonstrated that you’re collaborative, flexible and innovative – add it to your resume!