Four Key Ideas about Coteaching in High School Classrooms

Coteaching is becoming a common practice in secondary classrooms as a way to provide special education services to students with disabilities (SWD). Effective coteaching supports an inclusive philosophy of schooling by creating appropriate learning spaces for diverse learners, allowing learners acce...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of whole schooling 2019, Vol.15 (2), p.81
Main Author: Willard, Carol A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Block Scheduling
Educational Objectives
Expertise
Faculty Development
High School Teachers
Inclusion
Individualized Instruction
Pedagogical Content Knowledge
Regular and Special Education Relationship
Special Education Teachers
Students with Disabilities
Teaching Conditions
Team Teaching
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Summary:Coteaching is becoming a common practice in secondary classrooms as a way to provide special education services to students with disabilities (SWD). Effective coteaching supports an inclusive philosophy of schooling by creating appropriate learning spaces for diverse learners, allowing learners access to general education curricula, building a community of learners, establishing collaborative relationships, and using authentic multi-level instruction to provide worthwhile and engaging learning tasks for all students. While content teachers have expertise in their subject area and special educators have expertise in adaptations and supports for SWD, efficient coteachers must coordinate their ideas and practices to maximize the learning for all students. Implementing coteaching practices in any setting may be challenging; however, conditions in high school settings are conducive to coteaching, an idea that has been overlooked in the literature on inclusive practices in secondary settings. Furthermore, the learning objectives of a given lesson and the characteristics of learners in secondary settings provide the potential for the use of varied coteaching practices within the scheduled instructional block and an opportunity for ongoing professional learning. Shared pedagogical content knowledge (shared PCK) characterizes the new knowledge base teachers develop from their unique experience of coteaching. Coteaching in high school classrooms offers the potential of equitable access to content-specific pedagogical practices as well as the specialized instruction SWD need to be successful.
ISSN:1710-2146
1710-2146