Educating Students For A Global Society

The article goes into great detail over the fact that co-teaching, when implemented correctly, has the potential of really enhancing the learning of all students (Conderman & Hedin, 2014, p.359). Before any co-teaching can happen though the article elaborates on the fact that a teacher needs to know who their students are. And when differentiating instruction a teacher needs to be able to address a “students’ unique strengths, interest, skills, and readiness” (Conderman & Hedin, 2014, p. 353). After all helping each child learn, whatever that looks like, is the ultimate goal, and this article shows how teachers can do this with a co-teacher.

I am going to be looking at and discussing how to improve on my own and team practice. Within this, I will be discussing why it is important to continue with my professional development and why team work is important in schools. I will also be describing why it is important to be respectful of the skills and expertise that others can bring to the team.

together as a class will also reinforce what they have learned and will give the teacher an

Cooperative learning has been researched frequently in education. Cooperative learning is a learning situation in which two or more students are working together to complete a common task (Siegel, 2005). A more complex definition of cooperative learning is detailed by the Office of Education Research Consumer Guide (1992): Cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Each member of a team is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for helping teammates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement (p. 1).

In many aspects of life, it is essential that you work with other individuals as a team. You can work in a team whether it is school, work, or your personal life. This year I started working for Inner City Education Foundation public charter schools, specifically ICEF Inglewood Elementary Academy. The school has approximately 40 staff members that were all placed together by the director of the school. There are multiple classifications at my job such as instructional assistants, teachers, office staff, intervention specialists, operations, and janitors, but we all operate as one unit. Through the five stages of team development, our team developed and continues to develop into a successful team.

Collaborative efforts have created more cross-curricular focus throughout the school. When teachers know what each other are teaching, they can support each other in their own curriculum.

First, initially creating a pacing guide deciding when to assess students involves collaboration. Teachers at an American urban elementary school brought samples of their students work to discuss. They compared their student’s work to students in other classes. They noticed similarities and

Researchers Harper and Maheady (2007) combined two peer-teaching procedures and three strategies into a hybrid peer tutoring program implementation. In the first procedure, Classwide Peer Tutoring (CWPT), students were assigned to different pairs each week with each pair on an opposing team (Greenwood, et al., 1991). Using weekly study guides, a deck of cards and paper, each team answered questions to earn points toward a cumulative team total, which resulted in the highest scoring group being recognized as the “Winning Team of the Week” (Harper & Maheady, 2007). The researchers also implemented Numbered Heads Together (NHT), which incorporated cooperative learning with in-group contests. Each pair worked with another pair to form a team. Each team collaborated to structure their best answer in reply to a question given by the teacher. One group member was chosen randomly by the teacher to give the group’s answer to the question while each member worked to ensure a correct answer. Each correct answer earned team points. Results revealed that student quiz scores increased with the utilization of Classwide Peer Tutoring (CWPT) with Numbered Heads Together (NHT) and students of all learning abilities benefited.

The district needs to create more time in the schedule for the students to work collaboratively on projects and activities. Grade level teams of teachers need to be created. These teams will have a common schedule and common planning times which will allow for greater flexibility when creating lessons and activities. The team will also have the ability to meet regularly to deal with common issues, planning, and creating learning that differentiated to individual student needs (Brown & Knowles p. 77).

During this collaborative unit and programming planning I found having a partner to be very beneficial. Coordinating times to talk and text was key to this project due to me and my partner living out of town and working full time as teachers, but we have learned a great deal from this project. Two heads are better than one due to us being able to bounce ideas off of one another that sparked so many wonderful ideas. At times we found ourselves getting ahead of ourselves but had one another to help refocus us on our state standards for our target grade level. By working as a team I knew that we were both invested in these lessons and had the same goal in mind therefore knew that the time spent creating these lessons was going to be effectively

The first is where one teaches and one observes, a useful model when observation and data collection is necessary, but it does not give both teachers equivalent responsibilities. Station teaching breaks students into small groups and has them rotate to several teacher-led and/or independent work stations, a model which involves both teachers but can be noisy and distracting for both teachers and students. In parallel teaching, students are divided into two equal groups and each partner teaches the same material; this method ensures diversity and lowers teacher-student ratio, but requires that both teachers have similar content knowledge and teach at a similar pace. In alternative teaching, one teacher works with a small group of students who need additional instruction, while the other teacher works with the remaining students; this benefits those students who need more intensive instruction, but it can stigmatize them if they are always placed in this small group instruction. One teach while one assists is a method that allows for students to be supported during a lesson, but it can be over-used with the eventual result of having little benefit over a one-teacher classroom. The final and possibly the most effective method is team teaching, where both teachers equally share planning and instruction. This method allows teachers to draw off one another’s strengths and provides greater diversity of teaching, but it may be difficult for

Collaborative learning stems from the theory of Vygotsky’s conception of Zone of proximal development. The thought is that children learn best with “help and guidance” (Ormrod, 2012). In transitioning this zone to a collaborative learning experience, children work with their peers in broadening their learning experience, allowing small groups of students to work together to share knowledge, exchange ideas, problem solve, and more. These classroom environments help to create durable abilities in students and aid in producing a “smoother integration into adult society when the activities resemble real-world tasks” (Ormrod, 2012). As students work with peers and adults, they adopt some of the learning strategies demonstrated and develop more skills in problem solving. This scaffolding creates a trickle-down effect of knowledge construction. In collaborative learning, students are afforded a myriad of enriching opportunities to explore perspectives that may differ from their own. These activities serve to create a self-awareness in the student of their responsibilities to a group, requiring them to self-monitor their activity (Lee, Tsai, Chai, & Koh, 2014).

“Teamwork fuels group spirit, develops process skills that help teachers interact in more productive ways, and fosters a more intellectual atmosphere.” (Maeroff, 1993).

When most people think of a typical classroom, the image of a room full of students in desks being taught by one teacher will usually come to mind. But a new style of education known as co-teaching is become increasingly popular. Co-teaching is an umbrella term that involves many similar but different methods of instruction, but they all have one thing in common: two teachers in the same classroom at the same time. One might think that two teachers helping instruct students at the same time would create chaos, but this is definitely not the case. Co-teaching is a style of teaching that is extremely beneficial to both students and educators in the way that it helps students to succeed both inside and outside of the classroom, and provides

My vision of collaborative learning is a learning strategy that affords the students enormous opportunities and advantages not available through traditional learning processes. I believe that students in a collaborative team tend to attain