collaborative.html

Collaborative teaching is a powerful teaching method that students can greatly benefit from because they are receiving two types of instruction and will potentially be learning skills and strategies. This is an effective teaching method because a teacher can gain and become better at skills that are not as strong or utilize skills they are more proficient at. When both teachers utilize proficient skills the students receive explicit instruction for the skills being taught. When teachers learn to effectively collaborate they utilize critical skills such as listening, compromise, and understanding. Collaboration is a teaching method that can greatly impact a student's learning because of the modeling they witness and they benefit from two repertoires of knowledge. When teachers use collaboration to plan and implement lessons it enables them to "bounce" ideas off one another, refining the lesson to best meet the needs of the students.

One thing that can potentially cause problems in a collaborative teaching setting is if the teachers do not to see eye to eye and disagree on the things to teach or how to teach them. Disagreements are to be expected when people work together, but if they are not handled appropriately and communication is not a key piece in solving the disagreements then the teachers will not be able to teach as effectively.

When using this teaching method it is critical to consider the strengths of each teacher and what they can bring to the team to meet the needs of the students. It is also essential to plan according to the skills being taught and basing those on the skills the students already possess. One thing to always consider when doing any kind of collaborative teaching is that the work needs to be equal and shared. If this balance does not exist it allows for power-control problems to potentially develop.

This is a beneficial method of teaching to use when there are two teachers possessing multiple skills that can help students be successful. It is also a great method to use if there is a large class or a class where there are a lot of students with identified disabilities, especially all in one specific area. The collaboration of the two teachers will greatly benefit the students and help them be more successful. This has been seen in the fifth grade writing class. Many of the students with writing goals, as well as many of the other students who do not have IEPs, have shown that the team teaching method is beneficial and has greatly contributed to their learning.

Collaborative Teaching Lesson Plan

Writing Composition: the student uses writing to communicate, reflect, and learn.

Uses the writing process: prewriting, writing, revising, editing and publishing.
Writes for a variety of purposes: personal narrative.
Writes well-organized compositions, in paragraph form with transitions and beginning, middle, and end.
Expresses ideas clearly with supporting details.
Expresses ideas in a personal, interesting, and original manner.
Chooses a variety of words, appropriate to the topic to improve writing.

8.2.2 By the end of eighth grade, students will write compositions with focus, related, related ideas, and supporting details.
8.2.4 By the end of eighth grade, students will demonstrate the use of multiple forms to write for different audiences and purposes.

Many of the students struggle with idea generation and organization so the team decided it would be beneficial for the class to write a group story, taking the class explicitly through each step in the writing process and each step that they were going to have to complete when writing their own story. All seven of the students in the class identified to receive special education services have goals on their IEPs referencing support needed in the areas of idea generation and organization, using a graphic organizer.

Write
Narrative
Graphic Organizer

The students will, as a class, write a story, using two graphic organizers.

The student will be able to collaborate with other students to generate at least three ideas for each main idea.
The student will be able to apply information on the two graphic organizers to the class story.
The student will be able to sit with the class and follow along with the discussion.

Two graphic organizers (on chart paper)
Class story (on chart paper)
Markers

• Prior to beginning the story, review with the students what is on each of the graphic organizers, talking through the main ideas in the story. This will get the students thinking about the story

• As the regular education teacher directs and leads this, I will circulate and ask specific students probing questions to help them with their idea generation.

• Lead students through the first main idea on the graphic organizer, talking about how to create sentences out of the details on the graphic organizer. Have students generate different possible ideas for the wording of the story and also the little details to include that are not necessarily on the graphic organizer.

• While this is going on, I will float through the classroom helping students follow along and understand the organization of the story and how to relate the story to the graphic organizer. The regular education teacher will do some of this as she leads the class, but I can provide additional help to those who need it.

• Continue to work through the graphic organizer and writing the story until there is twenty minutes left in class.

• Have the students work in their seed notebooks for the last twenty minutes of class. Give them a prompt and have them do a rough sketch of the graphic organizer in their seed notebook and then give them fifteen minutes to write.

• During this time, I will move through the classroom and make sure that students understand the directions and help students get started on their writing.

Teacher observation during whole class instruction-writing the class story.
Teacher observation while students are working in their seed notebook.

Move students to a different part of the room so that they are not distracted during work time.
Have a student periodically share their ideas with a partner/peer in order to provide support and modeling.
Give the students prompts to complete as part of their graphic organizer.
Have a student dictate their ideas to a teacher or classroom helper for the graphic organizer, and then the student can write the story himself or herself.

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