Collaborative Classroom Online

Course Description

The purpose of this course is to provide educators with a strong foundation for planning, implementing and maintaining successful co-teaching programs. Since most of today's classrooms include a diverse student population that has different learning styles, cultural differences and educational needs, it has become important for teachers and administrators to find effective methods to help every student achieve greater success. Starting first with developing a clear definition of co-teaching, then examining critical components of co-teaching models, and finally evaluating current co-teaching programs, the focus of this course will be to explore both the conceptual and operational aspects of this approach to delivering instruction.

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the Individuals With Disabilities Act (IDEA) have brought increased pressure on all educators. Policy makers and school reformers have set higher standards making teachers and administrators responsible for ensuring students meet these standards on state assessments. All students including those with disabilities are expected to achieve the same success as other students. IDEA requires that students with special needs be educated in the least restrictive environment and whenever possible, in the general education classroom where they are provided with access to the same general education curriculum as all other students. In addition, many educators are finding that an increasing number of students come to school with a variety of other problems putting them at greater risk of failing. In order to successfully address the challenges of meeting the needs of all these different students, co-teaching has received widespread attention and has become an accepted form of delivery of instruction. With the reauthorization of IDEA, state regulations and guidelines have set parameters to address how educators can meet the needs of diverse populations. For example, the New York State Commissioner of Education's Part 200 Regulations now allow school districts to include integrated co-teaching on the continuum of special education services.

This course examines the most commonly accepted co-teaching practices between general and special education teachers on the elementary, middle and high school levels. It is based on current research and experiences of prominent individuals in the field of education including Richard A. Villa, Dr. Marilyn Friend and Carol Ann Tomlinson.

Objectives

• Establish a common language and working definition for co-teaching
• Recognize other commonly accepted terms for co-teaching
• Assess research support for collaboration and inclusion
• Compare and contrast co-teaching, collaboration, team teaching, cooperative teaching and inclusion
• Establish the purpose and goals for co-teaching
• Provide a rationale through philosophy, research and recent federal and state legislation for implementing co-teaching
• Relate co-teaching to current trends toward collaboration in public schools, both in general education and special education
• Examine the effectiveness of co-teaching for teachers and students
• Define the roles of the general and special education teachers
• Define the types of services special education teachers can provide
• Identify individual prerequisites for co-teaching
• Define the professional relationship between co-teachers
• Examine guidelines to achieve parity in the co-teaching relationship
• Clarify the roles of and establish guidelines for the collaborative relationship between co-teachers and other school related professionals who serve to meet students’ IEP mandated goals.  These individuals may include the literacy coach, ESL instructor, resource teacher, speech and language pathologist, and school psychologist
• Outline steps for administrators to support co-teaching practices
• Identify the eight critical components of the co-teaching relationship
• Implement strategies for effective dialogue that will improve and enhance co-teaching relationships
• Analyze the most commonly accepted instructional models used in co-teaching classrooms
• Identify how each model provides a format for teachers to modify both instruction and student work
• Identify the categories of student disabilities
• Examine how the co-teaching models meet the needs of students with disabilities
• Establish definitions for paraprofessional, teacher aide and teacher assistant
• Identify types of paraprofessionals
• Explain the roles and responsibilities of paraprofessionals
• Identify the legal responsibilities of paraprofessionals
• Explore teacher supervisory responsibilities of paraprofessionals
• Define the legal requirements for teachers under IDEA
• Examine an overview of RtI as an evaluative tool
• Compare and contrast the Discrepancy Model and RtI
• Assess the impact of RtI on general and special education teachers
• Explore how RtI is used in the classroom
• Develop assessment tools and early intervention strategies
• Identify the diverse learners in today’s classrooms
• Identify the critical components of differentiated lessons
• Examine various preassessment tools that determine student readiness, interest and learning style preference
• Apply Bloom’s Taxonomy to differentiated instruction lessons
• Develop and implement effective differentiated instruction lessons
• Evaluate differentiated instruction lessons
• Identify factors that contribute to the effectiveness of co-teaching programs
• Identify factors that undermine the effectiveness of co-teaching programs
• Evaluate program efficacy from teacher, student, administrator and parent surveys
• Develop additional strategies for effectively evaluating programs
• Evaluate differentiated instruction lessons
• Examine a variety of ways common planning time can be scheduled
• Develop collaborative meeting agendas, planning sheets, etc.

Curriculum Design & Time Requirements

Module assignments are based on specific module lessons, textbook readings and online research. The methodology used in this course provides participants with the necessary tools and practical strategies to work effectively in a co-taught classroom. Participants will apply course curriculum to a school study that will be developed throughout the modules and presented to the instructor as a final project. This is an online sixty-hour, three credit graduate level course that is completed over a thirteen-week period.

Computer Hardware & Skill Requirements

Students may use either a Macintosh computer or a PC with Windows 2000 or higher. Students should possess basic word processing skills and have internet access with an active e-mail account. Students also are expected to have a basic knowledge of how to use a Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Safari, Mozilla Firefox etc.

Course Materials

The required text for this course is A Guide to Co-Teaching: Practical Tips for Facilitating Student Learning by Richard A. Villa, Jacqueline S. Thousand and Ann I. Nevin. The text begins by first examining what co-teaching is and the importance of each of its elements. It also looks at the day-to-day workings of co-teaching teams on each of the different teaching levels and how the effective partnerships can benefit student learning. Each co-teaching model is thoroughly explored and vignettes of each model are provided. The text includes additional resources, references, supplemental aids and a glossary.

Session Outline

Session 1: Co-Teaching Defined
Contents:

1. Establish a working definition of co-teaching
2. Distinguish co-teaching from collaboration and team teaching
3. Explore the key elements of the cooperative process that are critical to co-teaching
4. Identify the physical places for co-teaching
5. Define inclusion as it applies to co-teaching

Session 2: Establishing a Rationale for Co-Teaching a it Relates to Research and Legislation
Contents:

1. Response to the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA)
2. Co-teaching and the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)
3. Inclusion versus general education
4. Research practices of co-teaching classrooms
5. Benefits for teachers
6. Benefits for students

Session 3: Developing Effective Partnerships
Contents:

1. Defining the roles of the general and special education teachers in a co-teaching classroom
2. Who should co-teach?
3. Individual prerequisites
4. Defining a professional relationship
5. Using a co-teaching rating scale
6. Achieving parity between co-teachers
7. Administrative support for a co-teaching classroom

Session 4: Essential Components of a Co-Teaching Relationship
Contents:

1. Interpersonal communication
2. Physical room arrangement
3. Familiarity with curriculum
4. Curriculum goals and modifications
5. Instructional planning
6. Instructional presentation
7. Classroom management
8. Assessing the relationship

Session 5: Co-Teaching Models
Contents:

1. One teacher/one assist/observe model
2. One teacher/one drift model
3. Parallel teaching
4. Station teaching
5. Alternate teaching
6. Team teaching

Session 6: Working with Support Personnel: Paraprofessionals as Part of the Co-Teaching Team
Contents:

1. Definitions for paraprofessional, teacher aide and teacher assistant
2. Types of teacher aides (i.e.- 1:1 Aide)
3. Roles of paraprofessionals: classroom responsibilities
4. Legal responsibilities of paraprofessionals
5. Teacher supervision of paraprofessionals

Session 7: Response to Intervention (RtI)
Contents:

1. Legal requirements for teachers under IDEA
2. Overview of RtI as an evaluative tool
3. The impact of RtI on general and special education teachers
4. How RtI is used in the classroom
5. Assessment tools and early intervention strategies

Session 8: The Use of Differentiated Instruction in the Co-Teaching Classroom
Contents:

1. Identifying the diverse learners in today's classroom
2. Critical components of differentiated instruction lessons
3. Pre-assessing students' needs and abilities
4. Pre-assessing students' interests
5. Assessing students' learning styles
6. Developing and implementing effective differentiated instruction lessons
7. Using Bloom's Taxonomy in differentiated instruction lessons
8. Evaluating differentiated instruction lessons

Session 9: Assessing Co-Teaching
Contents:

1. Factors that undermine the effectiveness of co-teaching programs
2. Surveying teachers, administrators, students and parents about the effectiveness of their co-teaching program
3. Other strategies for evaluating co-teaching programs

Session 10: Final Projects and Final Exam
Contents:

1. Review
2. Final project reviews
3. Final exam
4. Evaluations

Grading

		Assignment	Points			Grading Scale
		Forum Participation	25			100 – 93	A
		Reflections	45			92 – 85	B
		Final Project	20			84 – 77	C
		Final Exam	10
		Total Points	100

Student Requirements

	1.	Participation: Actively participate in all forum activities.
	2.	Reading assignments: Complete all readings and reflection assignments.
	3.	As a final project, participants will develop a school study that demonstrates the use of ideas and concepts presented in this course.
	4.	Pass a final exam.

Student Academic Integrity

Participants guarantee that all academic class work is original. Any academic dishonesty or plagiarism (to take ideas, writings, etc. from another and offer them as one's own), is a violation of student academic behavior standards as outlined by our partnering colleges and universities and is subject to academic disciplinary action.

Register

To register to take TEI's Collaborative Classroom Online course, go to the Course Registration page.