Inclusive Education
through
Secondary Co-Teaching
Shoreline Public Schools
Vision for Shoreline’s Inclusive Education through Co-Teaching
The goal of Inclusive Education through Co-Teaching is to ensure that as many students as possible have access to the rich General Education curriculum and to classes with a heterogeneous blend of students. Co-teachers collaborate and specialize to offer support to all students through whole-class and small-group instruction and by providing real-time modifications and accommodations to all students, including those who qualify for special education and ELL services. Both teachers play an equally vital role in instructing all students in the class and ensuring that all students are working toward the standards and learning goals established for the course. Both teachers are responsible for student learning and all students know they have equal access to both teachers.
Co-Teachers collaborate on an ongoing basis to plan, deliver instruction, facilitate and assess student learning, and carry out classroom management. They draw on the skills and expertise of both teachers to use different Co-Teaching instructional approaches:
Station Teaching (more effective)
at different times, based on the changing needs of all students in the class.
The goal of co teaching is to increase the intensity of interventions - this happens most effectively through small group instruction within the classroom. Alternative teaching, station teaching, and team teaching (with use of skill groups) make deliberate use of small group instruction, which is more supportive to students. Co Teachers are moving towards more frequent use of these models in co teaching to increase student success.
There are a variety of Co-Taught classes in the Shoreline School District:
The most common is a partnership between a Directed Studies teacher and General Education content-area teacher working with a heterogeneous blend of students with no more than 33% identified as Special Ed/high needs in that area (i.e. math in a math class).
Another type of Co-Taught class is taught by two General Ed teachers and consists of all General Ed students, with a subgroup around 30% with a history of struggling in that particular subject area. Examples include LAP math at high school and others.
