Navigating the Co-Teaching Relationship:

From Rough Seas to Smooth Sailing

Part 1 of 3

The benefits of co-teaching for both mainstream AND multilingual or special education learners are numerous, but navigating the co-teaching partnership can often feel like more trouble than it’s worth.  From personality conflicts to territorialism to mismatched expectations to lack of planning time, co-taught classes can often be the most stressful part of a teacher’s schedule.  But it doesn’t have to be this way.  Through the open-minded communicative intentionality of both co-teachers, the co-taught classroom can go from a place of stress to one of productivity and peace. 

Develop Open-minded Intentionality

Teachers are known for being possessive of their space and schedule– and with good reason.  A good teacher knows what their objective is and has a plan to achieve it.  Co-teaching necessitates not sharing that space and plan but co-creating it.  Some practical ways to facilitate this are:

• Create a shared Google Folder (or other digital platform) containing lesson plans, slides, and assessments, etc.  Everything must be accessible by both the “content area teacher” and “the specialist” so that the specialist can make accommodations and modifications in a timely manner. 

• Keep a working document of notes in that Google (or other cloud-based) folder with sections for each unit.  Both teachers can quickly record suggestions and/or questions for next year or the next unit.  

• Get to know your co-teacher as a person, not just as a teacher.  If the partnership is strained and/or there is a lack of respect, have lunch together or get together outside of school to develop a rapport in a different way.  It may not immediately solve the problems in the classroom, but it may help each teacher see the other’s humanity, as well as the particular interests and strengths they bring to the partnership.  Maybe you’ll bond over your pets or your shared love of reality TV!

Seek Direction, not Destination

If the demands of the content are too great for the specialist to be able to assume full team-teaching from day one, neither teacher should stress. Start small and grow as both teachers become more comfortable with the content and with one another.  The following is a sample progression of responsibility division:  

Year 1: Specialist leads the “Do Now” or anticipatory set each day.  

Year 2: Specialist leads the Do Now and the closure activity/assessment

Year 3: Specialist does all of the above + designs and leads occasional assessment-review activities. Co-teachers can work together to design some lessons using such co-teaching models as parallel or alternative teaching. 

Year 4: Specialist delivers parts of the notes and/or leads a significant portion of class activities most days.  

Communicate Before It Gets Late!

If co-teachers have implemented any of the aforementioned principles, conflicts are bound to arise.  Arguably nothing is more destructive to the co-teaching partnership than suppressed anger and resentment.  If you feel that you’re not being respected by your co-teacher or that your co-teacher is inexplicably cold or angry with you, don’t lash out in the moment, but don’t hold it in too long either. Instead, calm down, find a neutral time and space to talk, and have a respectful dialogue.  Ariel Sacks writes in Education Week that co-teachers sometimes “need to speak directly to the conflict, which is an adult skill most of us need to strengthen. Co-teaching will definitely test that strength!”

The co-teaching partnership partly depends on factors that are beyond the control of the two educators, but by applying the principles described above, co-teachers can harness those aspects that they can control- namely their own mindset and actions toward their partner.  Part 2 of this blog series will examine what administrators can do to set up their teachers for success.