mason.gmu.edumason.gmu.edu/~aeichorn/EDRS 812_ Final Project.docx · Web viewThe topic of my research project is to investigate how experienced special educators respond to co-teaching

Running head: CO-TEACHING RELATIONSHIPS 1

A Study of Co-teaching Relationships

from the Perspective of Special Educators

Anne Eichorn

George Mason University

CO-TEACHING RELATIONSHIPS 2

Table of Contents

Topic/Purpose 3

Research Questions 4

Setting and Participants 6

Data Collection 9

Data Analysis 11

Results 15

Validity 20

Conclusions 22


Background

Topic/Purpose

The topic of my research project is to investigate how experienced special educators

respond to co-teaching relationships in their own settings. I specifically focused on the factors

that both promote and hinder positive co-teaching relationships. I analyzed the perspectives of

the co-teachers and identified both supports and barriers that exist to successful co-teaching

experiences. I have chosen to address this issue because even with administrative supports in

place and sufficient planning time schedules, ineffective co-teaching experiences still exist. I

accomplished this task by conducting an interview study with 3 experienced special education

co-teachers, and collaborated with the participants in order to prompt valuable feedback.

Some experiences that have shaped my interest in the research topic I’ve chosen

regarding examining co-teaching perspectives are: having a lack of teacher preparation in the

area of student disabilities as a new general educator, mentoring new special education teachers,

co-teaching special education students, and collaborating with both special education staff at my

school and general educators. As a mentor, I found myself giving much advice about

communication with the general educator and becoming comfortable in the partnership. My

relationship with the general education teachers in my middle school is more demanding than

that at the elementary level; as instruction responsibilities are split up more equally and we are

both responsible for curriculum objectives. Also, years have passed since I began co-teaching,

and currently we are more accountable for collaboration and are required to analyze quarterly

benchmark data and plan interventions together to target areas of student need. In my

experiences, I personally have not had an issue with general educators that I’ve been made aware

of. I refrain from taking compliance time out of class unless we plan for it in advance as special


educator attendance in the classroom may be a complaint of general educators. It’s important to

communicate with general educators regarding specific paperwork demands that special

educators need to meet that requires for special educators to be out of class at times. In

reviewing how my identity as a special educator could affect this study, I found that maintaining

positive relationships with co-teachers and balancing a planning schedule with different general

educators in various subject areas to be the principal influences.

In reflecting and analyzing my professional experiences, I’ve formed a set of beliefs

regarding co-teaching which include: a positive co-teaching relationship relies heavily on the

quantity and quality of communication; duties should be split equally in a co-teaching

environment so that both parties are comfortable with the behavior and instruction of students

with disabilities; each party requires professional development in skills they may be lacking in

such as collaborating together or modifying curriculum for students with disabilities; and special

educators need to confide in someone regarding the paperwork requirements of the job so they

meet compliance deadlines. My prior experiences influenced the way I approached this project

since I’ve molded my interview guide to address the factors that I suspect hinder a successful co-

teaching experience, and my research questions have also been adjusted to reveal several

unexpected factors.

Research Questions

Two specific research questions I’ve addressed are: 1) How do these experienced special

educators think about and respond to co-teaching relationships in their own settings? and 2)

What factors hinder or promote collaborative co-teaching relationships? My expectation

regarding the answer to the first question, pertaining to the response of special educators, is that


it depends on the quality of communication in individual co-teaching relationships, content

knowledge, and amount of teacher preparation. My assumptions about the second question on

factors that might hinder or promote collaborative co-teaching relationships have been shaped by

my own experiences with co-teachers as well as the difficulties I’m made aware of through the

experiences of colleagues. In my opinion, some of the factors that hinder positive co-teaching

relationships include: limited communication, and an unclear plan of responsibility in the

classroom. As far as factors that promote collaborative co-teaching relationships, I believe there

needs to be mutual respect and cooperation present. My experiences have shaped these research

questions because I’m interested in what factors affect the desired co-teaching atmosphere. It’s

not enough to assume personality issues affect the quality of a relationship. Additionally, there

are underlying problems that feed into an unsuccessful teaching relationship that cannot be

addressed until they are exposed. An advantage to the beliefs I described in my study is that I

had the background and experience to choose a topic to explore, as well as, to create my

interview prompts.

Having positive co-teaching experiences myself, I was motivated to learn about and

gather information on any barriers in regards to this topic. I interviewed experienced special

educators rather than new special education teachers because new special education teachers

have to adjust to new responsibilities in the first year or two of teaching that in itself is a barrier

to building trusting relationships with their general educators. Additionally, classroom

management and paperwork demands takes adjustment time for new special education teachers.

I believe my experiences will also allow the flexibility to investigate results further in the

qualitative process or in subsequent studies.


Method

Setting/Participants

Although I’m aware of the consequences, I’ve selected my “backyard” setting for this

interview study because I feel it’s important to thoroughly understand your own setting before

you try to understand a foreign one. I have also chosen my home school site due to the fact that

we have had an influx of special educators transfer to our school due to both an increase in the

areas special education population and the recent addition of 6th grade to the middle school. This

academic year issues have been raised regarding the level of cooperation between general

educators and special educators in quite a few classrooms. In my building, the administrators

make the schedule and arrange the co-teaching partnerships. This has the potential to lead to

incompatibility encompassing multiple areas such as classroom management, academic

expectations, and level of interest and ability in specific academic content areas. Also, special

educators’ frustration with their lack of content knowledge may cause tension and also contribute

to dysfunctional co-teaching relationships. I am in my 11th year of teaching and my schedule has

changed twice since the beginning of the school year to accommodate challenging co-teaching

relationships of my colleagues. One of the teachers I interviewed came from the elementary

school setting, which also may have been an adjustment that affected the teachers’ relationships

with general educators in the middle school atmosphere.

I’ve “purposefully” selected 3 experienced special education teachers in my own middle

school setting to participate in this study because they all have five or more years of teaching

experience, and currently work in 2 or more subject areas with 2 or more different general

educators daily. Each of these special educators works in a different grade level (6, 7, and 8).

Because of the differing relationships that these teachers have, they might have insight to the


factors that both promote and hinder a positive working experience in the co-teaching

environment. One of the co-teachers I have mentored, another I had the opportunity to co-teach

with this year, and the final is new to the school. We are all part of the Special Education Team,

and I share students with 2 of the teachers and collaborate often on strategies to assist them. The

other teacher and I share an office and communicate on compliance issues at times. The ages of

the special education co-teachers range from 36-55 years old. Two participants were female - 1

Caucasian, and 1 Filipino, and 1was an Ethiopian male.

I was interested in learning what factors are responsible for creating a successful or

unsuccessful co-teaching experience, for example, whether content knowledge affects the special

education teacher’s delivery of the curriculum. Additional information that I hoped to gather

through my research interviews included the role that communication plays in successful co-

teaching relationships as well as the impact of administrative support on the quality of planning.

I also hoped to learn which party, the general educator or special educator, feels they are

responsible for student behavior in the classroom. I’m interested in the degree which these

special educators felt that their college education prepared them for the co-teaching experiences

they’ve encountered. Finally, I wanted to analyze how the attitude of general education teachers

affects relationships on shared instruction for students with disabilities.

I selected E.L. because I am aware that she is currently in a favorable co-teaching

situation; however, she began the year with a challenging co-teaching team. E.L. is in her 5th

year of teaching special education at our school, and she came here from the Philippines. I had

the opportunity to mentor her the 1st 2 years she was at our school. She is very personable and

has developed cooperative relationships with the majority of the general education staff. I


approached E.L. about the project and the possibility of her participating. Immediately, she

scheduled a date and time and seemed happy to assist me.

I actually asked D.K. to participate in the study 1st because our offices are across from

each other so we talk daily. Most of our conversations consist of collaborating on student

strategies; however, we also share many personal stories. D.K. is also new to our school, yet has

been in the county teaching elementary special education for a number of years. D.K. is more of

a “longwinded” person who may be difficult to close a conversation with once you’re started but

she means well. She offers good advice and personal experiences to support your news; I got

married this school year and D.K. connected to me by sharing her history of being married twice

and living in different countries, etc. As I expected, the interview was lengthy, but I believe

D.K. provided valuable feedback. In my interview guide I don’t specifically inquire about recent

co-taught relationships, however, I knew D.K. could speak about how her communication skills

have assisted or hindered the growth of co-teaching relationships in her instructional settings this

year. Although the school year had ended, contacting D.K. for an interview was not difficult.

M.D. is another special educator I selected mostly because of availability. I was unable

to reach my first choice before the time I wanted to complete interviews. This was my first year

working in the same classes as M.D. as he switched to 7th grade from 8th grade 4 years ago. We

share an office and often discuss the progress of common students, or compare our progress on

compliance paperwork deadlines. M.D. is originally from Ethiopia and seems to be more

content with his co-teaching experiences this year as opposed to last. I am interested in

comparing the skills that contribute to his positive co-teaching relationships with any challenging

co-teaching relationships he may have overcome with general educators in previous years. I was


correct in anticipating his flexible availability.

Data Collection

As mentioned previously, I completed an interview study with 3 experienced special

education co-teachers. I inquired about both effective and negative co-teaching experiences,

collaborative planning and delegating of responsibilities, responsibility for behavior

management, attitude of general educators, and teaching preparation. I conducted 1 interview in

our school setting and the 2 others by speakerphone. I used a handheld tape recorder to record

information for later transcription and analysis. The following is a table with dates and length of

interviews:

Participant Date Interviewed Length of Interview

E.L. 6-17-10 45 min.

D.K. 6-23-10 1 hr. 35 min.

M.D. 7-6-10 40 min.

In broadening my research questions due to instructor feedback, I focused on both

positive and negative factors that influence co-teaching relationships. I didn’t include both

factors at first because I was trying to stay away from “comparative” results; although I realize

now that I’m not comparing both types of factors. I’ve also reworded my interview guide to

have additional questions on each topic supplement my main questions as prompts. I believe this

revision elicited more conversation from the participant because they have more control of the

topic.

An important lesson I learned from my first interview with E.L. was to always check

your recording device to ensure that you will be able to capture the interview. In my rush to get

interviews in before the school year ended I had just assumed my old recorder worked. It ended


up being fine; I just needed to have the tape on a certain side. E.L. discussed the structure of the

co-taught environment and benefit to students for both station/and parallel teaching. That

feedback helped me visualize how the co-teachers’ work together as it is evident there is a plan

in place. E.L. answered the prompts given directly and didn’t offer additional examples or

thoughts.

The second person I interviewed was D.K., and she explained a great deal about

managing student behavior which leads to clearly defined roles in the co-taught classroom. She

blamed the small instructional role she had in the classroom on the behavior of a few students.

For each question I expected maybe one example and she went through each of her co-teachers

and broke down exactly the part she played, whether it was managing individual behavior or

acting as an aide. At the end of our interview, she actually thanked me for the opportunity to talk

and mentioned how it felt like a therapy session.

M.D. was my final interview and his responses focused on the communication and

collaborative strategies needed for a successful co-teaching experience. Before I asked him to

participate I anticipated he would describe this school year as being more successful in regards to

getting along with co-teachers than the past few years. In M.D.’s case, he is not a strong

disciplinarian and along with his strong accent the kids aren’t as respectful to her as others. This

year was more productive for him as the general educators allowed him to have an equivalent

instructional role as they assisted in classroom management. M.D. also seemed to answer

exactly what was asked and didn’t go into additional detail, and if I had more interviewing

experience I would have prompted both E.L. and M.D. more based on their responses.

After I completed one interview, I evaluated the interview to better prepare for my next

one. When listening to the tapes of each interview; it was clear that I rushed through the whole


process. I think I felt guilty taking up their time and didn’t expand on questions when I could

have, and just went forward to the next prompt instead. I was happy to see that my transcriptions

had the participant talking the most, but if I redid the interviews I’d transcribe the first one before

going to the next. I reflected between interviews but I believe looking at the transcriptions on

paper might have helped me adjust my focus better for the remaining interviews.

Data Analysis

I began the process of analyzing my data by revising the interview guide as needed

before each interview. I did this based on instructor feedback throughout my memos, and

consultations. I reviewed my research questions to keep myself focused when it came time to

analyze the data. I refrained from referring back to my interview questions as I feared they would

guide categorizing the responses to fit to my perspective and not allow the participant’s feelings

to evolve. Before I started collecting data, I came up with several factors that I thought may

influence special education teachers’ perspectives of co-teaching. My interview questions were

then focused on those factors. After reviewing my data it became clear that, while my initial

categories were a good starting point, they were all weighted differently as I saw at project

completion. The participant data drove my conclusions and I needed to look at the information

differently for each research question.

I also took notes, during interviews to organize remaining prompts according to the

information given. Immediately following interviews, I recorded memos based on my written

notes during interviews. I transcribed the 3 interviews and highlighted the information I

perceived to be important based on my interview questions. My next step involved reading

through the transcripts several times and underlining key words that stood out to me regarding to


teacher perspectives or factors that affected collaborative co-teaching relationships; which I

applied to a matrix to develop substantive categories. On a separate sheet, I started listing areas

that I thought might be organizational categories and any key words that fit under the categories.

As a result of this task, I decided to keep my organizational category of collaboration but I

combined teacher knowledge and preparation. The data revealed that communication had

separate factors from collaboration so I added that category, and I also used comments about

discipline and equality in the classroom to form a category of roles and responsibilities. The

following matrix displays these 4 organizational categories: Communication, Collaboration,

Preparation and Responsibilities.

Communication Evidence of Collaboration

Teaching Knowledge/Preparation

Roles/ Responsibilities

not open undermined interjecting dictating communication

open input valued delegating

on the same page plan together share ownership same thing positive

relationship cooperation mutual respect comfortable

no time background not prepared

directing territorial controls dominates rely on in charge parallel

After defining my organizational categories, I became aware that data for some areas

was more significant than other areas regarding factors affecting co-teaching as the columns

were uneven. I reflected on the transcribed notes after reading them and recorded my thoughts

and analysis in the 2nd column of a 2nd matrix (See Table 1) where I then coded the important

information into the 4 previously mentioned categories based on the individual interview

feedback produced. I then took the specific interview comments relating to my analysis and

created a 3rd matrix (See Table 2) of specific examples for each category. The next task was to

use the organized information to explain the answers to my research questions. After organizing


data on the first research question, I went through the matrices and divided the factors affecting

co-teaching into ones that “promote” or ones that “hinder” the experience. (I used bold and blue

text for promoting and italics or red text for hindering in my matrices). In my initial data

analysis memo, I was extracting bigger phrases and conveniently fitting them into themes I

expected based on interview questions. Following instructor feedback I coded the key words

from participant responses and then formed bigger themes from these substantive categories.

Applying the coding in this manner, I used the perspectives of the participants to determine

which factors were positive and negative.

After feedback from my 2nd consultation on my initial coding matrix with the addition of

substantive categories, I realized that the positives (bold print) and negatives (italics) were still

uneven. I needed to reorganize the data, so I went back to the 1st research question: How do

these experienced special educators think about and respond to co-teaching relationships in

their own settings? I then looked at the key words I had initially underlined in the transcripts and

decided that there were some key words that defined how the special educators respond to co-

teaching relationships. Next, I condensed the 4 categories to 3, as it was also recommended to

combine communication with collaboration. So my revised organizational categories were now:

Communication, Teacher Knowledge/ Preparation, and Roles/ Responsibilities. The following

matrix displays the revision:

Communication Teaching Knowledge/Preparation


delegating plan together input valued undermined dictating directing

background no time not prepared

share ownership parallel controls dominates rely on


I knew I also needed to look at the data differently when attempting to address my 2nd

research question: What factors hinder or promote collaborative co-teaching relationships? I

used the remaining key words I had initially underlined and found that they were more

descriptive of how collaborative relationships might work. I divided the words into positive and

negative columns according to the factors that hinder or promote collaborative co-teaching

relationships:

Hinder Promote not open interjecting territorial in charge

communication open on the same page positive outlook cooperative respectful comfortable both inputs valued

I definitely felt more confident after these matrix revisions and was able to let the data

drive my conclusions, as I used the new matrices as outlines to answer my 2 research questions

in the next section.

Reporting

Results

My first research question is: “How do these experienced special educators respond to

co-teaching in their own settings?” As I created my matrices of results I came to realize my first

interview question focus lead me to develop interview prompts that delved into the special

educators’ personal co-teaching experiences and valuable concepts. These concepts are tied to

the final 3 categories I formulated from substantive coding and analyzing of the participant

transcriptions: Communication, Teacher Knowledge/Preparation, and Roles/Responsibilities. I


let my first revised coding matrix guide me as the key words extracted were part of larger

comments specific to participant responses about co-teaching in their individual settings.

Beginning with the first category of communication, when the line of communication is

open, co-teaching relationships are more successful. M.D. shares,

When one dominates, and one is main teacher, and the other is just the assistant; you are not open to share the responsibilities. This is just dictating and both inputs need to be valued. You discuss what goes on in classroom and, express your opinions freely, and reflect. Without communication, you are not able to discuss discipline, and share the responsibilities of teaching management.

For a mutual relationship; there needs to be equal ownership of instruction in the classroom.

M.D. defines characteristics of a positive co-teaching relationship as: sharing the instruction,

classroom management, cooperation, and mutual respect. Delegating responsibilities was noted

as more effective in the participants’ experiences. E.L. shares “It’s important to communicate

well with your content teacher, the lead teacher, you need to collaborate, you need to talk and

plan together. It’s also beneficial to see each other everyday.”

Continuing onto collaborative pieces of the communication process; a co-teachers’

attitude toward their relationship with the special educator is highly dependent on collaboration

skills. Planning time definitely was an issue for all 3 participants although it wasn’t brought up

to the administration, which supports our department in all of these areas. D.K. shared that there

isn’t consistency across the board in individual subject areas. She didn’t have the same planning

period as a lot of her co-teachers and weekly designated planning times only allowed for an

overview of what they were to do. D.K. states “At times there were two different curriculums

going on, even in same subject areas. One teacher was doing what is currently in the curriculum

now and it was interesting and fun, but in another class the teachers were just providing student

with worksheets over and over again.” When attempting to add pieces to the lesson in one class,


D.K. felt that the general educator has his way of doing things and that she was sort of

interjecting something that he hadn't done. It was also mentioned that maybe the younger

teachers are more co-teaching oriented. However, the more experienced teachers are terrific at

delegating because they see the whole picture and know what concepts need to be delivered, and

special educators do know more about teaching students with disabilities and that’s where

collaboration is required.

In extracting notes on knowledge and preparation in relation to co-teaching, the data

shows that the comfort level with a subject area is relevant to effective instruction in co-taught

classrooms. According to the interview results, familiarity of the general education curriculum is

very much reflected in the preparedness/confidence to deliver the instruction. E.L. was

fortunate enough to co-teach an area of instruction that is her major. She says “it’s really

different when you have familiarity of what you are saying or familiarity of the content, at least

you have prior knowledge of what you are saying.” M.D, agrees that “if you're familiar with the

subject you are more comfortable teaching it.” Teacher preparation of both parties in the co-

teaching process is also necessary for successful co-taught relationships. E.L. shared that not all

co-teachers are the same:

There are co-teachers who are really, really good at delegating work to their co-teachers; there are also some who could gradually understand what co-teaching is, and they can gradually release ownership. It’s difficult when the general educator changes the specific lesson you prepared for.

It’s also evident through interview feedback that my participants believe that general

educators’ lack of training in collaborating/co-teaching strategies for students with disabilities

affects positive co-teaching relationships. M.D. reiterates that many general educators don’t

know collaborative planning/co-teaching strategies. If they aren’t trained, they don’t understand

the principles to “buy in.” As far as special educator preparation, D.K. shared that she was told


“The classes are easy but the job is hard. The classes really don't prepare you for what you’re

going to deal with in the classroom, there’s no way you could be prepared.” Special educators

learn different strategies, skills and how to teach; but the reality is at least 99% of it can be

student behavior. Additionally, content knowledge may have a negative effect on the co-

teaching process at times. For example, D.K. reported: “As far as science was concerned that

was a joke because I was a fish out of water and had no idea. I didn't have that kind of time to

study content to prepare.” D.K felt less confident about collaborating when she didn’t know the

content. She stated “who am I to get in there and tell her about what she's going to do, I don’t

even know what's going on.” Another general education teacher learned Math the British way so

sometimes this was also confusing to D.K. because she learned it differently.

Finally, the data revealed a separation of roles and responsibilities in the classroom. The

special educators I interviewed feel that as the general educator you have much more control

over the kids, as immediately the students see you as the authority figure. It was stated by D.K.

that, “organized general educators and non-territorial special educators apparently create more

positive relationships.” As a special educator, it’s difficult to set the tone to students that you are

at an equal level to the general educator if not there from the beginning. The experience D.K.

has had at MLK (name of school) was that she’s treated as an aide, and she wasn't doing a whole

lot of teaching this year. On another note, E.L. is amazed at how the general educator controls

the whole class. They do a lot of station teaching and the “one teach, one assist.” In this model

of co-teaching, one teacher takes the role of the lead teacher, and the other teacher assists

students around the classroom to help students keep up and follow along. E.L. explained the

effectiveness of parallel teaching for instruction, although she mentioned that the “1 teach, 1


assist model” worked better for managing behavior in her co-taught classroom. She thinks that is

the most effective strategy; although another strategy they have used is parallel teaching.

Student behavior challenges continue to hinder co-teaching experiences as special

educators are dealing with behavior issues more than general education counterparts. According

to all 3 participants interviewed, discipline concerns seem to rely heavily on the special

educators in the room. As a result, students may not have as much respect for the

“disciplinarian” in the room, so roles need to be shared. E.L. mentions that sometimes general

educators have to rely on the special educator for behavior issues; but that it's not fair. M.D.

concurs that when you’re viewed as a disciplinarian, it is not taken well by the student. They see

you as the one who just punishes the student. D.K. also gave the example that many times there

are a lot of fires to put out regarding behavior and the special educators are spending most of the

time just trying to keep students under control. Special education preparation classes may assist

with strategies but dealing with student behavior comes with experience.

I feel my second research question, “ What factors both hinder and promote collaborative

co-teaching relationships?” needed to elicit broader responses in either the positive or negative

realm of co-teaching factors. It seems that of my initial 4 organizational categories, most of the

concepts fell under a positive or negative factor of collaborative co-teaching depending on the

individual. When I initially coded bigger phrases, I was surprised that my interviews produced

mostly negative factors for co-teaching after most of the participants seemed to be contributing

more positive input. However, after going back and using key words to make substantive

categories; my data turned out to be equally distributed as far as collaboration factors that

promote or hinder a co-teaching relationship.


Factors that promote collaborative co-teaching are: open communication, being on the

same page, having a positive outlook, cooperation, and giving each other respect. Regarding

successful planning, E.L. states “it's just like going over the strategies or those activities we have

to do every day but we are still on the same page, we talk about pacing. M.D. also shares: “Yeah

the more effective would be if both inputs are valued; and uh, be ready to discuss it- it’s open,

you know…”

Negative factors or those that may hinder the co-teaching experience include: lack of

open communication, interjecting opinions, being territorial, and exhibiting the role of being “in

charge.” One general educator didn’t realize that she was taking the role as the person in

charge, and D.K. shares her reaction to this:

She made very clear that she was in charge because she’s got her little ways, very sweet she's very nice just she just has the ways where she says things and sometimes it’s like you basically just undermined me.

If general educators feel the special educator is “sort of interrupting the lesson,” there isn’t

planning/preparation taking place. In, another class, D.K. put some pictures together and a

PowerPoint for some of the vocabulary words in a Social Studies lesson because the kids needed

a visual and shared:

I get the feeling you know I didn't get the feeling that he was very happy about it, he has his way of doing things and I was sort of interjecting something that he hadn't done. I felt like it was kind of like I don’t know we’ll see.

Finally, D.K. shared that “when special educators aren’t territorial, or don’t get in the way, it

seemed to work better.” She was viewed as easy to work with at her previous school and she

states:

I wasn't territorial. I wasn’t about to go after them I was just like come on in; I'm not that that kind of person. So I didn’t get into it with the teachers but then again I wasn't trying to get into it with the teachers.


Validity

I believe the initial memos prepared me for being away from my own framework and

beliefs and created interview prompts that revealed the individual perspectives of the

participants. However, I later found myself evaluating interview feedback by looking beyond the

individual perspectives of the participants. I even initially begun coding by highlighting

information I was looking for and forming the categories accordingly. Although, I revised this

coding strategy to include substantive subcategories base on key words in the participant

feedback; as previously described. This step allowed me to consider alternate explanations even

if the data wasn’t what I predicted at the beginning of the project.

Throughout the interview process, I believe I was given a valid description of participant

responses as audio recording and verbatim transcription was conducted securely. I began each

interview explaining the confidentiality of results and input; and the participant transcriptions are

evidence that these special educators weren’t hesitant to give detailed descriptions of negative

experiences as well as positive. I realized during data analysis that I could have elicited more

feedback about factors contributing to positive relationships at some points during the

interviews, and I believe as I am new at the interview process that I was too focused on staying

on topic and addressing all of my prompts. I also wonder if language was a barrier at all for E.L.

and M.D than D.K. as they didn’t expand on the prompts independently and just responded

directly to the questions asked. However, as previously mentioned I should have prompted the

participant responses more to avoid this issue.

I think the most serious validity threat would be my previous relationships with the

participants and the fact that they were all from the same school setting. This study doesn’t

allow for accurate internal generalizability of special educators. The categories formed seemed


to have input from all 3 participants and I’m not sure that would be the result if the special

educators came from 3 different school settings as characteristics of both special educators and

general educators may vary between school systems according to the degree of communication

and preparation.

Conclusions

Before this project, I was under the impression that qualitative research and interviewing

were easier tasks to accomplish than quantitative research. Now I am completely aware of how

involved qualitative analysis is and how rich and valuable information can be obtained through

studying perspectives of others. Just in creating my interview prompts and working to make

them more open, my thoughts have changed slightly about the quality of quantitative data. In all

of my memos I learned to remove myself from the analysis, and in other types of research you

are possibly leading the process in the direction you want to go. I definitely believe that by

being an active participant in this recursive process of qualitative research; I am aware of the

need for interview prompts and research questions to change based on the data you collect. In

my research situation, I added the focus on positive factors to the second research question as it

helped to tie results together and connect feedback. I also learned a great deal about analyzing

the data. At first I was relieved to have all my interviews transcribed and felt that I just had to

explain the information. So I created charts to organize responses and had skipped the step to

really get at the individual perspectives of the participants. When I went back and included

substantive categories, the results were more specific and matched the data gathered more

accurately. Furthermore, I realized the importance of looking at data differently for each

research question. It was also very difficult during data analysis to refrain from evaluative


comments because I am also a special education co-teacher and after all this I realize it needs to

stay in perspective of the participant.

My original thinking about co-teaching relationships emphasized that lack of content

knowledge and poor teacher preparation is to blame the most for unsuccessful co-taught

relationships. However, as a result of this research and analyzing data by applying specific

coding strategies; my perspective has been influenced to understand that quality communication

and collaboration lead to the most successful co-teaching experiences. Through my data

analysis, it’s also evident that obstacles continue to exist relating to the degree of both special

educator content knowledge, and general educators’ proficiency with collaboration techniques in

defining roles and responsibilities in the co-taught environment. Additionally, lack of planning

time continues to be a problem. When you don't have the same planning time, it’s difficult to

communicate as often as needed. Also relating back to my beliefs about this subject before the

study began, I verified through my conclusions that: a positive co-teaching relationship relies

heavily on the quantity and quality of communication; it’s beneficial for duties to be split equally

in a co-teaching environment so that both parties are comfortable with the behavior and

instruction of students with disabilities; and each party requires professional development in

skills they may be lacking in such as collaborating together or modifying curriculum for students

with disabilities.


Table 1

Organizational Substantive NotesCommunication not open

undermined interjecting dictating communication

open input valued

delegating

Lack of communication affects co-teaching relationship as a negative factor.

Collaboration on the same page plan together share ownership same thing positive

relationship cooperation mutual respect

comfortable

Delegating responsibilities was more effective.

Lack of planning time continues to be an issue.

Planning meetings have other agendas not allowing time for co-teaching strategies.

Knowledge/ Preparation

no time background not prepared

General educators’ lack of training in collaborating/ co-teaching strategies for students with disabilities is negative factor hindering positive co-relationships.

Content knowledge was definitely a factor that may have a negative effect on the co-teaching process.


directing territorial controls dominates rely on in charge parallel

There needs to be equal ownership of instruction in the classroom.

Mutual is the key word. It’s essential to have open trusting relationship.

General educators are still given more respect in the classroom by students.Special educators are dealing with behavior issues more than general education counterparts.Student behavior challenges hinder co-teaching experiences.


Table 2

E.L M.D. D.K.Communication It’s important to

communicate well with your content teacher, the lead teacher, you need to collaborate you need to talk you need to plan together.

It’s also beneficial to see each other every day.

If there is an issue of a student-teacher taking over the class, it needs to be addressed and all parties should communicate about solutions.

When you don't have the same planning time, it’s difficult to communicate as often as needed.

When one dominates, and one is main teacher, and the other is just the assistant; you are not open to share the responsibilities. This is just dictating and both inputs need to be valued.

When the line of communication is open co-teaching relationships are more successful. You discuss what goes on in classroom and, express your opinions freely, and reflect.

With no communication, you are not able to discuss discipline, and share the responsibilities of teaching management

As the classroom teacher you have much more control over the kids, right off they see you as the authority figure. The experience D.K. has had MLK was that she’s the aide or treated that way.She wasn't doing a whole lot of teaching this year.

When special educators aren’t territorial, or don’t get in the way, it seemed to work better.

General educators may not realize that they are making it very clear that they are taking the role as the person in charge; and may undermine special education counterparts in the process.

D.K. shared that the students would look to the general educator and he’d get more respect even though she’d been teaching longer than him.


Collaboration They do a lot of station teaching and the one teach one assist. She thinks that is the most effective strategy; although another strategy they have used is parallel teaching.

Characteristics of a positive co-teaching relationship are sharing the instruction, classroom management, cooperation, and mutual respect.

D.K. didn’t have the same planning as a lot of these co-teachers and weekly designated planning times only allowed for an overview of what we were to do.

At times there were two different curriculums going on, even in same subject areas. One teacher was doing what is in the curriculum now it was interesting and fun but in another class they are just doing worksheets over and over again.

When attempting to add pieces to the lesson, D.K. felt that the general educator has his way of doing things and that she was sort of interjecting something that he hadn't done.

It was brought up that maybe the younger teachers are more co-teaching oriented. Although this isn’t completely consistent with my results. The more experiences teachers are terrific at delegating because they see the whole picture and know what concepts need to be delivered.

Knowledge/ Preparation

E.L. was fortunate enough to co-teach an area of instruction that is her major. She says it’s really different when you have familiarity of what you are saying or familiarity of the content, at least you have prior knowledge of what you are saying.

If you're familiar with the subject you are more comfortable, and if you know the factors.

Many general educators don’t know collaborative planning/ co-teaching

As far as science was concerned that was a joke for D.K. because she was a fish out of water I had no idea.She didn't have that kind of time to study content to prepare.

D.K felt less confident about collaborating when she didn’t know the content. She stated “who am I to get in there and tell her about what she's going to do, I don’t even know what's going


Not all co-teachers are the same. There are co-teachers who are really, really good at delegating work to their co-teachers; there are also some who could gradually understand what co-teaching is and they can gradually release ownership.

change the lesson and you prepared for the lesson

strategies. If they aren’t trained, they don’t understand the principles to “buy in.”

on.”

One teacher learned Math the British way so sometimes it was confusing to D.K. because she learned it differently.

One participant shared that she was told “the classes are easy but the job is hard,” in reference to preparation for teaching students with disabilities. The classes really don't prepare you for what you’re going to deal with in the classroom, there’s no way you could be prepared. Special educators learn different strategies, skills and how to teach this or that; but the reality is at least 99% of it can be behavior.


She is amazed at how the general educator controls the whole class.

When one person is directing everything, it isn’t equal.

Sometimes general educators just have to rely on the special educator for behavior issues; but that's not fair.

When you’re viewed as a disciplinarian, it is not taken well by the student. They see you as the one who just punishes the student.

Many times there are a lot of fires to put out regarding behavior and the special educators are spending most of the time just trying to keep students under control.


Transcription E.L.

Okay tell me about the most successful co-teaching relationship you've had.

The most successful co-teaching relationship I've had is with Ms. Parkman. Ms. Parkman is a tenured and a seasoned co-teacher here at MLK. She teaches 6th grade language arts you wouldn't just believe how she controls the whole class. We do a lot of station teaching and we do the one teach one assist and I think that is the most effective strategy. Another strategy we have used is parallel teaching, parallel teaching gives us the opportunity to deal with kids who needed the most help and go over some work which needs to be re-teach in our class.

What role did communication play in the relationship between you and her?

Communication is I think is the biggest role in every co-teaching atmosphere, in every co-teaching situation, because without this everything would not just turn out to be fine. One teach one gives, that would be I think it would happen if you don't communicate well with your content teacher, the lead teacher.

Okay how familiar were you with that particular content area?

I am familiar because it is my major at the same time I am giving the kids which I really love to work with and so it's just like going over the strategies or those activities we have to do every day but we are still on the same page, we talk about pacing and it’s just that we have to modify some of the tests sometimes in some of the activities for our special ed group.

Okay tell me about a negative co-teaching experience you've had. A negative co-teaching experience I've had is when.. You don’t have to say names but..

Yeah, when we- at the start of the year what we thought is that we were going to have team teaching which we have done for several years and there was another teacher who was a student teacher that was in our class and it's just not fair for the other teachers in there to just let the student-teacher takeover the class not that we're trying to talk about writing here were trying to talk about how we’re going to delegate the work for the four teachers inside so in that case the others will not feel upset about what they're doing

She explained the effectiveness of parallel teaching for instruction, although it was implied that the “1 teach, 1 assist model” worked better for managing behavior. I should have followed up on what made the relationship so successful.

It would have been helpful to follow-up more on communication at this point.

I should have followed up on what made this less successful.


inside the class. Everybody wants to help the kids it's just that there's only one directing everything.

And how did communication influence that relationship?

It’s not, for this year, it's not effective because we don't have the same planning time and I think that is the most important thing that you have that you have to collaborate you have to talk about the plans for the whole week and that didn't happen for the first five months this year. So that will be the biggest factor whenever you talk about co-teaching you need to collaborate you need to talk you need to plan together .

Tell me about how a typical effective collaborative planning session would work.

Typical planning would work if ever you see each other every day, or it doesn’t matter if you spend 15 minutes before the class starts at least you have planned together. What is not effective is when you don't talk you don't plan at all, then one would just be wondering what is going on in the class.

Okay regarding behavior management who is primarily responsible for monitoring students’ behavior in your co-taught class?

We are supposed to be responsible together, not uh, sometimes they just have to rely on special educator but that's not fair I think the most important thing to say when you talk about behavior concerns is for both of us to deal with the behavior or to address that kind of behavior inside the class.

Okay regarding attitude how you think general educators you've worked with have approached this relationship?

Well not all co-teachers are the same. There are co-teachers who are really, really good at delegating work to their co-teachers; there are also some who could gradually understand what is co-teaching and they still can gradually release ownership of the lesson. Sometimes and they feel like this is my lesson and I need to teach this lesson and they don't want to delegate to the special educator.

So that would be a negative experience if they didn't want to delegate? Um are most of your co-teaching relationships voluntary or was it set up by administration?

I do recall E.L. being irritated by this situation at the start of the year; I’m curious to know if she used this technique to solve her dilemma.

Planning time definitely was an issue.

It’s beneficial to communicate / debrief daily as times allows.

Special educators are dealing with behavior issues more than general education counterparts/

A co-teachers attitude toward relationship with the special educator is somewhat dependent on collaboration skills.


Set up voluntary sometimes because I need to collaborate sometimes so I have to go there and talk to them if I had time. I think it both should be done because sometimes a lead teacher would not come to terms with the special educator. Maybe both voluntary when the special educator will not find a way to talk with the lead teacher probably.

Ok, and how did or didn't your teaching preparation prepare you sufficiently in regards to co-planning co-teaching and gaining access to the general education curriculum?

There are times when the content teacher will change the lesson and you prepared for the lesson it happens sometimes when some kids have not submitted their homework for the day and you have to change something different for that day. So that would be just really far different.

Okay so what are you most familiar with- language arts?

and reading…

Did you teach in a math class?

Yes in your class before and I feel really ineffective…

Because you don't know the..

Because I don't know the content actually the same time I never taught math before

Okay. It's really different when you have familiarity of what you are saying or familiarity of the content, at least you have prior knowledge of what you are saying.

And you think if general educators aren't prepared with special educator collaboration strategies that will affect them in a way?

It really does in my experience.

In your experience? Ok, thank you.

Familiarity of the general education curriculum is reflected in preparedness/ confidence to deliver the instruction.


Trasncription D.K.

Walk me through an effective co-teaching situation you've experienced.

You said walk you through um co-teaching let’s see you want co-teaching special ed? I've do done co-teaching ESOL too. You want one that is specific to special ed, is that correct?

Um special ed. yeah sure.

The experience I've had as a content teacher I was a content teacher with the ESOL teacher, now I am special ed teacher with the content teacher. It's completely different and the experience is that as the classroom teacher you have much more control over the kids, right off they see you as the authority figure. The experience I’ve had MLK was that I'm the aid um treated that way I mean I know I was moving from an elementary to a middle school arena but it felt like there was much more disrespectful feeling from the kids all year long. You know a lot of it was because I guess the first three months I was just following from one class to the other I was not picking up on what they were doing in class. I was basically just the aid I was just following from class to class. So, in that case, you don't get a lot a respect they don't really listen to you and I really did feel as though I wasn't doing a whole lot of teaching this year. There was a couple times where I got to teach but it was really content teachers were teaching and every once in a while I was able to get in there. In the situation with MLK, I had two different experiences. I have several because of course I switched around so often but I do think with our two groups you know intensive and the supposed co-taught the kids without IEP's. In those classes, I've never felt so much like a prison guard as I did with those classes. Once again I mean, I felt as though I didn’t get to teach this year I was maintaining them from killing each other of course we did have them fourth and fifth mod and I think other people have them the beginning of the day they were as atrocious as they were a in a larger setting they were in a larger room, you could spread them out better. We are in a small temp; they were right on top of each other. All they were doing is looking at each other all day saying “I’m gonna kill you,” “did you look at me?” This was kind of an aggravation, so bottom line for me is I didn't like the co-teaching experience ay MLK because I didn't feel like I was co-teaching. Whenever we planned together, I didn’t have the same planning as a lot of these co-teachers and actually with the amount of paperwork and a lot of it was unnecessary paperwork that we ended up having to

Student behavior challenges hindered her co-teaching experience.

Lack of planning time continues to be an issue.


do at MLK which I've never had to do before a lot of it was unnecessary a lot of it which shouldn't have been doing and then to be expected to be planning what these teachers and I for one I would've been doing science with Anderson and then I would have been doing reading with Johnson and then I would've been doing reading with Matt. Matt had a class during his planning so there was never time to plan both of those classes we do different things because of course you know the levels of those kids. It is a little bit different. So it's different classes to plan for, there is just no time so I basically went in and had to wing it as far as the science was concerned that was a joke cause I was a fish out of water I had no idea. I didn’t have time to go home and study the book every night and try to figure out what was going on in the class. I just didn't have that kind of time . So it wasn't a great experience for me. I felt like I was being an aid and I was maintaining most of the year that is what I was doing- standing around, quite frankly bored most of the time in the classroom.

So with the science content area you weren’t as familiar so do you think not knowing some of the content area may have affected it or if it…? Absolutely, and here's the thing and I didn't really know that, I did tell Robin when I went in that I was not certified for math and science for seventh and eighth grade so I don't have that background and never had to take classes etc. It would've been a lot of studying for me. It’s not that I didn’t want to do it- I just never got the chance to do it. You know how it is with the job, it’s not like were trying not to do it there’s just so much other stuff going on and there's really not a lot of time there. Majorly didn't have a lot of time to do anything. Um it seemed like my lunch time was taken up with making sure they get their homework done and then I would do would cut into my planning time I would eat my lunch then we would have a meeting there is no time to plan it and then of course the planning the planning we have on Wednesdays was all about PMAPP, it seemed like we were always discussing PMAPP, we never planned with anyone. At the beginning we had social studies with Tirdil and then Manske and we did more planning of what would come up during the week but with this was just sort of an overview of what we were to do so you know as far as having the teaching piece, I didn’t really have the teaching piece because I came into Tirdil’s in October or November I think the beginning of November so a lot of it had already been kind of set the tone of how is it happen and it just wasn't a good experience. I didn't get to teach and know what they were doing it was just different.

Content knowledge was definitely a factor that affection co-teaching process.

She is referring to special educator compliance responsibilities that may affect instructional preparations.

Planning meetings have other agendas not allowing time for co-teaching strategies.


When Tirdil teachers, I don’t know if you’ve done co-teaching with him and Manske, he was teaching social studies that was taught like 20 years ago, he is using the books from 20 years ago he is using the handouts from what apparently they were ones that Scotty made up when she was in class or maybe 13-14 years ago. Manske was doing what is in the curriculum now it was interesting and fun and they were doing more interesting things but we are just doing worksheets over and over again he’d just hand them another worksheet, we’d go over it on the overhead then they did another one. That's what we did all day, in other words they were trying to put me with social studies in that second quarter but Manske was not doing the same thing Tirdil was doing, so there were two different curriculums going on.. and of course I um gosh what was it, Manske, I had Tirdil twice that's right twice in the afternoon, and I had Anderson and I didn't know what was going on there. Which she is a dynamic teacher, I would just write up- and I was the peripheral sort of person trying to put things together and hand out papers and what needed to be written on the board. I'd write on the board for the kids to take notes from but what as far is what was going on you know kids ask a question today I just went IDK, I’d use the book .

How do you think the general educators you've worked with have approached the relationship do you think could have a positive attitude or were they reluctant?

Um I had some fabulous co-teachers I love them all I didn’t have a problem with I mean Sophia Anderson we got along really well and she was like, “Ms. Kelly, what will we do without you next year?” She knew I was moving, she had heard she wouldn’t be teaching with me- teaching special ed. “Oh, tell them I need you, I need you.” She really loved having me in the room and was kind of like it felt like I'm not really doing anything just standing around taking notes on the board but she’d think having me there was like having an aid for her I guess. But we got along great; I didn’t get in the way. I think that's what I think that's what she liked she said something about how the other special ed teacher the other person was trying to get in there and start talking in sort of interrupt her. To me I just try to figure out what the teacher wants and she wanted me to be peripheral to do the writing on the board she wanted me. So I’m not really co-teaching I’m being the aid because I didn't know anything about this, she's doing the planning. So who am I to get in there and tell her about what she's going to do, I don’t even know what's going on, she loved me that was always my thing, I

There isn’t consistency across the board in individual subject areas.

This is similar to 1 teach, 1 assist technique.

She does know more about teaching students with disabilities- that’s where collaboration comes in.


can get along with anybody. Johnson and I, we got along, there were no problems you know but she made very clear that she was in charge because she’s got her little ways, very sweet she's very nice just she just has the ways where she says things and sometimes it’s like Johnson, you basically just undermined me. And she doesn't realize she was doing it but she’d tell the kids you’re treating Ms. Kelly very poorly, you need to apologize. But you’re taking the role of the person in charge of telling kids what to do, it’s like I’ll talk to the kids don't tell them to apologize you know what I mean? It was just there was things she was doing in a nice; she was trying to be nice, trying to be supportive. We got to a better place toward the end, I finally said to the kids you don’t know you know who I am I’m not the aid; I went through the whole thing. I said I’ve been teaching longer than you've been alive and I have my bachelors and my masters and I just went on with the whole thing. I said I'm not the aid, I don’t know why you think you can treat me in this disrespectful manner. I’m also an adult in the room, I'm a teacher. So then it stopped about a month or 2 before the end. When the kids realized I wasn’t going to put up with their crap anymore you know the little attitude, the little disrespecting they wanted to do. I mean and I got at the beginning you know you're the new teacher or you're coming in they think you’re the aid but after a while I was like you know enough and it got better. I got along fabulous with Tirdil, you know very well, I had no problem with him.. but like I said I was peripheral, if he wanted me to be the one to go over the worksheet I did. I did try to put some pictures together and a PowerPoint for some of the vocabulary words because they don't see, they need visual- so I tried doing that. I get the feeling you know I didn't get the feeling that he was very woman happy about it, he has his way of doing things and I was sort of interjecting something that he hadn't done. I felt like it was kind of like well I don’t know we’ll see, so he was lovely. Manske was fabulous she was very lovely and she was very easy to work with and it was very just like that's what we're doing and she’d give me things to do and she was much more co-teaching I think maybe the younger ones too you know much more co-teaching oriented and she didn't seem to have a problem. Um, I was in Carter's for a while, she's fabulous she didn’t really need me there because she already had Alamoody or whatever. So it was like me being in the room was just one more person they didn’t need. They were running it, and I was kind of kind of the standing around and that was when I was following from class to class. So I was definitely just beginning an aid. Um Bhasin, we got along just fine, you know she’s interesting and I didn’t work with her very long. She

It’s difficult to set tone to students that you are at an equal level if not there from the beginning, but she clarified, although when the year almost over.

Delegating responsibilities was more effective.

Both co-teachers learned information in different ways but this can be used as an advantage because our students need a variety of


would teach a lot of concept Math to me but she learned that the British way so sometimes it was confusing to me and I was just like is this what you're doing and this is the way I learned it. I was just a little confused on some of the things so we got along fine, but once again I was out of there by October. I wasn't in there we didn't have any problems I’m trying to think my experiences being a content teacher at Langley Park for about 9 years, and after five or six years as a content teacher I know the ESOL department chair came up to me and “Oh Debbie, all my teachers want to work with you because you're not territorial.

Oh.

So I guess that's it you know I'm not I don't get into it. They’re you know you're easy to work with so I’d usually get the better ESOL teachers I wasn't territorial. I wasn’t about to go after them I was just like come on in; I'm not that that kind of person. So I didn’t get into it with the teachers but then again I wasn't trying to get into it with the teachers. So I don’t know if I'm the best person to ask about that you know I’m not territorial. Layton and I got along just fine he’s got just about everything in line he's always Mr. Organized. I kind of took over the fourth mod; he took over the fifth mod a bit. I would read for the fourth mod, go over certain things and he would do the same for the fifth mod but that's kind of what we did so it's not a problem but once again they would look to him not to me and he’d get more respect a lot with them even though I’d been teaching longer than him I thought but he's a male and they get more respect and he was the teacher of the room so they would look to him and ask him, and not ask me so anyway does that answer your question at all?

Yeah this just answered so many of them actually so basically what I'm getting is planning time obviously definitely affected it and definitely in your situation not knowing some of the content area affected the instruction part and um let’s see my last one goes into the teaching preparation- are you saying the younger ones were little bit more co-teaching oriented and…?

Miss Manske was and I think Mrs. Carter was more so. When I was in there, Carter and Alamoody were sort of just setting up their boundaries so I was sort of a sideline person and when I was in there for the most part I mean Jamar had only left about a week or two before I got pulled out of there. We only got Alex medicated you know like a couple weeks before that. So a lot of

methods as they learn in different ways.

Organized general educators and non-territorial special educators created more positive relationships.

General educators are still given more respect in the classroom by the students.

Reiterates student behavior as a negative factor of co-teaching instruction.


the time when I was in there, there were a lot of fires to put out.. after lunch fourth and fifth mod between fourth and fifth mind was insane because before Alex, you know how he is when he is medicated. It was bad enough for you guys when he was medicated because he was coming off, so you weren’t getting the focus that we were getting in the morning. So you know, the difference, it was his black-and-white difference, I mean there was no way he could work. So that's what I was dealing with for the first month or so was him just trying to get medicated. So there were so many of those fires and then Jamar would act up with him I mean it was awful, and I would take him out there was not a lot of teaching going on because I spent most of the time just trying to keep them under control. We had to take them out one at a time that's all I was doing. In Bhasin it was the same you were taking Alex out when he was not medicated last week he can’t be in the room can he? He’s just too disruptive, it's just a mess.

Yeah, I think it's steadily more beneficial to him when he’s learning it one-to-one at that point and for the rest of the class at that point because he's distracting them.

Absolutely, he cannot you need to take him out of the situation I mean unless he's on medication.

I was just curious you know it seems now there is collaborative classes in the curriculum of general educators because I know I didn't even have a special ed class in my um undergraduate work but as far- if you think back to your teaching preparation, do you think it prepared you for that co-planning and co-teaching or was it mostly just strategies?

Um I think everything and I don’t remember specifically classes because it's been too long but specifically now. Someone said this to me as I found the classes easy, some teacher told us he said you know the classes are easy but the job is hard, and he’s right that’s exactly what it was The classes really don't prepare you for what you’re going to deal with in the classroom, there’s no way you could be prepared. The kids I mean we learn how the different strategies that skills and how to teach this or that but the reality is at least 99% of it this year was behavior.

Yeah, so probably if you had any time to communicate it would be with behavior?

Absolutely.

Special education classes may assist with strategies but dealing with student behavior comes with experience.


Transciption M.D.

Okay walk me through an effective co-teaching situation you've experienced.

Well the one that, that is effective is the one where you share the instruction, classroom management and you know positive relationshi p , you know, where there is, you know, cooperation and you know mutual respect.

Okay, um what role did communication plan the relationship?

Well in the co-teaching one that is effective, the co-teaching one is when the line of communication is open, when you discuss about what goes on in classroom and uh you know, express your opinions freely, and need to reflect- you know.

Okay how familiar were you at the content area and did this have a more positive effect on the relationship if you were more comfortable with the content , or…

Yeah, yeah, yeah, actually if you're familiar with the subject you are more comfortable, you know, comfortable to teach it in and to discuss it, yeah

Okay, tell me about a negative co- teaching relationship you've had.

That’s when you have, you know, one dominates, and one is main teacher, and the other is just the assistant and not open to share the responsibilities.

Okay, so why do you feel it was unsuccessful?Right, right… No communication, and just like you know, not there to discuss discipline and you know, share the responsibilities of teaching management, and they have co-teacher- you know.Okay, how comfortable were you with the general ed curriculum in that subject area? Did that have an effect on it at all, or were you…

Yeah it does, I was you know comfortable if you also know the factors, you know?

How does a typical collaborative planning meeting work? Is it delegating responsibilities?

Mutual is the key word.

Essential to have open trusting relationship.

Comfort level with subject area is relevant to instruction effectiveness in co-taught classrooms.

An example of how “1 teach , 1 assist is not effective.”

Lack of communication affects co-teaching relationship as a negative factor.

I believe he was referring to a negative experience, and I


It was the main teacher, you know, the person considered the main teacher you know, that said, you know, “you do this.. I’ll do this…” You have to be open to accepting ideas. It was just dictating you know.

Ok, in a more effective co-teaching collaborative planning meeting; that’s when responsibilities would be delegated?

Yeah the more effective would be if both inputs are valued; and uh, be ready to discuss it- it’s open, you know…

Yeah. Regarding behavior management and I think you covered this before; but who is primarily responsible for the behavior in your co-taught classrooms?

Well the one is, you know, is in control of the class, and the other is a very good discipline… and the one is just I’ll be the one teaching, and takes care of issues. So you’d be viewed as a disciplinarian, and it doesn’t, it is not taken well by the student, you know.. They see you as the one who just punishes the student.

Yeah, OKYou know, the behavior problems.

Ok, 2 more questions. One is just the attitude of general educators: how do you think the general educators you’ve worked with have approached this relationship?Well the general educator has to be uh, have a positive attitude with co-teaching; they have to “buy-in..” so that is very important you know.

Ok how did or didn’t your teaching preparation prepare you in regards to co-teaching, co-planning, and gaining access to the general education? Did you have a collaborative course in college, or…

The other thing is the training, you know, a lot of the general educators are not trained; they don’t know collaborative planning/ co-teaching. So they’re not trained, they don’t understand the principles, you know to buy in. That is usually all the things in a short time.

Ok, I’m going to turn the recorder off.

meant a typical positive experience.

I clarified specific information I needed.

There needs to be equal ownership of instruction in the classroom.

Students may not have as much respect for the “disciplinarian” in the room, roles need to be shared.

This statement reflects that he has had both positive and negative co-teaching experiences.

General educator’s lack of training in collaborating/ co-teaching strategies for students with disabilities is negative factor hindering positive co-relationships.


Documents

mason.gmu.edumason.gmu.edu/~aeichorn/EDRS 812_ Final Project.docx · Web viewThe topic of my research project is to investigate how experienced special educators respond to co-teaching