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Collaborative Classroom

The purpose of this course is to provide educators with a strong foundation for planning, implementing, and maintaining successful co-teaching programs. Because today’s classrooms include a student population with different learning styles and educational needs, co-teaching has become a more common practice.

By developing a clear definition of co-teaching, examining critical components of co-teaching models, and evaluating current co-teaching programs, this course explores both the conceptual and operational aspects of this approach to delivering instruction. Based on current research in the field of education, this course examines the most commonly accepted co-teaching practices between general and special education teachers on the elementary, middle, and high school levels.

Carlow University ED 637 • Madonna University EDU 5830.10

The required text for this course is Co-Teaching that Works: Structures and Strategies for Maximizing Student Learning, Second Edition, by Anne M. Beninghof.

ISBN: ‎978-1119653325

Graduate participants earn 3 semester hours of graduate credit and will receive a transcript from one of our partner institutions below. Professional development participants will receive a certificate of completion for 45 hours of professional developments credit for face-to-face classes and 60 hours of professional development credit for online classes.

Professional
Development

Course Schedule

2/11/25 - 5/13/25
4/8/25 - 7/8/25
6/10/25 - 9/9/25
8/12/25 - 11/11/25
10/14/25 - 1/13/26
12/9/25 - 3/10/26

Course Schedule

Zoom

1/3-5 & 1/10-12

Amy Jackson

Textbook List FAQs

Outline
Objectives
Partner Universities
Important Information
Student Academic Integrity

Print Online Course Outline Print Face To Face Course Outline

Outline

Session 1: Defining a Collaborative Relationship

Personal reflection and experiences: How would you define a collaborative relationship? What have been your personal experiences in collaborative and/or co-teaching relationships?
Introduction and sharing of reflection responses
Classroom demographics chart (i.e. – class representation)
Definition of collaborative relationship: A class consensus
Course requirements
Instructor’s expectations
Course registration

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

History of inclusion
Overview of federal and state regulations
T-Chart of advantages and disadvantages of having two teachers in a classroom
Research-supported benefits of collaborative classrooms for teachers and students

Session 3: Examining and Evaluating the Key Elements for Effective Collaborative Relationships

Individual prerequisites
Defining roles of the general and special education teachers
Who should co-teach? (i.e. – beginning teacher with beginning teacher)
Defining a professional co-teaching relationship
Utilizing the co-teaching rating scale
Achieving parity between co-teachers using preliminary discussion points
The administrator’s role in co-teaching: providing support for personnel

Session 4: Essential Components of a Co-Teaching Relationship

Developing effective interpersonal communication: scenarios
Physical room arrangements
Familiarity with curriculum
Curriculum goals and modifications
Instructional planning
Instructional presentation
Classroom management
Assessing the co-teaching relationship

Session 5: Co-Teaching Models

One teacher/one assist/observe model
One teacher/one drift model
Parallel teaching
Station teaching
Alternate teaching
Team teaching
Additional instructional methods

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

Types of teacher aides (i.e.- 1:1 Aide)
Roles of paraprofessionals: classroom responsibilities
Legal responsibilities of paraprofessionals
Teacher supervision of paraprofessional

Session 7: Response to Intervention (RtI)

Legal requirements for teachers under IDEA
Use of RtI as an evaluative tool on the elementary level
RtI models
The impact of RtI on general and special education teachers
How RtI is used in the classroom
Assessment tools and early intervention strategies

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

Identifying the diverse learners in today’s classrooms
Critical components of differentiated instruction lessons
Pre-assessing students’ needs and abilities
Pre-assessing students’ interests
Assessing students’ learning styles
Developing and implementing effective differentiated instruction lessons
Using Bloom’s Taxonomy in differentiated instruction lessons
Evaluating differentiated instruction lessons

Session 9: Assessing Co-Teaching

Examples of co-teaching programs
Factors that undermine co-teaching programs
Surveying teachers, administrators, students, parents about the effectiveness of their co-teaching programs
Other strategies used for evaluating programs

Session 10: Final Projects and Final Exam

Review
Final project reviews and presentations
Final exam
Evaluations

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.

Partner Universities

Our Partners are well-established regionally and nationally accredited colleges and universities, recognized for academic excellence and their commitment to teachers.

Important Information

Online 3-graduate credit courses are 13 weeks in length.

On-site weekend courses are held Friday evening from 6:00pm-9:00pm and Saturday/Sunday, 8:30am-5:30pm.

Weekday courses are Monday-Friday from 8:00am- 6:00pm.

It is the responsibility of the student to check with their state, county, district, or school to ensure that all requirements are being met by the course you're taking.

Check the Partner Universities page for specific university information as well as course numbers which are specific to the university partner.

Students are required to purchase their own textbook, the information for which can be found here. If no book is required it will be specified on the list. We have copies of many of the textbooks should you wish to purchase directly from TEI.

Professional development (PD) participants receive a certificate of completion from TEI for 45 hours of PD credit for face to face classes and 60 hours of PD credit for online classes. These certificates are mailed within one week of the end of the class and reflect the course title, dates of attendance, and credit hour information.

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.