6. Team Teaching                                                                                                                      

In team teaching, both teachers are delivering the same instruction at the same time. This implies that each speaks freely during large-group instruction and moves among all the students in the class. Instruction becomes a conversation, not turn-taking.

WHEN TO USE

• When two heads are better than one or experience is comparable

• During a lesson in which instructional conversation is appropriate

• In co-teaching situations in which the teachers have considerable experience and a high sense of comfort

• When a goal of instruction is to demonstrate some type of interaction to students

AMOUNT OF PLANNING

• High

SAMPLE APPLICATIONS

• In science, one teacher explains the experiment while the other demonstrates using the necessary materials.

• In social studies, the teachers debate U.S. foreign policy issues.

• In language arts or English, the teachers act out a scene from a piece of literature.

• As the steps in a math process are taught, one explains while the other does a “Think Aloud” activity.

• One teacher talks while the other demonstrates note-taking on the board or an overhead projector.

OTHER COMMENTS

• This co-teaching approach is affected more than any other by individuals’ teaching styles.

• This is the most interpersonally complex co-teaching approach.

*Cook and Friend (2004).  Co-Teaching: Principles, Practices, and Pragmatics, New Mexico Public Education Department Quarterly Special Education Meeting, Albuquerque, NM, April 29, 2004.