Co-Teaching and Inclusion

            To learn about coteaching in an inclusion classroom, I talked to two teachers at CFHS. CC is a general educator in her second year of teaching and DB is a special educator who coteaches a few classes with a few different teachers. He has been a special educator for twenty years and has been in CF for sixteen of those years. As a special educator, DB has always worked in classes with students in special education, but he helps everyone in the classroom, not just the students with IEPs. CC taught two inclusion Geometry classes last year, along with two general Algebra II classes, and has two inclusion Algebra II classes this year that she coteaches with DB.

            In an inclusion classroom, there is a mix of general and special education students, with only a handful of students in each class having IEPs. However, these labels don’t really have an impact on the students. The students who are in special education and have IEPs know what it is and why they have an IEP. The rest of the students usually don’t even know what an IEP is and are unaware that the class is mixed. Sure, some students don’t like to hear that their class is a “special ed class,” because it sounds demeaning, but the teachers never discuss or hint that anyone is any different. The class is treated like any other class in the school.

            At CF, it’s hard to see the difference between the two groups of students because of the general lack of lower-ability skills. DB stated that even general education students ask questions about basic operations and that time has to be dedicated to these tasks for all students, not just a handful. Each of the students in these inclusion classes are struggling, regardless of ability or disability.

            As educators, CC and DB each have their roles in the classroom. CC mainly creates the lessons, deciding what content to cover, and how to teach it. DB roams around from class to class, so he is not particularly involved in lesson planning, but he helps break the lesson down. Together, they determine where students might struggle and how to best present the materials so that the students will understand and be engaged. Working together has brought them closer together and taught them to have a better understanding of each of their students’ strengths and needs.

            Inclusion is different in every class depending on the variability of the students. Every student learns differently, is at different levels, and makes the choice to participate. It’s tough to teach the students when so much time is dedicated to one topic and you can’t reach all of your students. Intervention programs have been created, but there always seem to be drawbacks. Inclusion is the best way for students to learn in the least restrictive environment. It’s just important to try your best to reach the students and to help them along the way. You need to scaffold students’ learning in order to build them up to harder tasks and be supportive of their learning. Just keep trying and don’t give up on yourself or your students.

You can learn more about coteaching by checking out this link:

http://nichcy.org/schoolage/effective-practices/coteaching