Case Study: Highly Effective Teachers in Co-Instruction
Queens Vocational and Technical High School (QVTHS) is a career and technical education secondary school that serves 1,450 students from New York City. This case study is based on improving the co-instructional environment for both students and teachers; our mission is to create holistic and effective collaborative teaching relationships at the school. We believe that improved co-instruction leads to an improved work climate, more frequent contact with parents, increased teacher job satisfaction and higher levels of student achievement.
Our goal is to produce effective partnerships among teachers, paraprofessionals, and other service providers in various Instructional Support classrooms. If we achieve our mission, then teachers, paraprofessionals, and others will be paired based on their willingness to work together, subject-area consistency, and/or a judgment that their teaching styles will mesh. Once teachers have been matched, they will utilize the co-instruction strategies outlined in the research, and employ effective strategies throughout the year. Ultimately, we expect that more effective teaching relationships will lead to greater fulfillment of Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals, and better outcomes for all students in the class.
Project Background
At QVTHS, over 200 students have an Individualized Education Program (IEP), which means that they have an identified disability. The needs of these students are addressed in a variety of settings. Presently, the majority of special education services are delivered to students in a collaborative teaching environment, such as Integrated Co-Teaching (ICT), or via push-in related services.
Becoming highly effective teachers in co-instruction is based on a number of assumptions. One is that an effective co-instructional environment can lead to improved outcomes for both general education and special education students. Based on this premise, the project’s strategy will be to review co-instruction best practices and utilize that research to foster an improved collaborative educational experience.
Other assumptions we have include:
- The ICT model is highly effective in instructing students receiving instructional support services and ELLs.
- Teachers collaborating effectively increases student outcome. The students are closely monitored and able to ask questions and express concerns on an individual level.
- ICT is a more effective way of educating an inclusion class. The individual attention that the teachers provide allows them to better identify the strengths and weaknesses of the IEP and ELL students. ICT increases the ability to initiate and maintain parent outreach for students receiving instructional support services.
- ICT is easier for both teachers. The workload (i.e., lesson planning, grading, parent outreach, etc.) can be equally divided and effectively planned.
- ICT is a partnership as opposed to separate individual work. Both teachers have equitable responsibilities.
- If teachers are given professional development on the ICT model, they will be able to implement learned strategies in the classroom and better instruct their students.
While it is important to understand and document the successes of the current co-instruction paradigm at QVTHS, we also hope to identify specific areas where there are opportunities for improvement. A program has been devised where the change team will collect and summarize co-instruction literature, survey teachers and students, lead professional development, collect data, and serve as role models of this new collaborative culture. The teachers, parents and support staff personnel must also be the primary decision makers in planning and building an effective school-wide program. Beginning with a shared vision, the school staff can build a successful learning environment for all the students.
It is our goal to encourage critical reflection among the team members, and eventually throughout the larger school community. We believe that this opportunity to pursue deep and transformative change in the area of co-instruction will personally inspire and excite teachers, related service providers, and other stakeholders across the building.
Numerous studies related to co-teaching have indicated that special education teachers gain insight into the realities of the general education classroom while the general educators learn valuable lessons in planning, accommodating, and instructing students with special needs. Co-teaching can be a very rewarding experience for those involved and beneficial to the students as well. By planning together, being supportive and open to learning from each other, co-teachers can make a profound and positive effect on the students they serve. Through fostering highly effective teachers in co-instruction, we will show that those efforts will result in a more collaborative and effective school environment and, subsequently, a more meaningful educational opportunity for all students.
Successes
In the spring of 2011, all teachers in the building were asked to complete a “Co-Teaching Survey” where they outlined their preferences about co-teaching, and who they would like to work with. Based on feedback we have collected, teachers feel that it is important to have their voices heard about their class and co-teaching assignments. As teacher programs were assigned during the summer months, school administrators took these preferences into account when they planned teaching assignments for co-taught sections. Instructional support teachers were also given programs that generally reflected subject-area consistency (i.e., teaching in one subject as opposed to many). As a direct result of this thoughtful planning, many co-teaching relationships have now continued for consecutive years, which allows for greater trust, collaboration, and pedagogical growth.
Change Team members have also experienced personal growth in their understanding of co-instruction through our work in this project. We believe that we can be agents of change through our own better understanding and implementation of co-instruction.
Challenges
This summer, we attended the IUE institute and were introduced to new methods of digital contact that help us stay in contact in spite of busy, conflicting schedules. We agreed to use Facebook as a means of communication with each other and with the larger community about our Theory of Change. Along with promising to use these digital communications, we set up a schedule of meetings and workshops that would help keep the Theory of Change active. All of these aspirations were great, except that we became overwhelmed with the amount of time it required to use Facebook and Twitter to communicate with one another. We also thought that some coworkers would find it a nuisance to hear about work through their personal social networking accounts. When setting up the schedules for this school year we were too ambitious and unrealistic on when we would begin. Some group members were torn with the schedule in that some thought that it was realistic and others thought that is was not – but we all agreed to a schedule with events as early as the first week of school, and that schedule is now posted on the calendar page of this blog.
The fall is where all of the goals that we established over summer were proven to be unrealistic. We all walked into the building and there were many changes that had occurred. There was a new mentor teacher program and a brand new curriculum for the English department. These two changes were the focus of our school’s administration. In the month of September, it was not possible to set up teacher workshops during professional periods because there were many different conflicting events.
In the spring, we set goals to survey the students in CTT classes about their experiences and preferences in a CTT setting. It was not until the end of the year that these surveys were administered. We were given the results of the survey during the summer, and have not been able to examine the results of the surveys together as a team. The reason for this is that at the end of the school year last year all of the teachers on the change team had individual responsibilities and separate schedules that inhibited time for distributing the surveys and attending meetings.
Our change team has always been challenged by the lack of time to collaborate on our work, and the start of every school year is especially hectic and filled with many changes. Most of the teachers on the team wear many hats within our building, which makes it difficult to find the time to meet and move our change plan forward the way we envisioned. Working around the many different schedules can be difficult when trying to implement change within an organization. We believe that our change plan is a great fit for our school and we believe it will definitely meet a demonstrated need, but our question is about how we are going to get it done at the level that we envisioned.
Questions
With all this being said, we now submit the following questions for further reflection:
- How can the change team collaborate on this project without the common time to meet in person?
- How can we create firm deadlines for our work, and then hold ourselves to them?
- How can we engage more teachers in the building with our work?
- How can we build upon our successes?
– Cynthia
