I am lucky enough to have had experience of what it can look like when co-teaching works….It doesn’t always work…but when it does…truly amazing things can happen.
In my previous school, we had the co-teaching model. Although some years, weeks or months were challenging, it was mostly a positive experience. I have been missing having someone to bounce ideas off, to be next to me when lessons are failing and above all to celebrate and share in successes. Teaching can be a lonely business and having a partnership where there is a continuous stream of feedback encourages us to take risks, experiment and reinforce our shared values around learning.
I recently had the pleasure to spontaneously co-teach an open inquiry math lesson with another teacher from my school. We had very little time to plan together (no more than 10 minutes, just 15 minutes before the lesson). We had one idea, but that was it. We were going out on a limb together and were open to see how it would go. Two hours flew by, and the room was abuzz with children absorbed, inquiring, learning and pushing themselves beyond what they knew. It went was probably one of the best co-teaching lessons I have been apart of.
We began by introducing the conceptual lenses for the lesson. The students began to list what they were learning and sort their knowledge under the concepts of form and function. After identifying that they still had questions around place value, skip counting to 1000 and the patterns within numbers we had our lesson focus, all decided by them. AGENCY!
As teachers we were able to take turns gathering understandings, assessing what misconceptions learners had, all whilst moving the learning on. My co-teacher and I were modelling the ATLS of group work and communication as we unpacked.
Students were provided with a variety of math manipulatives that they had been previously been using, number lines, hundreds chart (blank and numbered), counters, ten frames and base 10 blocks and then they were underway.
Having two teachers circulate the room with intention meant that the students understanding of place value grew quickly. All students were challenged and engaged in very different tasks. Self-directed learning was highly evident in that moment. As a solo teacher this has presented challenges to ensure all learners are continuously engaged and stretching themselves. Having two teachers observing, monitoring learning meant that all children were challenged and supported appropriately. As a result of this continuous feedback to feedforward students began to ask deep and meaningful questions that in later lessons took our understanding much further.
Amongst all of the learning chaos action was generated when a student realised that there was an easier way to teach others how to read larger numbers. She created a frame that was able to guide number reading. Many students were in turn able to learn from her model.
Not all of my co-teaching experiences have been as positive. I think what made this one so good was that we both had an open mind and we were ready to take a risk and fail if need be. We both truly believed in the idea of agency and inquiry and as a result, we saw the benefits in both learning and the smiles on the students’ faces as they announced that they just loved math!
EnhancedInquiryFootprints 