Abstract
As co-teachers tackle the unique challenges of instructing in remote, hybrid, and socially distanced brick-and-mortar settings they can increase their success by incorporating technology solutions into their shared classrooms. Technology can facilitate co-teachers’ implementation of small-group instruction, increase options for student engagement and participation, and establish instructional consistency through clear communication. The result can be enhanced student learning and more efficient and effective delivery of the specially designed instruction that students with disabilities must receive.
Keywords
As schools deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, educators are innovating to ensure students with disabilities receive the free appropriate public education (FAPE) to which they are entitled. For co-teachers, this shift has meant intensive collaboration and creating solutions to the numerous challenges of remote, hybrid, and virtual environments as they work to maintain instruction for IEP goals and the delivery of specially designed instruction. Specifically, situations like these have arisen: As early career educators, Jasmine and Mia both thought remote co-teaching would fall into place as it had last year with different partners. That did not happen. The restrictions require both teachers to rethink their planning and instruction. Jasmine, the general educator, feels pressured to keep up a brisk instructional pace. She thinks the best way to meet district timelines is for her to teach lessons to the entire class, given her need to verify she is delivering the same content with a reduced amount of instructional time. She has said Mia can take students with individualized education programs (IEPs) and other students who are struggling to a breakout room, if there is time, but that rarely happens. Mia ends up scheduling extra instructional sessions for the students on her caseload, and both students and their parents are complaining about extra work. Neither teacher is comfortable with their arrangement, but they are not certain how to resolve the situation. Oliver and Layla have tried as much as possible to keep their co-teaching like it was last year. They are using several types of grouping arrangements and simultaneously instructing their shared students, but they have noticed a serious issue. They find it extremely challenging to hold their pupils’ attention, even in small groups, which is affecting overall learning as well as the effectiveness of specially designed instruction for the students with disabilities. Following district guidelines, many students have opted to turn their cameras off, and the teachers suspect several students are doing something other than following the day’s lesson. Others have cameras on but do not answer questions, ask for support with areas of confusion, or otherwise show any motivation to learn. The co-teachers are worried the students struggling with learning through remote instruction will not meet grade level proficiency standards. Vivian and Xavier co-teach in a school district with many challenges. The school year began with remote instruction and then transitioned to a hybrid model with most students assigned to one of two groups, attending in-person twice per week (Monday-Tuesday for Group A; everyone remote on Wednesday to clean classrooms; and Thursday-Friday for Group B). After several outbreaks of the coronavirus, remote learning was re-instituted with the announced plan of returning to a hybrid model 21 days later. The co-teachers find the frequent changes disruptive, and they fear students are distracted by the lack of structure. They both feel like their co-teaching parity is suffering because Zoom meetings are not the same as their typical hour of planning per week and other priorities sometimes take away the time allotted for planning. Vivian and Xavier are looking for ways to communicate consistency to students, but without common planning time they have not had an opportunity to brainstorm how to address their concerns.
Nearly all teachers could probably add their own complicated, sad, stressful, or even humorous stories about co-teaching in the midst of a pandemic, but everyone’s experiences demonstrate several key dilemmas: Co-teachers, like many educators, have scrambled to re-create remote, hybrid, and socially distanced brick-and-mortar co-teaching arrangements to meet students’ needs, including the provision of the specially designed instruction students with disabilities must receive. Even with novel solutions and many hours of hard work, new challenges continue to emerge. These challenges may align with changes in pandemic-related district or school policies, the constraints of electronic learning platforms, student attendance, parent expectations, the complexity of collaborating, or many others. No one is an expert on exactly how to proceed during these uncertain times. Although some data indicate students with disabilities are falling behind their typical peers (e.g., Dorn et al., 2020), currently no studies could be found that provide clear direction for co-teachers on how to most effectively reach their diverse learners and manage their roles and responsibilities during virtual or hybrid instruction, particularly in co-teaching.
One realistic option for tackling today’s co-teaching challenges is to creatively incorporate technology solutions, adding them gradually and documenting their impact. The purpose of this article is to help you to do just that—use recommended co-teaching practices based on what is already known from the professional literatures (e.g., Lehan & Senior, 2020; Rea et al., 2001; Tremblay, 2013; Walther-Thomas, 1997; Walsh, 2012) while adding layers of technology now available for teachers and students alike. It is understood that access to technology is limited in economically depressed areas and rural or bandwidth deserts create barriers for some students. Additionally, home assistance is not always available to help solve these issues. However, most educators can find technology options that support student learning, in a realistic way using the provisions of specially designed instruction and streamlining co-teaching. The key is to start small, be persistent, and work closely with a co-teaching partner to innovate and resolve problems that occur.
Traditional Co-Teaching Environments
Co-teachers generally are familiar with the six classic co-teaching approaches included (Friend, 2019) and depicted in Figure 1. The goal for co-teachers should be to use station teaching, parallel teaching, and alternative teaching most of the time to maximize the impact of having two teachers in the classroom (see Figure 1). These three approaches are characterized by having students in small groups and both teachers having simultaneous active teaching roles. The same general principles should apply across today’s learning environments with some variations added for remote and hybrid situations.
The high-use co-teaching approaches.
Co-Teaching in Remote and Hybrid School Environments
A first requirement for effective co-teaching during the pandemic is to create the small groups that characterize exemplary practice. As outlined in Figure 2, students can be put into groups in commonly used learning platforms such as Google Meet, Zoom, or Microsoft Teams, although all the platforms have benefits as well as challenges. Overall, the platforms’ collective primary advantage is that they make possible the use of both teachers within the structures of co-teaching, so professionals can create a flexible learning community responsive to students’ needs.
Common learning platforms.
Challenges of Remote and Hybrid Co-Teaching Delivery
The greatest drawback to remote and hybrid configurations of schooling is that the communication is not quite like a traditional classroom; the subtle cues co-teachers read from their students and those they communicate with cannot be replicated. Another drawback of virtual co-teaching is that sometimes the groups cannot be monitored by an adult, as would happen with an independent station. This lack of monitoring may be acceptable in some situations, but in districts that do not allow students to be in a group without the continuous presence of an adult, the third group could work offline for that instructional segment. If a paraeducator is available, that individual could supervise those students.
Many co-teachers are already resourcefully using online platforms to implement exemplary co-teaching practices. If remote co-teaching is limited or if the remote co-teacher has the special educator mostly being a classroom assistant, try these ideas to get started: Set reasonable goals. Begin by agreeing with a co-teaching partner to use one of the high-use approaches at least once per week. As the details of doing so are sorted out, increase the use remote approaches to multiple times each week. For stations, consider beginning remote implementation with just two groups, eliminating the independent one. The general educator can introduce the new information while the special educator works with the other half of the students on related skills, applications from earlier lessons, review, remediation, specially designed instruction, assessments, and so on. Consider having all stations occur in breakout rooms, even if the general educator has to assign the special educator to a group, as might be necessary in some platforms. By having students in breakout rooms, students who do not need part of the instruction can be dismissed virtually to the main room to complete an independent assignment (if, as noted earlier, this practice is consistent with district policies), and one or both teachers can check on their progress. Students requiring intensive assistance can remain with a teacher. When the teachers switch groups, students working on their own re-join for the next station. Whether using two or three stations or alternative or parallel teaching, vary group composition. Sometimes groups could be skill-based or a random mix, or based on other student characteristics (e.g., skill for working with peers, willingness to contribute to discussions). Use alternative teaching’s small group instruction for a variety of purposes as would happen in more typical times. Students can go to the breakout room for pre-teaching, remediation, work on IEP goals, or to receive catch-up instruction because of absences. One additional idea is to have both teachers taking small groups of students to breakout rooms as other students in the main room collaborate on a peer-shared Google document (e.g., writing assignment) or work independently. When grouping students who are in hybrid instruction, co-teachers should partner students who are learning remotely with students who are in the brick and mortar classroom. Doing so builds relationships with classroom peers and helps students who are virtual feel more connected to the learning community. By partnering students in this way, they can work together on tasks that may require access to classroom materials, and the partners can help each other with technical difficulties that arise. Avoid the temptation to use groups (whether stations, parallel, or alternative) only after all initial instruction, even when time is limited and teachers feel pressured. The general educator is likely to be leading the instruction leaving only a limited role for the special educator. This lack of parity dilutes the potential of using the skills of both professionals in the classroom.
The goal of co-teaching is to provide students with disabilities the specially designed instruction to which they are entitled within the context of the general education setting and instruction, but that is nearly impossible to accomplish unless small groups are consistently but flexibly arranged. Once the roles of both teachers are planned and the use of flexible and targeted grouping is resolved, teachers can turn their attention to fine-tuning the instruction itself.
Strategies to Increase Participation
Student engagement is a critical element of learning (Ayçicçek & Yanpar Yelken, 2018; Hollingshead et al., 2018), especially for students with disabilities. One barrier to engagement for students with disabilities relates to reading, mathematics, other academic areas such as vocational education or enrichment, behavior, or other challenges: Students may struggle to attend to, process, and respond to questions as lessons occur, and thus they may not have the sense of belonging that helps build confidence as learners (Wang et al., 2014).
A starting point for increasing student engagement is to make formative assessment integral to co-teaching, and these ongoing assessments should become a routine (Nargo et al., 2018). Figure 3 includes examples of applications co-teachers use to assess students’ readiness to learn and learning progress across environments. Teachers often motivate students for formative assessment by having them chart their learning; the progress they see can help them to continue to want to learn.
Applications used for assessment and instruction.
These tools and many others available (e.g., Gimkit, GoGuardian, Factile) inform co-teachers about individual student learning status, enabling them to change their daily instructional plans or even adjust instruction during a lesson. For example, co-teachers in an eighth-grade math class are using GoFormative in one station and recognize several students are having difficulty solving the equations due to a lack of procedural knowledge of multiplication facts. The co-teachers may work together to provide immediate feedback to students and help them understand their progress toward individual goals. The following day, one of the teachers includes a review of math facts for those students using the cover-copy-compare strategy (Skinner et al., 1989). The co-teachers also make plans to ensure the students who are not fluent in recalling multiplication facts have a chart of the facts to refer to and also are proficient using calculators for this purpose.
A second critical component of engagement is the amount of student participation during instruction. This element applies to whole-group lessons as well as to small groups in co-teaching. Figure 4 provides practical participation tools co-teachers are employing during virtual and hybrid instruction. Apps and websites also can be effective when co-teachers and all students are together in a brick-and-mortar classroom and social distancing is in place. For example, if all the students in a group are working on virtual whiteboards, teachers can see their work even though they are prohibited from walking among students for this purpose. Whether in person, or virtual, or hybrid, one aspect of supporting students’ engagement and participation is the use of rewards, both those that have a technology element and those that do not. These are examples: Electronic lunch with a teacher or electronic lunch with a classmate (i.e., the teachers leaving the remote classroom open for the students to use) Access to a preferred electronic activity that has a natural end (avoid offering playing video games that could go on indefinitely) A virtual field trip as offered by many museums and other organizations (note that with a quick search engine you can find options appropriate for your grade level and subject area) Send a thank-you note to students via email or call their parents to share how well they did in a virtual school lesson Set criteria for and select a student of the week or even of the day; the student can be highlighted in a class or school newsletter or receive an award or notice sent to parents
Apps and websites for engagement and participation.
Another way to increase student engagement and participation is to keep a brisk teaching pace while providing scaffolding as needed. This approach implies increasing the opportunities students have to participate, whether or not the amount of content addressed should be changed. Choral responding is a simple way to keep momentum. It is a well-known technique, has a strong evidence base (Heward et al., 1989), and can be used effectively in secondary as well as elementary settings. In most situations, the best way to use choral responding in a virtual or hybrid setting is to establish the special education teacher as the choral response leader of the lesson, a role that a professional usually can easily assume. That professional interjects requests for students to repeat key ideas or words, read aloud and together instructions or other text, or together repeat a response that one student has made. Choral responding creates multi-sensory learning that supports many students. Choral responding could be immediately implemented during both whole-group and small-group instruction.
Consistency and Communication
Students facing educational and life stressors are distracted from learning. Some of these stressors (and others) may be affecting the students in the co-taught class: lack of access to the internet or an appropriate device and a lack of a quiet, orderly place for synchronous lessons and asynchronous work. Students may have food or housing insecurity as well and some students have added responsibilities such as caring for younger siblings and contributing to household income with a part-time job. Here are ideas for making remote and hybrid instruction consistent (Intervention Central, 2021; McDougal et al., 2009): With your co-teaching partner, decide on a format for synchronous instruction (see the discussion on planning below). Post this format with class materials, referring to it often with students, and adhering to it by making a commitment for at least a week and possibly longer (especially for younger students). A pattern does not have to unduly limit co-teaching creativity. Begin instruction with five minutes for the whole group to make announcements, preview the day’s instruction, and so on. The next segment could be called “Working in Groups.” That would allow any of the high-use co-teaching approaches to be incorporated. The final segment, a wrap-up, could be with the whole group, or teachers could end instruction from their small groups. For older students, try an introduction of the week’s materials to the whole group and parallel groups on Monday, stations on Tuesday, and so forth, so students and co-teachers know what structure to expect and a pattern is established. Of course, this format is only recommended if the instruction lends itself to these co-teaching arrangements. When groups are formed for station, alternative, or parallel teaching during hybrid or virtual learning, consider keeping the same group member for a week at a time or longer to build consistency and community. During hybrid instruction try pairing students so a student in a brick and mortar setting is consistently working with the same student in a virtual environment. If these partnerships are working, consider leaving them for multiple sessions. Select apps and websites helpful to student learning, keeping in mind grade level and subject area, and use those sites consistently. One well-intentioned mistake co-teachers are making is trying to introduce too many technology options; the result is their students become confused. Remember, technology tools take time to learn; as new technology I added, ensure the function of the tools is to facilitate learning and does not become the centerpiece of a lesson or interfere with precious teaching time. Co-teachers can hold virtual office hours allowing all students access to support. The special education teacher can meet or conference with students to provide additional support and deliver specially designed instruction or address a particular need requiring individual attention. Co-teachers should make sure individual goals and instruction occurs without imposing additional work. For example, if a student needs to focus on self-regulation skills with the special educator in order to be more productive online, the co-teachers may determine it is best to exchange or drop something on the student’s “to-do” list to address self-regulation instead of adding other assignments the student must complete.
Achieving consistency relies on clear communication based in joint planning, which is the most frequently mentioned barrier to effective co-teaching (Cook & McDuffie-Landrum, 2020; Friend, 2019, 2015; Sinclair et al., 2018; Wexler et al., 2018). Joint planning has to be realistic given the demands of hybrid and virtual learning. Occasional face-to-face meetings with a specific agenda should be supplemented with frequent asynchronous electronic planning. Co-teachers can plan using an application such as the ones summarized in Figure 5. Regardless of process or technology preferred, the most essential point is that, no matter the learning environment, co-teaching requires a plan to ensure the expertise of both teachers is maximized.
Tools for planning.
Final Thoughts
Few easy answers are available for co-teachers as they bend, flex, and adapt to an array of ways to work together in the current uncharted instructional territories. Technology provides nearly limitless possibilities to assist co-teachers with the challenges of instructing in remote, hybrid, and socially distanced brick-and-mortar settings. Co-teachers like Oliver and Layla can select ideas that address their concerns and gradually refine their co-teaching practice by reshaping how they implement instructional strategies and assessment. Co-teachers like Vivian and Xavier can focus on a particular aspect of building consistency and participation to support their students’ sustained engagement. While Mia and Jasmine, as co-teachers, can use electronic co-planning tools and technology to support small group work to effectively deliver instruction and assess student progress. No matter what dilemmas co-teachers face during these uncertain times, teachers working together are proving to be resilient and innovative problem-solvers who relentlessly collaborate and seek resources to meet the needs of the students they serve.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
