Co-Teaching in Action & Building Relationships with Co-Teachers

Co-Teaching in Action 

Building Relationships with Co-Teachers

by Ashley Ewert

Co-Teachers: Mrs, Curry & Mrs. Ewert

 I want to reflect on my co-teaching journey and offer some insight on what has been successful and the challenges we have come across. If you had read my previous blogs on co teaching you will have remembered that my co-teacher and I were approached with the idea of increasing our collaboration and mainstreaming with our students. Here is a link to my previous blogs about co-teaching ( Co-Teaching Part 1, Co-Teaching Part 2). In starting this adventure, my co-teacher and I dedicated ourselves to reading a book, Teaching in Tandem by: Gloria Wilson and Joan Blendnic, before dedicating to the idea of building a co-teaching classroom. From the book, we read over summer, we learned and became fired up about the idea that co-teaching is not only a benefit for adults working together but for all students involved. I'm not going to lie... I was a little ... ok a lot ..nervous about the idea of sharing a classroom with another teacher. 

  

Finding the right match

How co-teachers are paired is very important to the success of the school year. Teachers who volunteer to co-teach with each other often have far better success than those that are assigned by administration or for convenience. Effective co-teachers communicate honestly with each other. My co-teacher and I volunteered to pair together this school year. We seem to make a great team and compliment each other in so many ways. We have open discussions daily about activities and lessons that we have planned, prepared and delivered. We have trust in each other and we are able to model great friendship skills to our students. Effective co-teaching is about professionalism of the co-teaching pair and a commitment to understand how students learn and succeed.  Finding a right match for a co-teacher is important to the success of the co-teaching classroom. 

"Teaching together is much more powerful than teaching alone." - Gloria Wilson &Joan Blendnic

Making it work to overcome the challenges

Among the many successful outcomes of co-teaching there is their fair share of challenges that we have had to overcome. As a special education teacher, I found that the large class size was a challenge at the beginning of the school year. In previous years I have had up to 13 students. With a combination of the students we have on the general education caseload and the special education caseload we total more students than I have ever possibly imagined in one classroom! How do we do it you ask? Well ... It all starts and ends with a great team of staff in the classroom all supporting each and every student. Another challenge that came up during the school year was the task of collaborating with the service providers to take the students to their services. Service providers are very flexible with their times and really try to take students at a time that would least impact their academic education. The challenge is to remember who, where, and when all the students are while managing a classroom full of general education and special education students.  How do we manage this you ask??? Well... we have made a schedule for each student with services and have that readily available for staff in the classroom. I will attach a sample on my Spotlight page as a resource for those that this may help with! 

"When everyone is  included, everyone wins." - Jesse Jackson

"To teach is to touch a life forever." - Anonymous 

Ashley Ewert

Forever in the Middle: Student Input

When planning for my classroom I know I will need specific structures and routines to keep my own systems running effectively. However, for the routines and systems that I feel students can help with I like to allow them opportunities for feedback.


Seating
I change my seating assignments (and sometimes arrangement) at the beginning of each month. At this point, the students know the routine and are eager for the change at the beginning of the month. Last time I changed the seating, I had a few students who happened to come by on the last day of the month and were talking about the layout. I said, "Do you want to change it?" and they eagerly got to work! After that, they assigned all new seats for each of the classes. I know it's sometimes hard to release control over that, but honestly the students have known each other now for so many years and they know what will work and what won't work so why not?

The students surprised me by asking NOT
to sit in groups facing each other.
They said they get too distracted.
They decided this arrangement would help them to work
collaboratively but stay more focused. I agree so far!

Other alternatives
1. Assign a small team of students to the task of new seat assignments by providing a blank seating chart and class roster. They can finish it usually in under ten minutes.
2.  Allow students to vote on a new classroom arrangement when given four choices. Majority wins!
3. Ask for volunteers to stay after school or come in at lunch to help assign or rearrange the classroom

The students know their peers best and honestly they do not want a chaotic classroom. They will make good choices when given an opportunity when they know they have an adult's trust.

Instruction 

Giving students a quick opportunity to provide feedback
on their learning can supply data to help improve your
own future instruction. This survey was given at the end of
the year and gave me important information in planning
for the current school year. 

This takes a little bravery on your part, but really can be eye opening. We are in this for the students so really it is their opinion that matters most and we all know they will be, sometimes brutally, honest! An easy way to do this is to create a quick Google Form that they can complete. This gives you immediate results in a user-friendly format.

Possible Questions
1. What do you like most about this class?
2. What is most difficult for you in class?
3. What activities/lessons have we done that helped you feel successful in class?
4. What was the most interesting part of the last unit?
5. What should the teacher stop/start/continue doing?

The most important part of this process is to immediately take action based off the data gathered from the feedback. The last feedback form I gave my students had to do with our routines and with that data, I was able to use student suggestions such as "having a group captain like in Elementary school" to enhance my current routines.

Sometimes it is hard to let go of control over some of our structure, but the rewards of allowing student input are far greater. Students feel validated and that alone helps create an atmosphere of mutual respect within the classroom and strengthens student and teacher relationships. Try it out and let me know how it goes in the comments below!

Keep the magic alive,

Kandyce Valverde

Follow my class on Twitter! @valverderules

Parent Communication and Building Parent Relationships

Parent Communication and Building Parent Relationships By Ashley Ewert

So we have built relationships and made connections with the students… What’s next?

A student's journey of learning begins the moment they are born. Their first teachers are their parents and families. Learning does not just happen in the classroom but also at home. Many parents are the best models for a child. The importance of active parent involvement in their child’s education promotes a positive impact on academic and social performance of a child. Parent involvement in education included communication between parent and teacher, and the relationship between parent and teacher. Parent teacher communication can be challenging at times due to working parents and language barriers. I have found a way to help keep a strong, positive and open communication system with the families of my students. Students show greater success in the classroom when teachers and parents are on the same page and parent and teachers respect each other’s environment. I always make it a priority to build relationships with the families from the beginning of the school year. As a teacher, knowing the environments students are coming from helps a great deal in making connections and building relationships, as I discussed in my August 2019 blog (Building Relationships and Making connections)

Effective Parent Communication

Families have busy lives; communicating with their children's teachers just adds one more thing to their plate. Technology has helped this barrier. Ever heard of the saying "there's an app for that." well let me tell you there are apps out there that promote parent teacher communication. I want to share with you one of my favorites.

ClassDojo is a communication app that connects parents, families and teachers to things going on in the classroom. ClassDojo has many features but for the sake of this blog let's focus solely focus on the communication aspect between the parents and the teacher. This app offers effective communication with parents and teachers. It allows the teacher to be in charge of when he/she will receive messages. The teacher may also post pictures of activities going on in the classroom so families have conservation starters they can use at home. The best thing about this app is that it will translate into most any language the parent sets up their profile to. The parents and message and comment in their native language and the teacher can see a translated version of the message or comment. What better way to start success in the classroom than building that effective parent communication through an app that promotes connecting families and teachers. 

Building Parent Relationships

Parent and teacher relationships have an advantage on student success. Parents spend a lot of time teaching and teachers spend a lot of time parenting. so lets face it there tends to be a lot of overlap. When teachers and parents are on the same page students achieve better in both settings. When teachers and parents build positive and strong relationship being on the same page tends to be more achievable. Here are three simple ideas to help build healthy parent and teacher relationships:

1. Communicate Regularly: Open communication is essential on both sides. Email and classroom communication apps (ClassDojo) is a great way to maintain an open connection. Even students struggle with life situations (like a parent’s or sibling’s illness, pending divorce, parental stress) at home. Communicating with families will help to understand why students are performing in the way they are.  Students who are unhappy and kids who are excited are often distracted from school work.
2.  Lead With Good and Positive News: Give positive praise first when calling parents or meeting with them to discuss a concern. Every student has something good about them. Find it. Share it. Then share your concern. Adhere strictly to this rule.
3. Smile When You See Parents: Greet them with intention. Most parents only occasionally interact with teachers so be sure that encounters with them are positive, warm, and friendly. The impressions last a long time especially first impressions. :-)

"To teach is to touch a life forever." -Anonymous

Ashley Ewert

Forever in the Middle: QR codes for routines

I have a Video Blog for you this month!
Play the video below to see how to use QR codes in your classroom.
Links are listed below the video.

QR Code Generator Link

My Spotlight page (links to the writing feedback forms under Resources)

Keep the magic alive,

Kandyce Valverde

See what my class is up to on Twitter: @valverderules

So the writing journey begins...

The start of a new school year is always exciting.  Teachers return with a fresh mindset determined to

change or adjust instruction from last year....and....so the journey begins.  Last year, I focused my Spotlight blog entries in writing after participating at the Invitational Summer Institute sponsored through the Inland Writing Project.

As I implemented many new writing strategies into my classroom instruction, I felt that I needed to dig deeper in certain writing aspects and this is where a new year, a new journey, begins.  This year I will be focusing on explicitly teaching and practicing the 6 Traits of Writing more thoroughly.

The 6 Traits of Writing includes the following: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions.  This month I am focusing on ideas.

Last week our class started a narrative story.  I had collected some super cool Writing Traits items like my Scholastic kit: The Trait Crate which includes mentor text to help frontload the six traits along with posters and a reference book.  I also had a Traits of Writing big book which someone had left in our community "grab-n-go" table of our staff lounge...(this was a treasure of a find!).

I explained to the class how writers sometimes struggle with not only coming up with ideas to write about but supporting details in order to expand on those ideas.  So here were two days worth of activities in a nutshell:

1.  Think of your comprehension skill of the week.  Ours was Problem/Solution.  Try to align this skill with a student-produced narrative essay.

2.  Provide students the "problem" of their narrative piece.  I gave my students the sentence "Suddenly, I heard the dark clouds roar like _____ and it began to rain cats and dogs!"  I left the line blank in order to review similes.  Students decide independently to write their own simile.  I also included an idiom as this was the vocabulary strategy of the week in our Wonders reading program.

3.  Students fold their graphic
organizer into six sections and draw borders using a sharpie.  They label the first two boxes "B," the next two "M," and the last two boxes "E."  These will be their beginning, middle, and end sections of their stories.

4.  I then proceeded to ask the class to think about something that may happen in real life that could be ruined by a sudden storm.  They came up with a lot of interesting ideas for their beginning event.  The problem would be the actual rain storm.  On the back of their graphic organizer, they selected their event and then proceeded to think about main characters, supporting characters and any details that they could possibly include in their stories.

5.  Next we proceeded to share these ideas for their stories with partners.  Students

gave each other feedback and encouragement to keep writing.

6.  I then allowed them two draw their panels with as much details as possible.  They could color their panels as well.

7.  They also received post-its and place the post-its on the panels in which they wanted dialogue.  They quickly "scripted" some dialogue on their post-its since this is part of the narrative writing standards for fourth graders.










8.  Now they are ready to write their first draft. After spending two days of sharing ideas, I feel they will have much more to write about during their first draft.

Happy Writing!
Gus Macuil

Words Matter by Lola

Ever since I can remember, I've always loved words. I love speaking them. I love writing them. I love thinking them. Their power is undeniable.  Like superheroes, they have the ability to empower, inspire, encourage, and restore. But like villains, they also have the power to destroy. (Too bad they don't come with a warning label. Yeah. That's how dangerous they can be.)  As teachers, we should never underestimate their potential in the classroom.

As a little girl, I remember hearing that "sticks and stones could break my bones, but names would never hurt me." Wrong. Whoever came up with that tune, had certainly never met a person as sensitive as I am. And because I'm such a sensitive person, I always try to be very careful with my words and the tone in which I deliver them. I want my words to linger sweetly in the minds of my students. That's why on the first day of the school year I make these three promises to them: First, I'm going to fall in love with them. I can't help it. It just happens. Second, I'm going to take care of them--like a mama bear protecting her cubs. And finally, I'm going to teach them.

                                        

In my class, I have a large bulletin board displaying our district's Effective Expression continuum. I want my all of my students to appreciate the importance of being able to express themselves effectively in speech and in print. Words just happen to be the building blocks of both. Although I may be a self-described "collector" of words, I am definitely not a hoarder of them. I believe words are meant to be shared. All of my students (and ALL really does mean ALL) are capable of learning high-impact rigorous academic vocabulary words and so are your students.

Lola Jollie

Welcome to the World of Teaching! How Can I Take Your Order? (Part 2) by Kim Reza

Welcome to the World of Teaching! How Can I Take Your Order? (Part 2)

Help! I have IEPs to write, lessons to develop, meetings to attend, the list goes on and on…Plus, I need to collaborate with the general education teachers. How do I manage it all?

To be honest, as a special education teacher, collaboration with general educators tends to be one of the hardest parts of the job. Over the last few years, the expectations for the amount of time special education students spend in the general education classroom has increased significantly. These adjustments have impacted me greatly. Not only do I have to control what is going on in my classroom; but I also need to implement support for my students mainstreaming in other classrooms.

On my previous blog,( Tips for collaboration among teachers and parents. Click here: Welcome to the World of Teaching! How Can I Take Your Order? (Part 1), I compared collaboration with team members to my experience as a waitress. The parents are the "customers"; our colleagues are the other "severs" on the floor. As a waitress, there were often times I felt overwhelmed by the customers' demands. In order to satisfy the customers, I would have to rely on the other servers to help pick up the slack. At first I took their help for granted, assuming it was our job to support one another. This assumption,lead to bitterness and reluctance to help from the other waiters, when I needed it the most. I quickly realized I needed another approach in order to get the support I needed. I started to build relationships. I learned to collaborate and communicate. We would voice our struggles and come up with a plan. I would look for opportunities to help others (bus tables, drop of drinks/ food, write orders, pick up shifts). I showed appreciation (shared tips, did extra side work, spoke highly to the manager).  By simply implementing these tips into my daily routine, I developed genuine relationships with my colleagues. I was confident with the service we provided, as a result, the customers left happy and wanted to come back.

To best support “OUR STUDENTS”, now, more than ever, collaboration between special education teachers and general education teachers need to take place in a meaningful way. I can see the challenges from both perspectives, having filled both positions during my teaching career. To promote collaboration between these equally important groups, here are some tips that I've learned from being a waitress that I hope will help.

1.       Build Relationships: I personally believe, in order to build strong foundations for collaboration, effort needs to be made outside the classroom. My first year of teaching, I would eat in my classroom because I was overwhelmed by the work that needed to get done. Over time, I began to see the negative effects of isolating myself. No one really knew me, so it was harder to approach the general education teachers for collaboration. Once I began putting in more effort to make connections outside the classroom, (like joining the staff during lunch, making small talk while making copies, acknowledging all with greetings, etc.), it became less intimidating to initiate collaboration.

2.       Collaborate and Communicate: When working with a large team of professionals, communication is key. Although we all work with the same student, each one of us is working through a different lens. Communicating the student’s strengths, needs, and growth is so important when working with the general education teacher. Collaboration is also crucial. We can work together to plan instruction, services, aids, and supports for the student. The special education teacher and general education teacher are each experts in their own area, and collaborating can benefit not only your students with an IEP, but all of our students.

3.    Bring something to the table: When collaborating with general educators, I try to never come “empty handed”. When I mainstream a student, I find ways throughout the year to best support the general teacher. Here are some examples: My instructional aides and I have used our prep to administer the Wonders’ Fluency Test in the general education classes, make copies, provided extra support, opened my classroom for any of their students, monitored and gave strategies for students of concern. Warning- There is a fine line between support and being taken advantage of, so only provide what you feel comfortable with.

4.       Show Appreciation: I truly appreciate the general education teachers I collaborate with. I try to show them my appreciation throughout the year with simple reminders. Here are some simple ways to show thanks: random notes of praise throughout the year, before Thanksgiving break and during teacher appreciation week, I ask my mainstreamed students to come up with ways to show appreciation, shout outs during meetings, a smile paired with a thank you, samples of student improvement, etc.

“The most valuable resource that all teachers have is each other. Without collaboration our growth is limited to our own perspectives” –Robert John Meehan

I humbly admit successful collaboration with general education teachers is still a skill I constantly struggle to maintain. Please add any additional tips to this blog.

At the end of the day, we are severing the same "customers".

For the Love of Teaching,

Kim Reza