Latest / New Teacher Talk / Ep 217: Two Teachers, One Classroom

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Ep 217: Two Teachers, One Classroom · New Teacher Talk

Welcome back to New Teacher Talk.
Beth and Anna here,
and today's topic is one a lot of you are living right now.
Two adults, one room, one group of students.
Co-teaching.
It can be the best part of your week or one of the most
awkward and usually the difference comes down to things
nobody trained you for.
How you split the room, how you plan together,
and what do you do in the moments when you and your partner
just don't agree?
To help us sort it out,
we've got Leana Malinowsky and Paul Garcia,
who know this partnership from the inside.
So if you're sharing a classroom this year, grab a pen.
This one's practical.
Hello, friends,
and welcome to the new Teacher Talk podcast.
So, teaching is great.
But co-teaching is better!
Or so we really believe.
I'm Leana Malinowsky,
and I have been a host for the podcast before,
mainly for topics on literacy,
but today I am really excited to be here again with my
former co-teacher,
and we're going to talk about yet something else that we're
so passionate about in education, co-teaching.
For those of you that don't know me,
I have been teaching since 2008.
I've worked with general education, special education,
ESL students.
I'm also a certified structured literacy dyslexia
specialist.
I absolutely love all things literacy,
and I always say the three loves of my teaching life are
special education, teacher leadership, and literacy.
Paul, would you like to introduce yourself?
Absolutely.
It's great to be here with you by the way, Leanna.
My name is Paul Garcia.
I am a retired teacher.
I worked as a special education teacher for 32 years and I
have quite a lot of experience with co-teaching.
I've been fortunate enough to work with some amazing co
-teachers.
During my career,
Leanna was the last co-teacher I worked with.
Presently, I am still active in education.
I'm a private tutor but I also create educational content
in collaboration with Leana still.
Some of the content I create and we'll talk maybe a little
bit more about that but she still uses and so I still feel
very much engaged in the classroom.
That's awesome.
And it kind of still feels like you're there with me every
day, even though you're not.
So friends today,
our topic is all about co-teaching that works and we want
to think of it like a framework or a guideline for roles,
routines, and respect.
So I think the best way to go about this is to start off by
telling our short story,
kind of how we came to be as co-teachers.
I can start off first, if you would like, Paul,
when I was transferred to second grade, I from first grade,
I was told you're going to have a co-teacher.
I said, great, who is it?
What's that?
And I didn't really know that that much about it.
I have worked with other teachers before for brief periods,
some power professionals,
which could be a whole other podcast session.
I would love to talk about another day,
but this really was a surprise to me because it was going
to be all day.
I usually didn't have co-teachers all day.
So we were in a very unique situation where we were
together all day.
And for all five years that we worked together,
I served as the general education student on paper.
Again, we'll get into what that means in a little bit.
And I was really grateful and gracious to everything that
Paul bought to the classroom.
Well, thank you.
I too found out it was a kind of a first for both of us
because, uh, you know,
it was the first year that I was working with you,
you first year working with me.
And I was in fifth grade the year before,
so I certainly for me, it was a quite a step down.
And I hadn't really worked with second graders for quite
some time, you know, that young grade.
So that was kind of an adjustment right away, though.
I learned that, you know, in thinking about our roles,
routine and respect, we found that we we kind of clicked.
We have very different styles,
but we still clicked because we each gave each other the
space to do what we had to do.
We gave each other the respect, you know,
I respected Leanna's knowledge,
her expertise in the curriculum.
She respected what I had to bring,
the specially designed instruction that I was, uh,
and the needs of the kids that I had to service.
We often said, even as a special ed teacher,
I was not there to just service the special ed kids.
And that was Leana's philosophy.
I mean, how did you say that?
You know, not not our kids, but you could say that line,
right?
No, I just you know,
I love to say it because my first mentor long time ago
taught that to me.
And that taps right into relationships,
which I think is part of the respect in our framework for
today.
And we develop that relationship right away,
because we both sort of just agreed that they're not your
kids, and then my kids, they're all our kids.
And we wanted to work with every student,
I wanted to know just as much about writing their IEP
reports, their individualized education plans,
as much as you wanted to learn the new curriculum,
especially coming from fifth grade, you're like,
what is first grade curriculum?
And then it was there was a new one anyway,
so it was like double new.
So that was just a wonderful perspective that we started
going into it.
And I just really appreciated that.
But then COVID hit,
we had so much to manage and to figure out.
And again,
I think that could be a whole other podcast session.
But I want to sort of zoom in on one particular day,
because we love to talk about engagement,
especially for our new teachers out there,
they're looking for ways to engage their students,
they're looking for ways to feel engaged themselves.
So engagement has been a big key component for us.
But I just remember, I looked at that screen, and I said,
these kids are not engaged.
And you had sent me a message saying,
I'm going to try something.
So why don't you tell them what you tried?
I hate right that the auspicious day, you know,
and I think this was the situation that many,
many teachers found themselves in.
You know,
we had to suddenly teach on Zoom and you could see the kids
were not engaged.
So almost in an act of desperation, I was,
I was in my basement.
I looked and I saw this dragon puppet that was actually my,
you know, belonged to my children years ago.
And so what I did is I ducked out and that was the luxury
we had.
I mean, you know, Leana was watching the class.
I could duck out for a couple of minutes.
So I ducked out and then I returned.
But when I returned,
I was the dragon puppet and the dragon started talking to
the kids and the kids were thrilled with it.
And they were engaged.
We both thought, wow,
there's something to this because when he came on, I,
right away,
I created a character and his name was Furny the dragon,
Furny for furnace.
And so we started using the dragon puppet and he started
appearing.
I started actually making video content for the class of
the dragon talking and teaching them vocabulary words.
And it became a feature of our co-teaching relationship is
that we became our theme.
And even when we returned to in-person instruction,
there was this,
we themed out the classroom like a cave and Furny appeared
in videos and he appeared in materials.
And he was just part of the class.
We like to call him another co-teacher in a way.
This virtual fantastical co-teacher that was with us and
the kids were engaged and they just love watching him.
And it was part of our formula that really worked.
So it was, it was terrific.
Just for the record,
especially for our early career teachers, h
e's not a real co-teacher.
We're going to get into the roles in a minute because we
have some expert friends that we were blessed to network
with in co-teaching.
And they laugh,
but they're kind of not laughing when we say he's the third
co-teacher.
But he's really sort of like that glue that really kept us
together.
And if you think about it, he spanned across our roles,
our routines, and of course,
the respect piece with the engagement.
And I do want to emphasize,
I guess I can't help it because it's me.
His focus from you was really on literacy.
It's really a character that's based with like literacy
themes and topics to integrate and sort of show them
whatever lesson it is or whatever topic in literacy,
a phonic sound, a vocabulary word.
So it was really, really great.
So now let's start to get into some factual things,
some things that we really want to hear about,
especially if you're like,
what is this magical co-teaching cave land you're talking
about?
What does it look like?
We kind of already talked about the roles a little bit.
Our perspective was we want to teach all the students.
It's not just you're here to service a certain group of
students, but there is sort of like a formula, if you will,
some advice from some experts on how to navigate co
-teaching.
And we believe it or not,
I didn't really learn too much about it in my college
courses.
I don't know if you did, Paul, but.
No, not really.
Through our own desire to want to get better at co
-teaching, we first worked on that relationship aspect,
that respect.
We got to know each other, you know, family names,
things that we like, you love music, I love dance,
and I'm organized,
and I organized all of your orange markers for you.
You know, we built that respect.
I'm eternally grateful.
You're welcome.
We built that, we built that respect, that relationship,
and then we built sort of an engagement piece that we both
enjoyed through Furny, but then we're like, okay,
so how's this really going to work, right?
What are we going to do?
And in come the six models of co-teaching.
We're not going to get to all six models today, friends.
We just simply don't have the time.
We hope to,
and there's other resources out there that we're going to
guide you through.
Just two quick names that are the gurus on these six
models.
Please google up Marilyn Friend.
We like to joke she's our friend, she's your friend, too.
Marilyn Friend is excellent,
and our good friend Wendy Murawski,
she's been a guiding force for us as well.
They talk a lot in their publications and their articles
about the six models.
Paul,
can you give the quick list just so our listeners can hear
the six models?
So the six models, as they're usually presented,
are one teaches and one observes.
Kind of an underused model, but then there's one teach,
one assist.
Kind of the default model,
and we can talk a little bit about why that's not always a
good thing.
There's station teaching.
Teachers at individual stations and the kids move to you.
There's parallel teaching.
You're both teaching at the same time,
but two different lessons.
Team teaching,
where you're both teaching the same lesson at the same
time, and it's like this back and forth.
For literacy.
I know we enjoyed teaming.
That was fun.
We always play off each other, especially for absolutely.
Read-alouds.
And then there's alternative teaching where one teacher is
teaching some alternative maybe different content or the
same content,
but maybe refocused in a different way while the other
teacher teaches a larger group, maybe.
Those are the six general models.
Of course, they're not hard and fast.
They're not set in stone.
They are six ways of understanding how co-teaching can
occur.
So it might seem like a lot.
It was a lot for us to digest at first.
You're going to be surprised, my friends,
how naturally some of these things are going to happen just
out of human nature.
But maybe let's just focus in on one or two that you should
try to do a little bit more.
And then that one you already hinted at that we should try
to avoid as much as we can.
Although it's not the worst thing if it happens, right?
So for me, and you know, just feel free to jump in, Paul,
with anything.
I almost feel like the alternative teaching,
that's when your specialized instruction comes in.
If you need to teach content at a different level,
different skills for different students.
But I also like to incorporate that into our station
teaching because I might have a higher level reading group.
And again, I'm using literacy references, friends.
I can't help it, that's me.
But you can think math or any other subject.
I might be teaching a lesson at a higher skill level right
on the grade level, following my curriculum, you know,
with fidelity.
And then Paul's station,
he's seeing the students and he might be saying, well,
some students aren't quite ready for that.
So that's what his instruction is and you can speak more to
it.
But then when he gets my group,
they might still need a skill review from a few days ago.
Right?
So you're doing all of those, you know,
highly skilled instructions.
What is important is what you said, Leana.
Now,
so Leana is distinguishing between different types of students
based on need.
And she did not say the ones with the IEPs go to Paul,
you know, and this is, so I taught and it was so flexible.
Sometimes Leanna was working with students with IEPs.
Sometimes I was working with students without IEPs.
There was a lot of flow and it was very flexible,
how we grouped kids.
And it was based on their needs and what we saw.
And their strengths, too.
Absolutely.
So if we have to disseminate some advice,
it's to be flexible and don't be rigid in who has what
students.
Yeah, there are certain roles and responsibilities,
but when it comes to instruction,
it should be fluid and flexible.
And like I said,
I can see those two models merging very easily because you
have the ability to rotate and I'm going to say the
dreadful word that nobody likes to hear,
but we really used our assessments and our data to drive
our instruction.
We did now.
I always like to give this little caveat.
It depends on what data do you have.
Your data has to be good.
It can't be useless data because useless data is no use to
you as a teacher.
Certain assessments in literacy, for example,
Dibble scores, right?
Those types of things can help you form those groups and
match students with the skills that they need for that.
Really quick, just to touch upon it,
parallel teaching was also really great.
I enjoyed that one as well because we got to see like
larger groups at the same time cover more ground that way.
I don't know how you felt about it,
but I kind of liked parallel teaching too,
when we did do it.
I like parallel teaching.
I think it was absolutely necessary at times.
One of the things to be aware of,
and everyone's different like this,
but I'll come clean in that I'm a rather distractible
person.
I could relate with some of the special ed kids,
not just special ed.
I should watch how I'm saying this because a lot of kids
had attentional issues.
We know that.
And I found if there's too much talking from any source
going on, I found it a little distracting.
So you have to be careful how you arrange it,
how you set it up, how your workspace is.
And sometimes the parallel teaching we did was actually a
small group.
We were working with small groups,
but teaching and another group might have been,
it's kind of a combination,
small group instruction that is often done in a center
context when there's centers is sort of,
it could be like parallel teaching.
It could also be alternative teaching.
It kind of depends on how your,
and what your needs are and how you're structuring the
class, but just something to be aware of, you know,
and everybody's different in that way.
Absolutely.
But that's where that routines comes in, right?
Going back to our framework for today and our guideline,
we had the routines like the students knew when the timer
went off, where to rotate,
they knew when to bring the materials, how to clean up,
so we established that right away.
Absolutely.
My new teachers out there, that's classroom management 101,
whether you're alone or with 10 co-teachers,
not that that would happen.
You still have to have that good classroom management.
So we figured out the management.
And again, that engagement piece, we included Furny in it,
like I still use some of the things that we said, you know,
I do Furny says, right?
Because Simon says like, who's Simon?
I got that once.
And I said, No, forget it.
So I do Furny says when I want their attention.
Furny says, touch your nose.
Fernie says, touch your ears.
Furny says, show the quiet sign.
Furny says eyes on me.
There were those little things that we enjoyed and got a
laugh out of saying,
and that we were trying to be more creative with behind the
curtain.
And that really helped us build that relationship to help
those routines.
And so again,
it's just like being on stage in a way behind the curtain
and in front, we tried to make it work.
Absolutely.
Have fun with your co-teacher when you're, you know,
don't be too rigid or too, I mean, I know, I know,
especially if you're working with someone new,
you don't know the person and it might take a while for you
to get to know each other,
but when you are able to have fun in the way that you can
have fun and things that you enjoy,
bring them into the classroom and you'll find it creates a
chemistry and a magic in a way that, that really,
like Leanna said,
I love that provides a kind of a glue and brings everything
together for the good of the kids.
Absolutely.
Let's talk really quick about 1Teach1Assist because our
friends that are the experts,
they really say shy away from this one.
But you know, let's be honest,
there are some days where we use that model.
And it wasn't because we were trying to avoid the others in
any way, but that's the one that kind of fit.
And I think for us, it wasn't just for 1Teach1Assist,
I would be up in the front of the room,
and you would just walk around and circulate and do the
behavior management part.
I think for us, it was a little bit elevated,
because there were days I'm like, here, you take the pen,
and I'm going to walk around and I'm just going to assist
the students small in small ways,
while you're doing the lesson.
So we really did try to share the responsibility,
even though that model wasn't the best one to pick at the
time, probably.
Like any other model, it can be used effectively if needed.
But the problem with one teach, one assist, again,
is that it often becomes the default model.
So you walk into a classroom,
and maybe you're not sure of what you're supposed to do,
or you don't feel comfortable with the person.
So you default with just kind of, and this is usually,
I would say, like 90% of the time, of course,
it's going to be the special ed teacher,
because the general ed teacher, that's their room,
especially if you're coming in for one or two periods at a
time, and you're not stationed there all day.
And you come in and you might feel, you know,
kind of tentative.
So you default to this just assisting and helping out and
bouncing from child to child.
But the problem with that is if it's your default way of
being, the special ed teacher becomes really underutilized.
And they're not providing the specialized instruction that
they know how to give.
It's like having an army and having a battalion of people
standing behind and not doing anything.
So you're like, you're not engaging.
So you're not being utilized.
And if you're just assisting, okay, you're being helpful,
but you're not using your full powers and your full
knowledge and expertise.
You're better together for sure.
And for my early career teachers out there,
if you're serving as the gen ed teacher,
just a word of advice.
Let it go.
Yes, it's your room.
If someone's being disrespectful or things like that,
that's a different conversation.
But welcome that special education teacher into your
classroom.
If it's an ESL teacher, whoever it may be,
and let them know this is our space.
You don't have to ask me to borrow things.
You don't have to ask, you know, just jump in,
get going and just sort of be very open in that way.
And I know sometimes for me, I'm like, well,
if something's done incorrectly,
I'm afraid of getting in trouble.
Believe it or not, most administrators,
they're actually pleasantly surprised that you're taking
risks and you're not defaulting to, you know,
just one teach one assistant,
you're really trying these models that they know,
hopefully,
through their own reading and research that that work.
So for my general education teachers,
really just welcome the shared expertise that's coming into
your room and the space as well.
For those special ed teachers who might be listening,
I would say, you know,
you have a lot to offer that classroom.
Do not sell yourself short.
Go in there and do as much as you can to help, you know,
yes, the kids that you are meant to service,
but also all the kids, chances are you have,
and not chances are you do have a lot to offer that
classroom.
Try to get comfortable, work with the gen ed teacher.
You guys are partners and you both have a lot to offer.
So let's do a little recap as we start to round off today.
We talked about our guideline or our framework being about
roles, routines, and respect.
We talked about building that relationship together,
very important, find things.
We happened to like Fernie the Dragonwing.
You invented him, I thought it was great.
Little surprise, but at first, but best surprise ever.
Embrace each other's talents and things that we both enjoy
and even our differences to give that support.
We talked about our roles, it's our shared students,
all the students get shared.
We talked about some of the models of co-teaching and we
will be sharing some resources where our listeners can find
out more about the models.
I know it's sort of trite to say these days,
but simple Google search, I did it,
it's right up here on my screen, it is correct.
So you can just look that up.
And how to incorporate that and find the models that are
the stronger ones that are gonna give the best instruction.
Because remember, it is all about student outcomes.
That's the purpose of co-teaching,
is to increase student success and have better student
outcomes.
With that engagement piece, you still want the routines,
you want everything to sort of work together cohesively.
And I would think for me,
one last sort of big tip is offer yourself and each other
forgiveness because we didn't walk in on day one and it
looked like this.
It took about five years.
So it's okay to get a little upset if the next year you
have a different co-teacher,
but embrace that same routine of getting to know each
other.
The routines do that.
It's not a quick overnight thing, my friends.
Especially if you're an early educator,
you're still getting acclimated to what is my classroom?
What does it look like?
What is my classroom management?
What's my style?
Getting used to the school.
So give yourself that grace.
And with time, it gets better and it gets more fun.
Yeah, absolutely.
Get to know each other.
Try to enjoy the fact that you have the opportunity to work
with another professional.
It's a cliche, but two heads are better than one.
But you have an opportunity to really make a huge
difference for the kids in that classroom.
I would tell the kids at the beginning of the year,
you are very lucky this year class,
because you have not just one, but two teachers.
That's why we opened up by saying teaching is great, but...
Co-teaching is better!
...is better.
So we're going to leave you here now.
We're going to leave you with some resources,
but we do hope to come back and share some more time,
expertise, some fun, Furny stories perhaps.
But please know that the new Teacher Talk podcast is always
here for you.
There are so many other episodes with wonderful experts in
the field sharing their knowledge, their content,
and their expertise.
So be sure to continue being a listener with us for the new
Teacher Talk podcast.
And thank you.
And best to you all, and happy teaching.
That wraps up today's episode.
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