Strengthening Co-teaching Practices

Abstract

Co-teaching is a well-known practice utilized by educators when working with specialized or identified learners. Although co-teaching is incredibly common across every school, the potential of co-teaching is often hindered with obstacles that educators are not aware of how to mitigate. The overarching question of this capstone is: How can teachers strengthen their co-teaching to support their ELL students’ linguistic learning outcomes? The purpose of this capstone is to provide educators with information about co-teaching in order to apply and reflect on their own practices and implement new methods and strategies provided. Previous research suggests that co-teaching is only strong when co-planning time is sufficiently provided. Oftentimes, teachers are not allotted enough time to collaborate and map out their ideas they plan to teach. This hurdle has the potential to be resolved when collaborative team educators advocate the importance of adequate planning and collaboration time to administration. The professional development created to follow up the capstone presents participants with the necessary findings to incorporate into future co-teaching and other collaborative practices. By showing an understanding of the benefits and overall academic outcomes found with proper ENL co-teaching practices and approaches, educators can better meet the needs of their students.