The Power of Co-Teaching

A co-taught classroom can be one of the most powerful tools you have to truly reach all of your students. I was fortunate to work with the same co-teacher for seven years. Throughout that time, we learned each other's idiosyncrasies and personalities, and ended up becoming not only teaching partners, but wonderful friends. We reached a point in our co-teaching relationship where we could finish each other's sentences.

When I found out that my co-teacher was leaving the division, I was extremely nervous about starting all over. It was like a relationship had ended and I was back in the dating game. Luckily, my new co-teacher and I have a lot of similarities, and we have developed a strong partnership in the classroom in just three short months. This became even more evident to me yesterday.

Our inclusion class is challenging this year. We have a large class of students who have a plethora of needs. My co-teacher and I meet almost daily, despite the fact that she is also working with two other teachers as well. We problem-solve, research ideas, and try new strategies all the time.

When we received scores from our first benchmark, it became clear that we needed to do more. We were not reaching a handful of our students.

We have been trying to implement station teaching as much as possible, but stations are only effective when they are being done for the right reasons. Sometimes I think we make up things to do in stations for the sake of saying we are using stations. My co-teacher and I sat down and carefully planned our learning objectives and what would best suit our students. We talked, planned, researched, emailed, texted, changed our minds a few times, and then formulated a plan.

The result was probably one of the very best teaching moments of my (only ten-year) teaching career. Had someone walked into our classroom, they would have seen all students engaged, learning, and working on their individual levels.

We had a carefully planned schedule for each student. Each student visited three stations for 20 minutes during the class period. In the independent reading station, students read self-chosen books on their independent reading levels. This is an everyday occurrence in our class, but they were doing it in a smaller group instead of everyone at once. In another station, my co-teacher taught a mini-lesson on summarizing and then guided the students as they practiced the strategy. In a third station, students completed word work and studied vocabulary words using interactive materials on the iPads. Finally, I met with a group at the guided reading station, where students read a story and we worked on retelling while reteaching story elements.

At the end of the period, we could not have been happier.  Our normally rambunctious class had been quietly engaged for the entire time - reading, writing, and learning. We were able to work with struggling learners on a more individualized basis. I heard students read and measured their comprehension through the conversations we had about a text. We were able to deliver immediate strategy instruction, which we hope can only benefit our students.

It is difficult to describe just how great it felt to feel like we finally accomplished what we have been working so hard to figure out. But I think we have finally taken the first steps to creating a classroom structure that will benefit every student and allow them to grow as readers and writers with the right support. In addition, we used one of the most important tools we have - the power of two.

#FlyHighFriday

My colleague and friend, Justin Birckbichler (@Mr_B_Teacher on Twitter), is encouraging teachers on Twitter to tweet their #FlyHighFriday moments of the week to celebrate the positives in their schools and classrooms.  It was during a read aloud the other day that I discovered my #FlyHighFriday moments.  From that point, I started noticing many of the same instances throughout my week.

As I began reading Rain Reign to my students, I looked up to see two girls scrunched together in their desks whispering.  I paused in the  middle of the sentence I was reading and took a breath to say something to them when I had a realization. I saw that they were not just whispering the dramatic happenings of typical sixth graders, but they were actually discussing a book. They weren't talking about the book that we were reading together; their conversations were spilling over from their independent reading time. One of the girls was holding a book and showing the other one an exciting part that she had reached in her daily reading. These two students are self-professed non-readers. They don't like reading, and they are not afraid to let me know that - sometimes on a daily basis. To see them smiling and sharing a book almost made my week.

Then, during a transition from one activity to the next, I looked up to see another student with her nose buried in a book.  She glanced up and caught me looking at her, to which she responded, "I'm sorry, I just really like this book.  I can't stop reading it."  This is the same student who told me on the first day of school that she does not like to read and spent the first two weeks of school avoiding independent reading at all costs.  Since that day, she has not only finished the book that she was so engrossed in, but has also recommended it to several of her classmates and has found other similar books that she cannot seem to put down.

After these two incidents in one class, I realized that I needed to pay closer attention to how my students are growing.  I started the year with quite a challenge before me.  For the first time, I had students that were just flat-out refusing to read.  They told me that they did not enjoy it, and most of them seemed pretty stubborn when I tried to convince them that I was going to change their minds.  I am slowly starting to see progress, and nothing could please me more.

Just yesterday I looked up during independent reading time to see one of my most stubborn students completely absorbed in his book.  After switching books every other day for the past five weeks and not making much progress in any of them, I gave him A Child Called It at the beginning of the week. Of course, I explained that it was a book that I only let my most mature readers read. I explained the first two chapters, and then sent him off with it.  I told him to trust me.  I stopped by his desk yesterday to ask how it was going, and he said, with a huge grin, "It's actually really good."  I even made him repeat that statement.  He kept smiling and quietly went back to reading.

Students are starting to recommend books to each other.  They stop me in the hallways to tell me how far they got in their book at home or to tell me what book they just started.  Two students even checked out the same book this morning so they could sit together and read and have something to discuss.

Their excitement is starting to build, and I can see reading becoming a habit right in front of me.  To experience this transformation is what propels me out of bed each morning to share my day with impressionable tweens that have their whole lives ahead of them - as readers.  For me, nothing could make me fly higher on a Friday than that.

Here We Go Again

Here I am again, in the same place I was two years ago when I started this blog.  Yearning to write, trying to find the time to get my words on paper (or screen), yet falling short.  I vowed to start writing every day.  Somehow, though, life got in the way.  It could be my full-time job, coaching, a new baby, balancing being a mom of two, all the books that I want to read...  I am sure I could go on and on with excuses, but the reality is, I just need to sit down and do it.


After returning from winter break on Monday, I had my students write reading resolutions.  I have never been one to make New Year's resolutions, and I typically think they are ridiculous.  However, creating reading resolutions seemed like fun to me.  Probably because I am so completely head-over-heels in love with books.  Some might like to call it an obsession.  As I explained to my students, books are starting to take over my house.  I could probably start using them as furniture. 


We talked about resolutions being like long-term goals.  I like having goals, as they give me something to work toward.  One of my reading resolutions was to start working through some of the books I have at home so I can begin the process of de-cluttering my house (though are books really clutter?  I think not.).  I came up with four reading goals, all of which I shared with my students.  Then I started thinking.  Since I have created these goals for my reading, I should give myself a goal for writing.


Writing is something I love.  It is something I always say I need to do more.  It is always the first thing I cut out of my day when I get busy.  So here we go again.


So many exciting, monumental things happened in 2014 - all of which occurred without me documenting them.  Inspiring, wonderful things happen every day in my classroom.  Things that I could reflect on and use to help me grow as a teacher and a person.  There are many books that I read that I want to share with the world.  What better way to do it than through writing?


That being said, I am going to write.


No time limit.  No number of days per week.  I simply need to do it. 


That is my goal.  This time I will achieve it.  I will.