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Jimmy Donnellan

Co-Teaching at P.S. NYC: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The co-teaching classroom model has gained traction in the US over the past few decades as part of a sweeping effort to democratize education. The thinking is straightforward: two teachers per classroom provides a better student-to-teacher ratio, which allows for more individualized instruction (e.g., differentiation) and better classroom management. These outcomes benefit teachers and students alike. More recent efforts in education have sought to leverage co-teaching to build inclusive classrooms. The ASD Nest program, a partnership between the NYC DOE and NYU, integrates students with autism into general education classrooms at public elementary, middle, and high schools. These small, “integrated co-teaching” (ICT) classrooms are co-led by one general education teacher and one special education teacher (NYU Steinhardt, 2022). They offer the standard benefits that we expect from a co-teaching classroom while also facilitating (and in some cases, manufacturing) opportunities for social-emotional learning development for Nest and general education students.

This semester, I am completing my first fieldwork assignment in a Nest classroom at P.S. NYC, I.S. 000 (P.S. NYC). During my two-month tenure, I have witnessed many interactions that demonstrate the positive power of this classroom model. General education students help their peers with autism complete tasks and engage socially, providing a sort of peer scaffolding network. Students with autism have assumed important classroom roles, like time-keeper. And perhaps most importantly, the classroom continues to function at a high level and accommodates every student’s needs. The successes of this dynamic are numerous, and they have much to do with the co-teachers at the helm. Ms. B (my host teacher; ELA) and Mr. C (special education and social studies) have a collective twenty-five years of public school teaching experience, and their classroom is largely a fun, warm, productive environment as a result.

Having laid that groundwork, I must say that what has held an even greater hold over my attention during my fieldwork visits so far are the negative situations that arise in a co-taught classroom. Some people compare the co-teacher relationship to a “marriage,” suggesting that co-teachers need to work actively on their dynamic in order for it to flourish (Education Week, 2011). I find this to be apt. Yet, what I am observing in my host classroom does not approximate a very successful marriage. There is plenty to celebrate, but there is also noteworthy miscommunication, conflicting values, and an imbalanced division of responsibilities. This dysfunction is what I have zeroed in on over the past few months.

I had noticed some complications in my co-teachers’ relationship after the very first day of observations, and I took note of these instances to reflect upon later. What I did not expect is that my host teacher, who is the more senior of the two teachers, would raise some of these exact concerns with me during our shared lunch on my second day of observations. In sum, I am approaching this assignment through a combination of conversations with her and observations from their class that I have noted independently. It is worth noting that my observations are more critical of Mr. C’s approach; I have questioned elements of Ms. B’s approach too, but for this paper, I have set those aside as they are less relevant to the co-teaching topic.

On my first day, I noticed what I felt to be a significant issue arising from the classroom’s physical arrangement. Mr. C has a very loud voice that booms throughout the room. To emphasize why that is a problem, I need to explain that co-teaching in Nest classrooms at P.S. NYC takes the form of station teaching. In this model, a class is separated into multiple “stations,” and depending on the size of the class, each teacher will typically instruct between one and two stations. At P.S. NYC, desks are arranged into two side-by-side u-shaped arrangements, with students’ chairs lining the perimeters (see Figure 1). When Mr. C speaks among his station, it can be almost impossible to hear Ms. B or the students in her own station. And this is not true the other way around: when Ms. B talks, Mr. C’s station is still audible. The issue intensifies when Mr. C has off-topic conversations with students, which has happened at least once each time I have visited. These conversations are always about useful, school-appropriate subject matter (e.g., high school entrance exams, linguistic family trees, cyberbullying) but because they happen so loudly, they distract the rest of the students in his station (and sometimes Ms. B’s station) and detract from the lesson plan.

Figure 1. Diagram of the station teaching classroom setup in my host classroom at P.S. NYC.

Trust is another issue that I believe springs from this co-teaching relationship and the station teaching classroom setup. On my second day of fieldwork, there were a few students misbehaving and causing disruptions on-and-off all day. During eighth period ELA, which is the last class of the day, both stations were tasked with starting that evening’s homework assignment. One of the students who had been disruptive in Ms. B’s station got up to go grab the bathroom pass without asking for permission first, which goes against classroom policy. As she went to leave, Ms. B told her to sit back down, stating that she had used the bathroom three times already that day and that she failed to ask for permission. At that moment, and in front of the entire class, Mr. C interjected and said something along the lines of, “Oh no, Ms. B, she didn’t use the bathroom yet today, it was [another student]. She can go.” It was surely intended to be an innocuous correction, and it was in defense of a student, which I can support, but I could tell that Ms. B was not pleased. I was taken aback by it, too. That sort of behavior is undermining and it puts into question both teachers’ authority in the classroom. It also telegraphed that Ms. B and Mr. C are not on the same page about classroom policy or about how to communicate their way through challenges when they arise. The rapport and trust is not there; and if it is, it is not communicated productively.

After one lunch conversation with Ms. B, I began to understand that issues in this co-teaching relationship extend to the very values that each teacher holds regarding their role in the classroom. I had not witnessed this personally, but Ms. B informed me that she does all of the lesson planning for their classes – both for ELA and social studies. She says that she has been teaching for so long that she could plan a lesson in fifteen minutes, but that is not the point. The expectation for Nest classrooms at P.S. NYC is that lesson planning, content instruction, and grading are split fifty-fifty between co-teachers. Ms. B told me that she has tried to communicate to Mr. C that he needs to up his contributions, and she even said that she provided blank lesson plan templates and outline of the upcoming topics in the unit plan that he could reference to build his share of the lessons. Apparently those efforts did not inspire any change. The straw that broke the camel’s back, for Ms. B at least, was the unannounced observation that their assistant principal conducted just an hour before I arrived on campus a few weeks ago. Mr. C led the class in a “one teach, one observe” co-teaching model (not their standard approach). Ms. B told me that the students were quiet that morning so the lesson sort of flopped. Afterward, the assistant principal asked Mr. C for his lesson plan, which he did not have prepared to share (Ms. B had made the lesson plan but did not mention whether she actually printed it and provided it on his behalf). Safe to say, the assistant principal was not impressed.

Because Ms. B is the more senior teacher with twenty years of experience, she feels like it is now her responsibility to get Mr. C up to speed. In Allie Hope King’s recent article emphasizing the “co-ness” in “co-teaching,” she writes that “to actually benefit from the collaboration, the research suggests that new teachers first need to be trained how to collaborate” (2022). Mr. C is not a new teacher, as he is entering his fifth year with the DOE. But if co-teaching training does not take place, or if it is done in a cursory, performative fashion, co-teaching relationships can fail, and the students that they are intended to serve end up feeling the consequences. Ms. B said that the administration provided a co-teaching workshop before the school year but that it felt more like a formality than a real training. I asked if there are other resources on campus she can leverage to strengthen their co-teaching relationship, like continued trainings or a staff member they could turn to for guidance. She said that these resources do not exist at P.S. NYC. She added that she has tried to talk to other teachers about the problems in her classroom but her peers’ responses have been largely unhelpful, exhibiting jaded perspectives that sometimes reflect her own experience. At the end of the day, I understand and respect that Ms. B feels responsible for Mr. C’s career growth, and I know that she would benefit greatly from his development, too. At the same time, she has tried multiple intervention tactics to no avail and is unclear what to do next. Plus, the more time and effort she spends trying to correct their working relationship has an impact on how available she is for her students.

King raises a great point about a key challenge in rolling out co-teaching classrooms: “the research suggests that teachers need to be trained how to collaborate, and anecdotes depicting ‘successful’ or ‘effective’ co-teaching relationships can be difficult to translate into practical ‘how to’ teacher training materials” (2022). What she advocates as an addendum to hearing positive anecdotes is plenty of practice with “synchronizing” and “amending.” These are two related concepts that describe the mutually complementary and understanding relationship that we hope for co-teachers. When co-teachers are synchronizing, one is providing some type of verbal instruction while the other is simultaneously complementing that with physical instruction. Amending describes one teacher picking up where the other left off, creating a more seamless transition between speakers and ideas.

While King deploys synchronizing and amending mostly in service to content instruction, I think that these concepts could help Ms. B and Mr. C (re)discover the “co-ness” that is essential to their working relationship. Perhaps it means shifting away from the station teaching model toward a more permanent “one teach, one assist” model. That would solve for the noise distractions, and it would help them align more in real-time to handle classroom issues as they arise. And maybe by practicing synchronizing and amending with regards to content instruction, they can fall into a similar stride in other areas of their working dynamic, too.

Resources:

Education Week. (2011, October 14). Co-teaching is a marriage. YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pnxst7dkLk

King, A. H. (2022). Synchronizing and amending: A conversation analytic account of the

“Co-ness” in co-teaching. Linguistics and Education, 67, 1-12.

https://doi-org.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/10.1016/j.linged.2022.101015

NYU Steinhardt. (n.d.). NYC Department of Education ASD Nest Program. NYU Steinhardt. https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/metrocenter/asdnest/new-york-city#:~:text=ASD%20Nest%20

Program%20Features&text=The%20program%20serves%20students%20with,older%2C

%20the%20class%20size%20increases

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Hi Jimmy!

Thanks so much for writing this!

This paper is really indicative of how the best intentions do not necessarily lead to the best results. If you polled teacher trainees about the idea of co-teaching, I would imagine it would have incredibly high support. But as you point out, there seems to be multiple areas of disconnect between B and C.

I raise several points of consideration. I hope you have the time to reflect on them.

Ultimately, my biggest questions are:

-Is C simply ill-suited for co-teaching?

-Are there ways for B to help?

-And finally, on a practical level, I wonder how you interject your really reasonable and practical suggestions? In short, given the obvious hierarchy involved, I wonder how you could share your thoughts with them in a collaborative manner?

Regardless, thanks for pointing out some of the fault lines in co-teaching. And I hope this exploration helps you avoid these types of potential gaps in the future.

Thanks again!

Dino