A Lesson Planning Tool to Plan Effective Co-Teaching Lessons
Introducing a new resource for co-teachers and school leaders: the Co-Teaching Lesson Plan Builder! Designed for inclusive education and collaborative planning, it supports special educators and general education teachers with clear implementation strategies aligned to best practices in co-teaching.
To Co-Teachers and School Administrators:
Co-teachers understand that the collaborative potential is enormous, but the logistical reality is often stressful. Finding the time to plan together, determining who does what, and ensuring true parity, especially when the special education teacher may not be comfortable with the content, can be a huge barrier to success. Many educators are still unsure how to effectively realize the huge potential of having two licensed professionals in one classroom.
The goal of effective co-teaching is to move beyond mere presence in the classroom to create a dynamic, engaging, and highly effective learning environment that fosters rigorous learning in an inclusive setting.
We understand the complexity involved, which is why we created the Co-Teaching Lesson Plan Builder, a new tool designed to transform your collaborative planning sessions from chaotic catch-ups into strategic, outcomes-driven blueprints.
The Problem: When Co-Teaching Fails to Reach its Potential
Historically, co-teaching models, even the popular ones like One Teach, One Assist, have often led to the specialist or special educator adopting a subordinate role as an assistant. This happens particularly when clearly defined examples of how to implement the models are missing. Teachers struggle to use more than one or two approaches consistently.
For administrators, this common pitfall means you are investing in a co-teaching initiative without maximizing the talents and professional skills of the adults involved, an outcome that risks the entire program’s success.
The Solution: Planning Beyond the Basics
The Co-Teaching Lesson Plan Builder is built on the foundation of maximizing teacher strengths and ensuring parity through highly specific, ready-to-implement scenarios. Drawing heavily on dozens of detailed strategies outlined in leading best practices, this tool focuses on The HOW of Co-Teaching, providing explicit titles and clear roles for every adult in the room.
How the Builder Works for Co-Teachers:
- Eliminate Role Confusion: The Builder helps clarify exactly what each teacher does during the lesson, offering specific titles to minimize any doubt as to roles and responsibilities.
- Maximize Diverse Talents: Instead of defaulting to the specialist taking the assistant role, the tool pulls from proven, precise strategies, many of which do not require the specialist to possess strong content knowledge. For instance, it might suggest One Teach—One Summarize, where the co-teacher listens to the core content being delivered and then summarizes the information to enhance student comprehension using different language or perspectives.
- Drive Engagement and Rigor: The Builder suggests high-impact implementations designed to foster professional respect and parity. It will recommend powerful techniques like Two Teach and Debate, where both teachers challenge, present opposite viewpoints, or play devil’s advocate to make class discussion more exciting and foster critical thinking. Or, for review, it might suggest Teach Half Then Switch, allowing both educators to focus on smaller groups for targeted instruction on specific skills versus content rigor.
- Instant Accessibility: You receive a structured lesson plan outline that delineates who leads which segment of instruction, allowing you to bypass hours of painstaking co-planning and utilize your limited face-to-face time for adjustments and individualized supports.
Benefits for School Leaders: Intentional Implementation and Staff Maximization
When implemented correctly, co-teaching works, but it requires administrators to commit to correct implementation and support teachers in the process. This tool provides the necessary structure.
- Fidelity to Best Practices: This tool ensures that your co-teaching teams are making intentional choices about which implementation to use, rather than “punting” or relying on the common, but often ineffective, One Teach, One Assist model. The ability to vary approaches based on lesson goals, student needs, and teacher comfort level is essential for successful, well-scheduled co-teaching.
- Effective Use of Certified Staff: By providing a clear framework for specific implementations, such as those that require only minimal content expertise from the specialist, administrators can be confident that two certified teachers are fully utilizing their professional talents to support rigorous learning and student growth, rather than having one teacher acting as a “glorified paraprofessional”.
- Support for Collaboration and Parity: The Builder provides a common, structured language for planning, to enhance communication and foster mutual respect and parity between team members.
Stop losing valuable planning time struggling to coordinate roles and map out complex activities. Give your teachers the clarity they need to achieve high standards and show growth across all learners.
Ready to maximize your co-teaching potential and save crucial planning time? Discover how the Co-Teaching Lesson Plan Builder supports inclusive classrooms, special educators, and co-teaching teams with step-by-step planning tools.
Frequently Asked Questions About Co-Teaching Planning
Q1: What is the primary purpose of effective co-teaching?
Effective co-teaching is defined as two or more certified teachers working together to provide instruction, typically in a heterogeneous inclusive setting. Its main purpose is to create a dynamic, engaging, and highly effective learning environment that promotes rigorous learning in an inclusive setting. When co-teaching is implemented correctly, it works significantly better than other teaching models to accelerate the achievement of all students,.
Q2: Why is the traditional “One Teach, One Assist” model often ineffective or discouraged?
While the “One Teach, One Assist” approach requires minimal co-planning, it is considered the least effective co-teaching approach and is often discouraged,. This model frequently results in the specialist or special education teacher adopting a subordinate role as an assistant. Consequently, students may consider one teacher the “real” teacher and the other teacher as the teacher’s aide. Furthermore, the supporting teacher often becomes distracted from the core lesson, dealing with student behavior or helping students who are off-track.
Q3: Does a co-teacher need to be a content area expert to successfully co-teach?
No, a co-teacher does not always require strong content expertise to be effective. Many high-impact co-teaching implementations, such as One Teach—One Summarize or Two Teach and Debate, are specifically designed so that the specialist does not need strong content knowledge,. For instance, in One Teach—One Summarize, the co-teacher only requires the ability to think and be a good listener to summarize the content.
Q4: How do specific co-teaching implementations differ from general co-teaching models?
Co-teaching models have evolved and, without clearly defined examples, educators often struggle to use more than one or two approaches consistently. The focus shifts to defining precise implementations, often called “The HOW of Co-Teaching,” which provide highly specific titles and scenarios to eliminate any doubt about each teacher’s role during the lesson. This shift helps fully utilize the talents of all adults and foster professional respect.
Q5: How important is dedicated planning time for a successful co-teaching partnership?
Dedicated co-planning time is essential and should be considered sacred. If co-teachers do not carve out time to plan together, their instructional effectiveness is minimized. Without this time, it is difficult to implement a successful co-taught classroom that incorporates state standards. Teachers need time to determine appropriate accommodations and adaptations. That said, The How of Co-teaching Lesson Plan Builder saves hours of co-planning time. The dedicated time you have can be as efficient as both of you coming together and deciding what strategies in the generated lesson plan you’ll use or not use. Have the discussion and move forward from there. It’s a huge time saver.
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