Within the past decade, collaborative teaching partnerships have opened the doors of general education classrooms for millions of special populations students. These students and their typical peers receive increased personal support from trained educators, achieve more, and benefit from higher expectations and challenging curriculum and instruction. The teaching partners also benefit from the lower pupil-teacher ratio. Ironically, if you talk to most educators who are beginning a collaborative partnership or who have had poor experiences with the practice, the list of their concerns and perceived barriers is usually extensive.
This course is organized to address three aspects of the collaborative teaching relationship: personal commitment to the role, the interpersonal relationships that require attention from role clarity to teaching style issues, and the procedural considerations, such as time for planning and how to build a schedule that results in support instead of stress. Participants will enjoy the honesty with which this topic is addressed and the many tools and techniques gained.
