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Coteaching Students Disabilities

The purpose of this chapter is to present a review of the literature that focuses on coteaching and instructional practices that may positively impact achievement for students with disabilities. There is a large volume of research on coteaching models, but very little information that includes teacher perceptions of the effectiveness of instructional practices that have an impact on student achievement.

First, a brief historical review of educating students with disabilities will be presented. Second, a brief historical review of accountability initiatives beginning with the publication A Nation at Risk in 1983 and concluding with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 will be presented. Third, a brief description of students with disabilities in Illinois is discussed. Fourth, instructional interventions including the coteaching intervention strategy appear. Fifth, classroom structures supporting coteaching are presented. Sixth, a research base is explored. The final section of the literature review explores the leader’s role in the context of facilitating the practice of coteaching.

Public Law and Educating Students with Disabilities

The drive for changing how we educate students with disabilities is widely attributed to Public Law 94-142, Education for all Handicapped Children Act (EHA), passed by Congress in 1975. According to the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP),

Before the enactment of Public Law 94-142, the fate of many individuals with disabilities was likely to be dim…In 1967, for example, state institutions were homes to almost 200,000 persons with significant disabilities…many of these restrictive settings provided only minimal food, clothing, and shelter. (OSEP, 1999, p.2)

Public Law 94-142 “guaranteed a free, appropriate public education to each child with a disability in every state and locality across the country” and listed four purposes in the mission of educating students with disabilities:

• Assure that all children with disabilities have available to them…a free appropriate public education which emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs

• Assist states and localities to provide for the education of all students with disabilities

• Assure that the rights of children with disabilities and their parents are protected

• Assess and assure the effectiveness of efforts to educate all children with disabilities. (OSEP, 1999, p. 3-4)

Furthermore, Public Law 94-142 mandated changes including how children with disabilities were identified and educated, the evaluation of services offered by educators, provided due process to protect children with disabilities and their parents, and authorized federal money and incentives to facilitate implementation by states and localities to comply with the law (OSEP, 1999, p. 3). Clearly, Public Law 94-142 addressed basic practices and policies regarding the education of children with disabilities. However, subsequent amendments to Public Law 94-142 were enacted to keep pace with the growing needs of children with disabilities.

There have been several key amendments to EHA since its inception in 1975. The 1986 Amendments to EHA, Public Law 99-457, mandated that states provide services and programs for children with disabilities from birth. The 1983 Amendments to EHA, (Public Law 98-199), the 1990 Amendments to EHA (Public Law 101-476), which changed the name to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and the IDEA Amendments of 1997 (Public Law 105-17) provided a focus on transition services for high school students through their Individualized Education Plan (IEP) beginning at age fourteen (OSEP, 1999, p.4). Although the Office of Special Education Programs asserts that “…today, millions of children with significant disabilities are attending their neighborhood schools and learning the life skills they will need for full, active participation in integrated activities with their family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers,” the OSEP also realizes “that there is no easy or quick fix to the challenges of educating children with disabilities” (OSEP, 1999, p. 4-5).

The 2004 Reauthorization of IDEA, spearheaded by then President George W. Bush and Congress, closely mirrors the language of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) and states that schools will be “accountable for making sure students with disabilities achieve high standards” (OSERS, 2004, p. 1). U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings stated, “NCLB and IDEA 2004 have not only removed the final barrier separating special education from general education, they have also put the needs of students with disabilities front and center” (OSERS, 2004, p.1). Rose & Gallup (2006) presented a less favorable assessment of the modern educational setting. In the 38^th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Attitudes Toward the Public Schools, the authors presented the following findings:

• 47% of people polled had an unfavorable opinion of NCLB

• 54% of people polled opposed reporting tests scores by student subgroups

• 62% of people polled opposed the reporting of test scores for students with disabilities

• 75% of people polled opposed the requirement that students with disabilities meet the same academic standards as all other students in the school. (p. 51)

Rose & Gallup (2006) also asserted that “perhaps the most significant finding is that NCLB has made no difference in the performance of schools in the community” and concluded that “because the effort to comply with NCLB is driving instruction in most schools and dominating efforts to improve achievement, the concern of such a large proportion of the public needs to be addressed” (p. 50-51). Educators continue to need plans other than legislation to improve practice and thus results for students with disabilities.

Accountability Initiatives and Students with Disabilities

Although there has been measurable progress for many students as outlined below, the subgroup still most at-risk for not meeting standards for state mandated tests is made up of students with disabilities. The performance gap between students with disabilities and other subgroups continues to widen, or at best, remain the same. Need to insert Illinois statistics here. Look up Illinois Department of Education website for subgroup performances. See page 13.

Instructional Interventions

In an effort to address changes in policy and practice, many schools across the United States have adopted varied models of teaching designed specifically for improving the academic success and progress of students with disabilities. Some schools utilize a collaborative or coteaching instructional model not only to provide a least restrictive environment (LRE) but also to provide additional instruction within the general education classroom. Although there is no universal definition for collaboration or coteaching, many descriptors appear in literature. The term cooperative teaching is attributed to Bauwens, Hourcade, and Friend (1989) and describes “a pragmatic merger between general and special educators in which direct educational programming to all students would be provided by having a special educator within a general education setting” (Murawski & Swanson, 2001, p.258). Cooperative teaching was later defined by Hourcade and Bauwens (2001) as “two or more educators possessing distinct sets of knowledge and skills, for example, a general educator and a special educator working together to teach academically heterogeneous groups of students in the general education classroom” (p.243).

In the book Cooperative Teaching: Rebuilding and Sharing the Schoolhouse (2003), authors Hourcade and Bauwens assert “the most distinctive feature of collaborative teaching, and the one that most differentiates it from indirect approaches to collaboration, is this joint and simultaneous direct provision of instruction” (p. 39). The authors list four basic features critical to successful collaboration:

• Both educators are committed to change and self-examination

• Both educators share similar values, attitudes, and beliefs about schools, learning, students, and teaching

• Both educators are voluntarily committed to collaborative teaching

• Both educators value each other. (Hourcade & Bauwens, 2003)

Two leading questions are offered by Muraski and Dieker (2004) for teachers in a coteaching setting to determine if they should continue coteaching: “Is what we are doing good for both of us?” and “Is what we are doing good for all of our students?” (p.58). The authors further name planning, instruction, and assessment as three areas of focus for teachers in a coteaching setting (p. 55-57).

In the mid 1990s, Cook and Friend (1995) not only modified the term cooperative teaching to coteaching but further offer coteaching as “two or more professionals delivering substantive instruction to a diverse or blended group of students in a single physical space” (p.2). Friend and Cook (2007) present six mechanisms for successful collaboration:

• Collaboration should be voluntary

• Collaboration is grounded in equality

• Collaboration embraces shared responsibility for decision making and input

• Collaboration includes shared responsibility for student achievement

• Collaboration involves sharing resources

• Collaboration is based on sharing common goals. (p. 7-12)

Rice and Zigmond (2000) defined coteaching using three criteria:

• two qualified teachers, one of whom is a special education teacher, share the same classroom and students

• the teachers share responsibility for planning and teaching an academically varied class that includes both students with disabilities and typically achieving students

• both teachers convey substantive instruction. (Morocco & Aquilar, 2002, p.316)

The authors contend “coteaching is not an isolated classroom practice but the extension into the classroom of a complex system of teacher collaboration that reaches to all levels of school organization” (Morocco & Aquilar, 2002, p.343).

In 2001, Gately and Gately stated that coteaching is “the collaboration between general and special education for all of the teaching responsibilities of all students assigned to a classroom” (p.41). The authors describe eight components that define the coteaching instructional model:

• Interpersonal communication

• Physical arrangement

• Familiarity with the curriculum

• Curriculum goals and modifications

• Instructional planning

• Instructional presentation

• Classroom management

• Assessment. (p.40)

The authors stress that effective coteaching relationships must grow from a beginning stage, categorized by “guarded, careful communication,” to a compromising stage, described as “give and take communication with a sense of having to ‘give up’ to get” to a collaborating stage, where the teachers display “open communication and mutual admiration” (p.42). The authors conclude that “teams need to be assured that truly collaborative partnerships take time and effort to develop” (Gately & Gately, 2001).

Classroom Structures Supporting Coteaching

There is no “one size fits all” arrangement for a co-taught classroom. Researchers have, though, defined five basic coteaching arrangements:

• One teaching/one observing

• Station or center teaching

• Parallel teaching

• Alternative teaching

• Interactive teaching. (Friend & Cook, 2007)

The one teaching/one observing arrangement provides each co-teacher with separate tasks. In the book, Interactions: Collaboration skills for school professionals (2007), authors Friend and Cook suggest

the first [teacher] has primary responsibility for designing and delivering specific

instruction to the entire group…the second professional has the goal of systematically collecting data relevant to a single student, a small group of students, or for the entire class for behaviors the professionals have previously agreed should be noted. (p. 120)

Although the one teach/one observe approach requires very little cooperative planning, the authors noted that one disadvantage is the possibility of the observer being delegated the role of assistant (Friend & Cook, 2007).

Station teaching allows co-teachers the opportunity to concurrently present instruction within the classroom (Friend & Cook, 2007). There are various approaches to station teaching including rotating students, rotating teachers, and providing opportunities for independent practice, review, or group work (Friend & Cook, 2007). Friend and Cook (2007) stated that “because in this approach each teacher instructs all students, albeit in different groups, the equal status of both the students and the teacher can be maximized” (p. 123).

Parallel teaching is an arrangement where each teacher is instructing half the students grouped in a diverse manner (Friend & Cook, 2007). Friend and Cook (2007) stated “parallel teaching often is appropriate for drill and practice activities, test reviews, topics needing a high level of student discussion, or projects needing closer teacher supervision” (p.124). They also contend that both teachers need a strong understanding of the content of the subject studied, but with the main goal being to reduce the student-teacher ratio in the classroom (Friend & Cook, 2007).

Alternative teaching is an arrangement where one teacher delivers instruction to a majority of the students while another teacher selects a small group of students for remediation and enrichment (Friend & Cook, 2007). While this method can be a very successful one, it is important that the small group does not become a special education classroom nestled within the regular education setting (Friend & Cook, 2007).

Interactive teaching or teaming refers to a situation that focuses on joint planning and instruction and carries with it a high level of mutual trust on the part of the co-teachers (Friend & Cook, 2007). Friend and Cook (2007) state that “co-teachers who team frequently report that it results in a synergy that enhances student participation and energizes the professionals, sometimes even energizing them to try innovative techniques and activities that each professional would not have tried alone” (p. 126).

The Research Base

As stated earlier, the inclusion of students with disabilities in the regular classroom setting has become a widely used instructional model (Dieker & Murawski, 2003). Some research demonstrates that the successful realization of a coteaching model may have a positive impact on achievement for students with disabilities (Murawski & Swanson, 2001; Rhea et al., 2002). Specifically, Murawski and Swanson (2001) indicated that the impact on student achievement was most evident in the areas of reading and language arts. Research conducted by Rea, McLaughlin, and Walther-Thomas (2002) concluded that “students with disabilities included in the general education classrooms achieved better outcomes on some measures than did their peers in pullout programs and similar outcomes on others” (p.219). When reviewing large quantities of coteaching literature, however, the impact on student achievement due to coteaching and inclusion was unclear and indicated that further research in this area would be reasonable (Mastropieri et al., 2005; Morocco & Aguilar, 2002; Murawski & Swanson, 2001; Rea, et al., 2002; Zigmond, 2003; Zigmond & Margiera, 2001). Mastropieri et al. (2005) asserted that “although coteaching models have proliferated, there is a lack of consensus on the specific features required…and the best way to measure the effectiveness of coteaching” (p. 261). In their study of coteaching which included three middle school programs, Morocco & Aguilar (2002) concluded “further research should document the process of planning, assessment, and classroom coteaching that characterizes the full cycle of coteaching within interdisciplinary teams” (p. 343).

In 2001, Murawski and Swanson conducted a quantitative meta-analysis of coteaching articles written about general and special education teachers serving within the same classroom including both regular and special education students. According to those authors, of the 89 articles searched, only 6 articles contained sufficient data for analysis. Murawski and Swanson (2001) stated “for coteaching to be considered a valid service delivery option for students with disabilities in the general education or least restrictive placement, more experimental research must be conducted” (p. 265). Zigmond (2003) is in agreement with Murawski and Swanson (2001) in their meta-analysis of the coteaching research that there are not enough studies to determine the true strength and success of the coteaching movement (p. 195).

The Leader’s Role

The principal’s role as a coteaching facilitator may be critical to the success of both teachers and students. According to Hourcade and Bauwens (2001),

cooperative teaching provides educators and students alike with greater

opportunities to reach their full potential. It allows educators to pool their individual strengths and talents to enhance the learning of all students in an instructionally more powerful environment. It allows students to interact with a variety of educators who bring different styles, personalities, and skills to the learning environment. (p. 247)

School and district leaders should stay up to date with the current literature to maximize the potential of collaboration and coteaching described by Hourcade and Bauwens (2001).

A review of the coteaching literature offered four general areas that principals should address if they are to assist effective collaborative environments for both teachers and students:

• Providing sustained professional development in the area of coteaching

• Developing a schedule for teacher co-planning and collaboration

• Creating coteaching teams where teachers share trust and respect

• Maintaining strong support and good visibility for teachers. (Friend & Cook, 2007; Hourcade & Bauwens, 2001; Hourcade & Bauwens, 2003; Mastropieri, et al. 2005; Murawski & Dieker, 2004)

In some schools, teachers are assigned to a coteaching situation just before school

begins in the fall receiving very little training to prepare for that assignment. One of the most important practices for principals in order to ensure teacher success is to “provide substantive information about this collaborative arrangement and encourage teachers to proactively prepare for this change…before they actually start the teaching process” (Murawski & Dieker, 2004, p. 53).

Scheduling time for teacher collaboration is also listed numerous times in the literature. Murawski and Dieker (2004) emphasize the importance of common planning time for co-teachers to “find ways to use their strengths to ensure that the lesson is appropriately differentiated for a heterogeneous class” (p.55). Although Friend and Cook (2007) advocate scheduling common planning time for co-teachers during the regular school day, they also recommend other options for consideration, including “scheduling early release/late arrival days, using substitute teachers, and employing instructional strategies that facilitate planning” (p. 166-167).

The most effective predictor of success or failure in a coteaching/inclusion model may be the relationship between the co-teachers. In their case studies of four schools, Mastropieri et al. (2005) concluded “in healthy coteaching situations, the relationship between the general and special education teachers appeared to be built upon mutual trust and respect for one another’s expertise in each respective field” (p. 268). Those authors also reported that academic content knowledge is not the defining influence on successful coteaching. They did state, however, that “the interaction between course content and teacher knowledge did prove to have a substantial influence on coteaching” (p. 268). Leaders of schools can assist the relationship-building process by allowing opportunities for teachers to learn from each other. Hourcade and Bauwens (2003) recommend that cooperative teachers should observe each other in non-coteaching settings to “gain insight into each other’s instructional and management style” as a method for recognizing “ways to best blend their styles as cooperative teaching partners” (p. 53). Also according to Hourcade and Bauwens (2003), “without substantial administrative leadership and support for systems transformation, few substantial changes toward collaboration can be expected to last or succeed” (p. 15). These authors express as well that “the strongest expression of support for change is the new allocation of resources” (p. 92). Friend and Cook (2007) added administrative support to include an influence on “school and district policy on matters that facilitate coteaching efforts” (p. 134).

Co-teachers should be offered the opportunity to self-evaluate their programs as well as their own performance therein. Until just a few years ago, this area had not been addressed. Noonan, McCormick, and Heck (2003) developed and validated a co-teacher relationship tool using a small sample of early childhood educators in Hawaii. The Co-Teacher Relationship Scale (Noonan, et al., 2003) focuses on the attitude, beliefs, and personal characteristics of co-teachers and may be helpful in matching potential co-teaching team members. When reviewing results using this scale with 20 teachers, the only demographic variable yielding a statistically significant result on the compatibility scale was years of experience (Cramer & Nevin, 2006). Ratings of confidence as an educator were higher for teachers who reported more years of experience. In contrast, the Are We Really Co-Teachers Scale developed by R. Villa in 2004 emphasizes the teaching interactions and classroom behaviors of co-teachers (Cramer & Nevin, 2006). This scale may become a useful tool for administrators and other personnel in developing and designing effective professional development activities to ensure that co-teachers have the skills to implement research-proven effective teaching practices (Cramer & Nevin, 2006).

According to Keefe, Moore, and Duff (2004), collaborative teaching requires knowledge of oneself, one’s teaching partner, one’s students, and one’s trade. Principals need to be prepared to guide teachers in acquiring these four types of knowledge. Whether it is making time for personal conversations with each teacher, or providing professional development materials, principals need to be prepared to help the professionals at their schools. Teaching can be frustrating and lonely, and all teachers need the advice of other experienced professionals in order to overcome the daily challenges they face (Keefe et al., 2004).

Summary of Literature Review

REFERENCES

Bauwens, J., Hourcade, J. J., & Friend, M. (1989). Cooperative teaching: A model for

general and special education integration. Remedial and special education, 10(2), 17-22.

Cook, L. & Friend, M. (1995). Co-teaching: Guidelines for creating effective practices.

Focus on exceptional children, 28(3), 1-16.

Cramer, E. & Nevin, A. (2006). A mixed methodology analysis of co-teacher

assessments. Teacher education and special education, 29(4), 261-274.

Dieker, L.A. & Murawski, W.W. (2003). Co-teaching at the secondary level: Unique

issues, current trends, and suggestions for success. The high school journal, 86(4), 1-13.

Friend, M. & Cook, L. (2007). Interactions: Collaboration skills for school professionals.

Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Gately, S.E. & Gately, F.J. (2001). Understanding coteaching components. Teaching

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Mastropieri, M.A., Scruggs, T.E., Graetz, J., Norland, J., Gardizi, W., & McDuffie, K.

(2005). Case studies in co-teaching in the content areas: Successes, failures, and challenges. Intervention in school and clinic, 40(5), 260-270.

Morocco, C.C. & Aguilar, C.M. (2002). Coteaching for content understanding: A

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Murawski, W. W. & Dieker, L. (2004). Tips and strategies for co-teaching at the

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Where are the data? Remedial and special education, 22(5), 258-267.

Noonan, M., McCormick, L., & Heck, R. (2003). The co-teacher relationship scale:

Applications for professional development. Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities, 38, 113-120.

Rea, P.J., McLaughlin, V.L., & Walther-Thomas, C. (2002). Outcomes for students with

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public’s attitudes toward the public schools. Phi delta kappan, September, 41-53.

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United States Department of Education: The Office of Special Education and

Rehabilitative Services (OSERS). History of the IDEA: Thirty years of educating children with disabilities through IDEA. Retrieved on June 4, 2008 from www.ed.gov/print/policy/speced/leg/idea/history30.html.

Zigmond, N. (2003). Where should students with disabilities receive special education

services?. The journal of special education, 37(3) 193-199.

Zigmond, N., & Margiera, K. (2001). Current practice alerts: A focus on co-teaching:

Use with caution. Alerts, 36, 58-68.

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