My Successes in Parallel Co-Teaching

I have been co-teaching at Carlsbad High School for about 8 weeks now. I have read blogs from my classmates, such as Chris Dolnik's "The Descent of a Man" blog. He wrote in March that "Preparation allows for better fluidity, direction, and purpose in my lessons." And this is no doubt been evident in my student teaching as well. While I still need to learn better preparation and lesson planning, I have had to incorporate co-teaching strategies into the mix. I have done so with encouraging results.

I have found great use and appreciation for parallel co-teaching strategy. From Villa, Thousand, & Nevin (2008) A Guide to co-teachng: Practical tips for facilitating student learning, "Parallel co-teaching is when two or more people work with different groups of students in different sections of the classroom. Co-teachers may rotate among the groups; and, sometimes there may be one group of students that works without a co-teacher for at least part of the time...Key to parallel co-teaching is that each co-teacher eventually works with every student in the class.


In one of my classes, Geometry, there is only one big white board at the front of the room. Instead of having us split up into to groups in the same room, my cooperating teacher and I have one group stay in the class with one of us to go over a topic, while the other half goes outside to do an activity where a white board is not necessary. In my other class I am teaching, Algebra II, I have a white board on the front and back walls of the class. Sometimes we take half the class outside, and other times we make proper use of the back board. When you have classes of 35 or so students, there is a huge difference between working with only half of those students at a time.

To those whom are co-teaching, what has been your experience with this method? Is it your favorite? What has worked best for you?