Does anyone team teach?

[Deleted]

Hey all,
I've accepted a new role for the fall that involves team teaching in first grade. There will be two classes and two teachers in one large room. The expectation is that we do everything together, with one teacher instructing and the other supporting. I must admit, I'm super anxious about this. I'm a shy person and the person I'm working with seems much more experienced. I'm nervous to voice my opinions or put ideas forth (even though she seems kind). Any tips for making it a successful year?

[nsl]

I co-teach at least one period every day, and it definitely took time at the beginning of my co-teaching partnership for both of us to figure out how to best play and plan to our individual and collective strengths. It helped that we already knew and liked one another, and we spent a fair amount of planning time talking about successful lessons we'd put together in the past, and batting around ideas for upcoming objectives and tasks. Once we felt like we understood each other's approaches to planning and delivering instruction we began really planning specific lessons, sometimes sitting together, sometimes working independently one pieces we'd agreed to develop and deliver.

[lo]

I co-taught an integrated gen ed and sped first grade class last year and loved it. My co-teacher and I got along great, but she's done co-teaching with other teachers before and has hated it. We did team teaching, parallel teaching and a lot of small group work.

I suggest meeting with your coteacher and going over expectations, teaching styles, etc so you both know what to expect somewhat.

[grover]

I coteach all day long, and have for the past four years. Have had a good partner, an okay partner, and two that were not great. This next year I'll be teaching with three new people instead.

[tiffbabey]

I've co-taught for three years. My first two were okay, my co-teacher was a really nice women and it worked pretty well. My third year they switched the teacher and I had a horrible experience. It was like I taught the sped kids only at the back of the room and was treated like a para. Since then I have done all pull out for two years because of high sped numbers and have much preferred it. Next year I am going to be forced to do some inclusion for at least an hour a day with a different teacher and I hope to have better experience by being more proactive about what the expectations are from the beginning.

[jentervention]

I've co-taught twice with different teachers. One was wonderful and the other was a disaster. She didn't want to help with planning and saw it as an opportunity to take restroom breaks and catch up on paperwork during instructional time. Looking back, I wish we had sat down with an administrator or instructional coach to discuss expectations and come up with a plan that fit both of our strengths and weaknesses.