Modeling Co-Teaching for Collaborative Proficiency

Improving access and support for students with disabilities within the general education curriculum is both a goal and a legislative mandate for schools and teachers. In general education classrooms, co-teaching between general and special educators can benefit all students—those with and without special needs (McDuffie et al., 2009). Equitable learning opportunities and curriculum access for all students are further promoted by co-teaching. Preparing teachers to meet diverse educational needs within the same classroom is the task of teacher preparation programs where authentic collaborative experiences must be provided to facilitate future instructional implementation (Blanton et al., 2017). As schools adopt more inclusive practices and more special needs students are placed in general education classrooms, there is an even greater need to prepare preservice teachers (PST) for teaching roles that require collaboration and co-teaching (Friend et al., 2010; Ricci & Fingon, 2018).

While the approach of combining general and special education training has shown promise in preparing PSTs for more effective inclusive practices (Gehrke & Cocchiarella, 2013; Lautenbach & Heyder, 2019; Ricci & Fingon, 2018), few university programs provide such combined training to PSTs (Allday et al., 2013; Harvey et al., 2010; Mandinach et al., 2015).