Co-teaching Strategies in Action: Selection and Implementation in a Mathematics Course for Pre-service Teachers
Keywords:
mathematics teacher education research, co-teaching, teacher preparation, pre-service teachers, mathematics educationAbstract
Increasingly, teacher preparation programs are transitioning to a co-teaching model to better prepare future teachers for the co-teaching experiences they will likely encounter in their PK–12 careers when they share a classroom with another teacher. Despite this transition, co-teaching remains rare in undergraduate university courses. To address this issue, two mathematics teacher educators explored on a co-teaching model in an undergraduate mathematics content course for future elementary teachers. An interpretive qualitative analysis was conducted on primary data sources of instructor journal entries and observation protocol forms, with videos of instruction and lesson materials as secondary sources. Episodes of each co-teaching strategy employed was coded for rationale in selection, reflection on implementation, affordances, and limitations. University classroom examples are provided for each strategy. Findings indicate that co-teaching strategies have numerous impacts on the classroom, such as opportunities for students to learn, opportunities for teachers to learn, opportunities for teacher-student interaction, opportunities for teacher-teacher interaction, power dynamics among instructors, and logistics (such as classroom space and available manipulatives). Implications of this research include an increased understanding of a co-teaching model for instructors interested in implementing the model in university courses.
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