Teaching and Learning in the Co-Teaching Model: Analyzing the Cooperating Teacher/Teacher Candidate Co-Planning Dialogues

Abstract

ABSTRACT TEACHING AND LEARNING IN THE CO-TEACHING MODEL: ANALYZING THE COOPERATING TEACHER/TEACHER CANDIDATE CO-PLANNING DIALOGUES by Jennifer Brownson The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2018 Under the Supervision of Drs. Hope Longwell-Grice and Linda Post Planning is a central component of the teaching experience in which the teacher draws on curriculum and pedagogy as well as learners and their context. Planning is also a teacher standard at both the state and national level (WI DPI Teacher Standards, InTASC, 2013). For teacher candidates (TCs), an opportunity to learn to plan occurs during the student teaching experience, and the planning session can reveal how the TC and cooperating teacher (CT) choose to meet the academic, social and emotional needs of their students (John, 2006). The power in the planning session has traditionally rested in the hands of CTs (Anderson, 2007); they make the decisions about what to teach and how to teach it, which may not provide the TC with enough opportunities to learn how to plan. The co-teaching for student teaching model has shown promise in terms of increased agency for TC’s when making decisions in the classroom, including opportunities to share reasons for choices of pedagogy and curriculum, and identify problems and solve them together. While in the co-teaching model for student teaching the CT and TC have been found to have more shared power, (Bacharach, Heck & Dahlberg, 2010; Gallo-Fox & Scantlebury, 2015), there is little research about how CTs and TCs plan for lessons in the co-teaching model, much less on how power is distributed between CTs and TCs during the co-planning session. The dilemma of the distribution of power for the CT and TC in the planning session, and how they participate in the planning session, was explored in this study. The purpose of this collective case study was to reveal and investigate the discourses CTs and TCs create in a co-planning session within the co-teaching model to explore the potential for engaging both participants to use their imaginations and create together, challenging the TC and CT to rethink and/or expand on ideas for planning; and talking about/creating/questioning/challenging each other when planning lessons that provide an equitable education for students.