For 15 weeks, 9 students from various Universities in Europe have worked as team-teachers with our local team.

Very simply stated: Team Teaching is implemented when teachers work as a healthy team together to support student learning and success. It is not equal workloads, nor specific roles. It is about collaboration, shared ideas, maximizing each individual’s strengths—from the teachers’ strengths to the students’ strengths—and supporting each other with whatever it takes to create a successfully co-taught classroom.

Yes, it’s wonderful when co-teachers click. This can happen in English or social studies. They’re comfortable with each other. They both read the story, banter off each other, talk about each other, talk about different points, and they share the classroom equally. Sometimes they don’t even have time to plan together, but they can still pull it off. It just depends on the personalities, but usually, this situation occurs when teachers are very comfortable with each other and both know the content equally well.

It can be fun when you have reached the level where you can truly team teach. You play off one another, team with one another, and support each other. It can be amazing to watch an expert team managing the behaviour and the instruction and the activities all at once. When the two teachers really gel, and they both know the subject well, team teaching is something to behold.

Benefits :

• Creates effective, fun learning
• Teachers can use their knowledge effectively together
• Keeps co-teacher involved in class
• Allows for shared ideas including enrichment and differentiation
• Breaks up the monotony of one person doing all instruction
• Creates many spontaneous teachable moments

Challenges:

• Co-teachers must click, not conflict
• Requires supporting and carrying 100 per cent of the load by both teachers
• Depending on the co-teaching implementation they choose, both teachers may have to be equally involved in the planning, grading, correcting, and supporting in the classroom

• Team teachers provide seamless instruction for their students through communication, persistence, perseverance, and mutual agreement on how to implement the co-teaching models and provide powerful, effective instruction. Team teachers are problem solvers, idea generators, and supportive co-players in the classroom field working toward a common goal.
• Team teachers develop trust in each other and feel safe expressing their ideas and feelings. Team teachers each carry their own weight and respect the agreements made for how they would run the classroom and, consequently, achieve their goals as co-teachers.