from Williams Inclusion Consulting
Hi there,
Quick question: how many co-teaching models has your team actually used this year — one, or five? If the answer is one ("one teach, one assist," most likely), this issue is for you.
One teach, one assist is the easiest model to fall into and the easiest to overuse. Leaned on every day, it quietly turns a co-teacher into an aide — which undersells their expertise, and can show up as a concern in an IEP implementation review.
One teach, one observe. Station teaching. Parallel teaching. Alternative teaching. Team teaching. Each one fits a different kind of lesson — smaller group discussion, data collection, pre-teaching a tricky concept, presenting two viewpoints. I broke down all six models, with a clear "use it when" for each, in the full article this week.
Read: 5 Co-Teaching Models and When to Use Each
Before your next co-planning session, pick one lesson and deliberately choose a model other than "one teach, one assist." Even a single station-teaching or parallel-teaching lesson can reset the dynamic of a partnership that's fallen into a rut.
The strongest co-teaching partnerships I've coached all share one habit: they decide the model before the lesson, not during it.
If a partnership on your team isn't clicking — unclear roles, no real planning time, or one teacher doing most of the work — a coaching session can usually reset it fast. I've worked with pairs who turned things around in a single meeting once the roles were actually spelled out.
Alexis
Williams Inclusion Consulting