1An Examination of Co-Teaching Perspectives and Efficacy Indicators

Co-teaching has been developed as an instructional approach to support students with disabilities in general education class-rooms. The purpose of this study was to identify teachers ’ and students ’ perspectives of co-teaching and the efficacy of this teaching approach. Forty-five co-teachers and 58 students with disabilities (N = 103), all of whom were new to co-taught classrooms during the 2004 through 2005 school year, participated in this study. Data were collected from surveys, obser-vations, and records review. Significant differences in student academic and behavioral performances were found in com-parisons between the year before co-teaching and the year of co-teaching. Students with disabilities and their teachers also reported positive perspectives about co-teaching. Based on these preliminary results, co-teaching appears to be an effective instructional delivery option for meeting the needs of students with disabilities in general education classrooms