Coteaching By Example: An Investigation of College Faculty Leading a Course on Collaboration for Inclusion

The following qualitative autoethnographic methods stud y examined the experience of two co-teaching faculty: one in childhood education and one in special education, as they planned and implemented a co-teaching model to prepare teacher candidate\u27s for inclusion. As a result of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (1990), schools have implemented a greater number of inclusion settings and co-teaching models. This rise has increased the probability of new teacher candidates being placed in collaborative settings for their fieldwork experiences, student teaching placements, and eventually paid teaching positions. Research describes some of the struggles that teachers face when working with other professionals in a classroom setting; however, little has been researched about how faculty as co-teachers prepare teacher candidates for co-taught settings. Results from the methods were reviewed by comparing and contrasting data, revealing trends as well as the confirmation of beliefs and practices in the data. The main themes that emerged included the following: ··Building Relationships , ··Implementing a Co-teaching Pedagogy , Modeling of Co-Teaching Pedagogy , ·\u27Negotiating Roles, Responsibilities and Parity while Co-Teaching , and Setting the Stage and Using Space.\u27\u27 The results of this study indicate that co-teaching faculty in a school of education who demonstrate and model how they negotiate building a relationship, roles and responsibilities, co-teaching pedagogy, and staging and space, provide teacher candidates with the opportunity to see co-teaching in action and provide opportunities to reflect upon, practice and better understand the complexities of co-teaching for faculty as well as for our teacher candidates