Co-Teaching Reflection

After doing the self-assessment, “Are We Really Co-Teachers?”, I was surprised to see that “Yes” was marked 24 times and only 10 answers were marked as “No”. Since I’ve begun leading the class, my students see me as their teacher and not my co-teacher. At the beginning of the year, my CT and I discussed the co-teaching model. We decided it was best used to help me transition from a more supportive role to a leading role as a teacher. In this respect, the co-teaching model was fantastic. It has smoothly allowed me to evolve from observing the class to leading the class. I’ve experienced all the different formats of teaching that co-teaching offers. However, I was encouraged to take the lead early-on, and I’ve been leading the class for about a month now. Both my co-teacher and I decided it would be a more valuable experience for me to practice leading the class as much as possible since this would most closely mimic what I would be doing as a teacher in the classroom. Therefore, we also agreed that co-teaching was somewhat limited since most teachers will be leading the class solo in the future. I’ve enjoyed taking over my classes and consider them “my students”. This ownership has given me a full experience that closely mimics real teaching. To be honest, I’m a little disappointed that I will be repeating the co-teaching model 2^nd semester. Now that I’ve had experience leading my classes, and I’ve gained confidence, I would prefer to lead the classes for 2^nd semester from the beginning. This would more closely simulate what I will experience on the first day of school next year.