With The Right Strategies, Coaches Can Leverage Co-teaching

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With the right strategies, coaches can leverage co-teaching

By Ryan Gillespie and Jennifer S. Kruger

April 2022

For teachers and coaches, co-teaching can be exciting, rewarding, and full of powerful learning. It offers teachers supported experiences to apply new knowledge in their own contexts, exemplifying active engagement in job-embedded professional learning (Learning Forward, 2011). However, co-teaching is often underused in coaching (Sweeney & Harris, 2016), in part because sharing teaching responsibilities during a lesson can be complex and challenging. Co-teaching requires the coach and teacher to make continuous, intentional decisions about how and when to take the lead. This kind of decision-making requires strong communication between the teacher and the coach, clarity about a teacher’s learning goals, and a deep understanding of possible co-teaching strategies. As part of a project to help mathematics coaches facilitate content-focused coaching cycles, funded by the National

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Ryan Gillespie

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Ryan Gillespie (rgillespie@cdaschools.org) is an instructional coach at the Coeur d’Alene School District in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and a professional development specialist at the University of Idaho.

Jennifer S. Kruger

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Jennifer S. Kruger (jkruger@warner.rochester.edu) is director of mathematics education outreach at the Center for Professional Development & Educational Reform in the Warner School of Education at the University of Rochester.