Collaborative Success: Teaching Mathematics Using Collaborative Instruction in a Low-Income, Culturally Diverse Middle School

Michael P. O’Connor, Lisa Ballard

(College of Business and Education, Eastern Oregon University, USA)

Abstract: Collaborative teaching, or co-teaching, has been a predominant mode of instructing students with mild to moderate disabilities in the general education classroom since its inception in the late 1980s. The 1997 reauthorization of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, brought about increased focus on providing “access to the general curriculum” for students with disabilities. In practice this most often meant that special education and general education teachers co-taught students with and without disabilities in general education classrooms. The accountability-related requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2002 similarly led to increased use of collaborative instruction within the general education classroom. This paper describes the use of collaborative teaching in an inner-city academically-challenged middle school mathematics classroom, and draws upon the observations and experiences of the special education teacher in this co-taught environment. A review of the recent research and literature on co-teaching is followed by a description of co-teaching in practice within this school. The authors then give a detailed example of a small group lesson plan carried out successfully in this classroom, demonstrate how this project was successful within the co-taught classroom, and provide suggestions for improving the outcomes of students in collaboratively-taught classrooms.

Key words: co-teaching, collaborative Teaching, special education, mathematics, small-group instruction