GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., June 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Integrated Co-Teaching (ICT) can be more of a marriage than a marriage between spouses when it comes to time and coordination. In an ICT classroom, a general education teacher and a special education teacher jointly deliver instruction to a class of students with and without disabilities, so teachers must coordinate expectations and establish a relationship that meets best meet the needs of their students.
Moira Bode is a former special education teacher who taught a computer science class for two years with Rumana Rahman. Today, Bode and Rahman continue to work side by side in leadership positions at National Heritage Academies Brooklyn Dreams Charter School as Intervention Dean and K-2 Dean, respectively. They remain proponents of ICT, with at least one such class in every classroom in the school which allows the use of methods such as parallel teaching (dividing the class into two groups, with each teacher teaching the same information at the same time).
“You really get to have another perspective on things,” Bode said. “I taught alone and there are benefits to that, but I personally feel like it made me a better teacher when I had someone there to give me that other kind of lens. on things.”
The benefits of an ICT classroom extend to teachers and students. For teachers, this gives them two licensed and certified teachers in one space. For students, teaching is planned in detail to ensure that their needs are met and adjusted in real time.
“That’s obviously a huge benefit and need for students with disabilities,” Bode said. “For general education students, they always have that extra person there who, if they didn’t understand the math lesson yesterday, one of their teachers can work with them in the morning so they’re Even the students who don’t have (Individualized Education Programs) have definitely benefited from group work. It’s wonderful for our families to see how it works in collaboration.
An ICT classroom also gives students with and without disabilities greater social momentum. Bode pointed to a Brooklyn Dreams student on the autism spectrum who struggled with returning to in-person learning but controlled his impulses with help from classmates.
“The other students are so supportive of him. They lean in and help him if he needs help,” she said. “It just makes our students a lot more empathetic. As far as general education students, they’re more aware of disabilities, and then for our special education students, they have this positive peer role model .To be able to see certain social situations that maybe they wouldn’t if they were in a different setting, that’s really wonderful.”
About National Heritage Academies:
NHA is a network of 98 tuition-free public charter schools in nine states, serving more than 60,000 K-12 students. For more information, visit nhaschools.com.
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SOURCE National Heritage Academies
