Improving Co-Teaching Through Perspective Gathering: Using Survey Methods to Unearth Co-Teachers' Intersubjectivity

• In Event: Collaborative Approaches to Enhance Preservice Teachers' Teaching Practices

Abstract

This descriptive quantitative study used a valid and reliable instrument to assess the intersubjectivity between coteachers’ perspectives after engaging in a coteaching approach to student teaching. To determine the coteachers’ perspectives (both teacher candidates and their clinical educators), we utilized a previously validated and reliable survey on coteaching. In some areas, such as the implementation of instruction, teacher candidates and clinical educators had vastly different perspectives. Yet, on topics like the increased learning opportunities for students, the coteacher dyads exhibited strong intersubjectivity. From these results, we suggest that teacher educators continue to work with coteachers to develop a deeper understanding of the characteristics, logistics and goals of a coteaching classroom (i.e. understanding WHAT coteaching is and HOW to accomplish).

Authors

• Andrea Drewes, University of Delaware

• Elizabeth Gayle Soslau, University of Delaware

• Kathryn Scantlebury, University of Delaware