Schools are required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 (IDEA) to include students with disabilities in the general education classroom. Recently there has been emphasis on co-teaching as a method to comply with this mandate. Co-teaching is a technique geared at utilizing a special education teacher and a content area…

Evidence suggests preschool age students with disabilities (SWD) benefit from inclusive settings. Inclusive education has positive impacts on students' social-emotional, language, and cognitive skills. Yet, preschool age SWD continue to have limited access to inclusive education, and research suggests numerous reasons, including teacher practice.…

High schools throughout this country are as heterogeneous as the students they serve in size, location, tax base, student make-up, and teacher quality. However, they must all follow the mandates of NCLB and IDEA. While these policies affect all schools, high schools continue to face many challenges implementing these laws effectively for students…

Despite the popularity of co-teaching and widespread professional literature describing exemplary co-teaching practices, this instructional approach has yet to realize its potential. One way to increase the effectiveness of co-teaching is for special educators to contribute meaningfully by assuming the role of strategy leader in the co-taught…

Self-reports of primary and secondary school teachers who teach in general and special education classrooms in Austria were examined in terms of their engagement in teamwork (between special and general education teachers), instructional methods that they use, factors that positively influence inclusive education, and their needs for training. The…

Given the current climate of accountability, teachers must collaborate across disciplines to meet the diverse needs of students. Few, however, are prepared to collaborate in school settings upon completing teacher preparation programs. In this article, a participatory action research study undertaken by teacher educators who approached the lack of…

Co-teaching is a model of inclusive instruction that has become increasingly popular throughout schools as a way to meet the needs of students with disabilities in general education settings. Despite being the focus of significant educational research for more than two decades, traditional deficit discourses of disability persist in educational…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the perceived teacher efficacy in co-teaching in inclusive classrooms among Resident Educators in Ohio. Novice teachers are required to participate in the program for the first four years of their teaching experience. Research shows that co-teaching is a necessary and effective practice in…

As the responsibilities and challenges of special education teachers at the secondary level increase, their roles are expanding to include mentor, coach, and facilitator for other teachers. In these roles, they lend their expertise and skills to become the new teacher leaders for today's inclusive secondary classroom settings.

This was an exploratory case-study of a high performing co-teaching team at the high school level. The team consisted of a special educator and a general educator in their third year of co-teaching biology. The focus of the study was on the contributions of the special education teacher; these contributions were considered in relationship to his…

The purpose of this investigation was to develop and implement a Response to Critical Communication Needs (RT-CCN) co-teaching training model designed for special educators in the Bahamas, and to examine the effects of the training on the pedagogical knowledge and skills of the participants. This study was conducted in Abaco, Bahamas at a special…

Co-teaching has gained considerable interest as a means of promoting the inclusion of students with disabilities in mainstream education. Nowadays, there is a consensus among researchers that co-teaching should provide effective education to all students in a mainstream class. This study aims to explore co-teachers' attitudes towards co-teaching…

In response to the low passing rate of its students with disabilities, administrators at a small urban elementary school in south Texas implemented coteaching. Guided by Nonaka and Takeuchi's collaborative learning framework, this qualitative instrumental case study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of collaborative teaching in the…

This article investigates the practices of effective collaboration and co-teaching among Special and General Educators as it relates to the social justice concept of inclusion. Data was gathered through interviews, faculty surveys, student surveys, and personal journal reflections. The study explores the key components to reshaping the role of a…

In this exploratory study, the authors examine Greek special education teachers' individual and collaborative teaching experiences in the context of their literacy instruction. The Five Foci Framework, situated in Vygotskian theory, is utilized in the study's design to examine special education teachers' individual and collaborative experiences…