More children with special needs are educated in general education classrooms than ever before. Ideally, special education and general education teachers work together in these settings as instructional teams, but a "one teaching, one assisting" model is often in place with the special education teacher assuming a subordinate role. As such, the…

In implementing inclusive education, special educators frequently collaborate with general educators in various settings. How does such collaborative practice complicate the configuration of their professional identities? This paper uses the framework of "figured world" (Holland, Lachiotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998) to scrutinize the practice of one…

It is necessary to provide students both with and without special needs and the classroom teachers with special education support services in order to achieve successful inclusion applications. The determination of teachers' opinions about the applications they carry out is important in the planning and achievement of the future applications. The…

In this paper, the literature related to collaboration in teacher education programmes is reviewed. The authors discuss the benefits for teacher educators who collaboratively plan and develop team-taught coursework and monitor the impact of their collaboratively developed pedagogy. Gaps in the current knowledge and research are delineated, and…

Collaborative teaching has grown in popularity as students with disabilities have been increasingly moved to general education classrooms. Despite the growth of these models, little empirical evidence exists regarding the effectiveness of these practices. In this investigation, general and special education teachers (N = 118) from 20 urban…

Researchers, teacher educators, and co-teachers are keenly aware of the issues related to obtaining--and more important, keeping--good co-teaching teams. In fact, educators frequently relate co-teaching to a marriage; unfortunately, research clearly indicates that many co-teaching marriages result in struggle, separation, or even divorce. This…

One of the primary ways schools are addressing the need for accountability and individualization is through a technique known as co-teaching. Co-teaching is considered a viable option for ensuring students have a "highly qualified" content teacher in the room, while also ensuring that all students' individualized education needs are met by an…

Co-teaching, the pairing of general and special education teachers in a general education classroom, requires a high degree of expertise on the part of both teachers. Done well, it can be compared to a strong marriage--partners sharing and planning, reflecting and changing. Done poorly, it can be described as a blind date--co-teachers just waiting…

Coteaching benefits both students and teachers, and the benefits grow as coteaching relationships mature. Effective coteaching relationships often evolve in stages (Gately & Gately, 2000), and coteachers can take steps to help their relationships flourish (Cramer, 2006). Drawing on the practices of successful coteaching teams, this article offers…

The purpose of this paper is to provide brief descriptions and links to a number of reputed websites on various topics and issues of special education. The web sites are organized in the following categories: (1) Teaching in Inclusive Classroom, (2) Policies, Procedures, & Process of Special education, (3) Students with High Incidence…

High school teacher Emily Sims shares her experiences co-teaching inclusive classes as a first-year teacher. She imparts practical advice for successful co-teaching relationships between the content teacher and the special education teacher, from which both students and teachers can thrive. (Contains 1 figure.)

General education and special education teacher candidates lack experience in collaborating with each other as colleagues; however, upon graduating and entering their own classrooms, most are expected to know how to provide services to students with disabilities in the general classroom. This study describes the efforts of two professors, one in…

The authors examine the literature that sets the foundation for a lesson design cycle for differentiating instruction in inclusive classrooms. Use the cycle to differentiate at the four design points of understanding the learners, delineating content and materials, assessing what learners know, and differentially arranging teaching/learning…

Classroom observation and interviews with key people evaluated the participation and learning of 23 children with visual impairments in 17 mainstream primary schools in Britain. Resulting recommendations included: (1) provision of adequate additional support; (2) inclusion in the main learning processes taking place in the classroom; and (3) good…

This article provides a new definition of collaboration within the context of gifted education and expands on the utilization of coteaching as a collaborative strategy. Five models of coteaching developed for teaching students with disabilities were adapted and examples of their use with gifted students in inclusive classrooms are provided.…