Learning to co-teach: understanding the co- in a mentored co-teaching activity
Journal of Professional Capital and Community
ISSN: 2056-9548
Article publication date: 9 October 2023
Issue publication date: 6 November 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Co-teaching is a foundational mentoring model used in teacher residency programs in urban classrooms throughout the United States of America. Beyond the basic understanding of co-teaching in categorizing classroom models, the purpose of this qualitative case study is to investigate the dialectical tensions manifested in mentored co-teaching activities through the lens of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT).
Design/methodology/approach
Designed as a qualitative case study of 17 pairs of teaching-residents and mentor-teachers, the authors used thematic analysis to scrutinize archival interview data in an urban teacher residency program located in the largest megalopolis of the USA Northeast. The authors used CHAT-based concept coding to analyze the interview narratives from participants across different secondary school placements as they reflected on their co-teaching philosophy and the relationships they built.
Findings
The authors found that for teaching-residents and mentor-teachers to co-develop as co-teachers, they jointly must learn to resolve the dialectical tensions of unbalanced classroom ownership vs added co-working responsibilities, breaking from routine so that a partnership can grow. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the prefix co- should be understood as (1) shifts in thinking that transcend the status quo and (2) the orchestration of human capital to change norms.
Originality/value
This new understanding of the prefix co- allows teacher education programs to better mediate the dialectical tensions experienced by co-teachers in a mentored co-teaching activity, from individual teacher learning (e.g. a pair/dyad comprising one teaching-resident and one mentor-teacher) to collective co-learning across activity systems (e.g. partnership-based teacher education).
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback and the TR@TC research team. The authors would also like to thank Drs Laura Vernikoff and Sunny McDevitt for their written comments on the earlier drafts of this manuscript. All errors are those of the first author.
Funding: The teacher residency program and this work were supported by the U.S. Office of Innovation and Improvement: Teacher Quality Partnership [U3365090039]. Any opinions expressed reflect the views of the authors alone.
Citation
Chang, S. and Goodwin, A.L. (2023), "Learning to co-teach: understanding the co- in a mentored co-teaching activity", Journal of Professional Capital and Community, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 299-312. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPCC-05-2023-0031
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited