Benefits for coteachers of students with disabilities: Do contextual factors matter?

Drawing on Bandura’s social learning and social cognitive theory, we empirically investigate contextual factors that may influence perceived benefits of coteaching for teachers. Special and general education coteachers have reported that necessary contextual factors for them to be effective include: sufficient coplanning time, relationship quality, and parity. In this study, 147 special and general education coteachers from suburban and rural schools across the United States responded to the Co‐teacher Questionnaire to determine what contributes to their perceived benefits of coteaching students with disabilities. Hierarchical linear regression analyses indicated that coplanning ( β = 0.22; p ≤ 0.01) and relationship quality ( β = 0.30; p ≤ 0.01) positively influenced the coteachers’ perceived benefits of coteaching (Cohen’s f ² = 0.47), whereas parity was not corroborated to have a significant impact. These not previously empirically studied relationships inform the field by clarifying the importance of the contextual factors for coteachers. Implications for the practitioners and researchers are offered.     

Coteaching/Cogenerative Dialoguing: Learning Environments Research as Classroom Praxis

Critical educators have leveled a methodological critique against traditional forms of classroom research because they both objectify teachers and students and lead to results that do not enhance praxis. Over the past decade, we have developed coteaching as a context for learning to teach and supervising teaching, on the one hand and, on the other, as a method for doing research on and evaluating teaching. Coteaching involves an equitable inquiry into teaching and learning processes in which all members (or representatives thereof) of a classroom community participate – including students, teachers, student teachers, researchers, and supervisors. In this article, we articulate coteaching in terms of activity theory and the associated first-person methodology for doing research on learning environments that is relevant to praxis because it constitutes an integral part of praxis. A detailed case study exemplifies coteaching and the associated research on learning environments.