Question
How will forming a community of collaborative team teachers affect my own teaching?
Summary
During my seventh year of teaching I became a co-teacher in a Collaborative Team Teaching Classroom (CTT). My co-teacher, Sara, and I worked together 2 years previous when I taught 2nd grade and she taught a 2/3 self contained class. A CTT class is a general education class where 40% of the students have an IEP. As excited as I was, I was beginning to feel anxious about my new role. This was my first experience teaching in a CTT class. This was also my first experience being a co-teacher. People talked about how working in a CTT classroom was like a marriage. We would have to make joint decisions for student growth and joint decisions to improve classroom practice. Also during this time I was thinking about forming a teacher group to talk about education issues and best practices. I envisioned teachers gathering once a month to discuss education policy, classroom concerns and best practices.