Transforming Clinical Practice in Teacher Education through Pre-Service Co-Teaching and Coaching

Abstract

Teacher preparation programs on a national level have been called to change, focusing on clinical practice as a primary focus of teacher education rather than course work. Concurrently, performance based assessment is becoming the tool to measure candidate capacity to plan and instruct. This study highlights one teacher education program and the Pre-Service Co-Teaching Model (PSCT), which utilizes instruction in co-teaching models, co-teaching internships, and instructional coaching as a means for teacher development. Forty-three pairs of co-teachers and 14 coaches participated in this study. Each coach, collaborating teacher, and teacher candidate participated in professional development to better understand co-teaching models, as well as coaching techniques. Each co-teaching pair had a coach to observe and debrief the implementation of co-teaching models in classrooms for the purpose of planning, assessment, and instruction. Goal setting, conference notes, coaching reflections, as well as focus group interviews served as data. Analysis indicated that co-teaching strategies from the professional development were used primarily to facilitate differentiated instruction as well as classroom management. Analysis also indicated that coaches had a tendency to be more prescriptive regarding classroom management and have a more open-ended conversation when the focus was on differentiated instruction.