Preparing to Teach: Exploring Perspectives on the Co-Teaching Experience Through the Educator's Lens
Date of Degree
2025
Degree Name
Ed.D. (Doctor of Education)
Department
Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology, and Foundations (LEPF)
Director
Rosario-Moore, Alexios
Co-Director
Roberts, Patrick
Committee Members
Summers, Kelly
Keywords
co-teaching, teaching, general education, special education
Abstract
Preparing to Teach: Exploring Perspectives on the Co-Teaching Experience Through the Educator's Lens
This qualitative study examines how general education and special education teachers experience co-teaching in a large suburban high school, with a focus on the supports and constraints that shape their daily practice. Guided by a social-constructivist perspective used here as a conceptual model rather than a methodological directive, the analysis attends to collaboration, shared meaning-making, and the co-construction of practice within co-taught classrooms. Semi-structured interviews with 11 teachers (6 General education teachers and 5 special education teachers) were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis to identify patterns and themes related to planning, instruction, and assessment. Five themes emerged from this study: Administrative support, which involved creating master schedules, intentional pairings, protected common planning, and clear expectations with regular feedback, was foundational to authentic co-teaching collaboration. Instructional and planning challenges included limited co-planning time, uneven content expertise, and reliance on the one teach/one assist model, which restricted the use of the other co-teaching models. Relational and role-based challenges occurred when special education teachers were used as aides rather than instructional partners, especially when there was a lack of common plan time and explicit communication with the co-teachers. Educational philosophy evolved through dialogue, risk-taking, and the development of trust; without structured conversations, partnerships often remained transactional in nature. Finally, teachers consistently called for professional development that is sustained, partner-based, and embedded in their day-to-day practices (coaching cycles and peer observation). These findings revealed the need for professional development that aligns with training that teachers believe will best prepare them to co-teach. Recommendations include providing common plan time, prioritizing co-teaching pairs, clarifying roles, and embedding professional development into teachers' everyday routines. Future research should include administrator perspectives and test professional development models to gauge the impact on planning, instruction, and assessment. Overall, the study highlights that co-teaching reaches its full potential when schools move past surface-level implementation and invest in the necessary structures and sustained professional learning that enable these co-teaching partnerships to flourish.
Publisher
Northern Illinois University
Rights Statement
In Copyright
Rights Statement 2
NIU theses and dissertations are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors, unless otherwise indicated.
Recommended Citation
Favela, Jesus E., "Preparing to Teach: Exploring Perspectives on the Co-Teaching Experience Through the Educator's Lens" (2025). Dissertations of Practice. 99.
https://huskiecommons.lib.niu.edu/allgraduate-disspractice/99
