In response to recent legislative changes including increased graduation requirements and changes in requirements for Highly Qualified status for secondary special education teachers, many schools have implemented co-teaching as a way to deliver special education services to students with high-incidence disabilities and to increase access to and success in the challenging courses required by the Michigan Merit Curriculum. Co-teaching is thought to be a way to promote inclusive education and increase access to the general education curriculum for students with disabilities and other students at risk for academic failure (Scruggs, Mastropieri, & McDuffie, 2007). In some high schools today, co-teaching is the predominant service delivery model used to manage these competing demands, requirements, and changes in curriculum. This study examined how co-teaching is utilized in one midwestern high school to support access to and success in the general education curriculum for students with disabilities and other students at risk for academic failure. Specifically this study sought to answer the following research questions: What practices do co-teachers report that they employ to support access to the general education curriculum for students with disabilities and other students at risk for academic failure? What factors support or constrain the use of co-teaching as a way to support access to the general education curriculum? How can these results be explicated in terms of school change theory? This study utilized multiple methods including a survey, a semi-structured interview, and classroom observations. Results revealed that co-teachers report utilizing a wide range of practices to support students with disabilities and students at risk for academic failure in general education. In addition, results show that some practices that are recommended to support academic literacy instruction such as strategy instruction, providing opportunities for extended discussion of text, increase motivation and engagement, and the use of explicit strategies and routines to teach essential content are rarely used by co-teachers in this study (Kamil et al., 2008; Kosanovich, Reed, & Miller, 2010; Torgesen et al., 2007). Factors that constrain or support what co-teachers do in the classroom to support access to or success in the general education curriculum are discussed, and the results are examined through the lens of school change. Implications for increasing the effectiveness of co-teaching practice are provided.
Read
