Co-Teaching, Managing, and Engaging, Part #3: Managing

 In this part of my mini-blog series I will share out a crucial part of co-teaching... Managing! When my co-teacher and I put together our presentation this summer on co-teaching, we paused to reflect on all of the time and effort put into managing every facet of what we do. I believe we lived up to the line "no stone left unturned." Managing and planning work symbiotically in that in order to manage yourself, one another, and of course your class, you need to have a plan in place, and plan for that plan (go ahead and laugh, I just did, but it's true!) 

One of my repetitious lines in this series has been "it didn't happen overnight" and I'll stick by that statement! My co-teacher and I worked diligently from the very first day on discussing how we wanted to manage everything in the classroom. We knew being on the same page with classroom management was important for the students (and for us) to have consistency. We also realized that we too had to establish how we would run things such as who would submit attendance, who would run morning meeting etc. One of my favorite resources to share here is the 6 Models of Co-teaching. it's important for you and. your co-teacher to consider all the models and how each one might benefit your class. If you're anything like us, you'll realize over time that you'll naturally use models without even realizing it! Check out the article here: https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-choose-co-teaching-model

In order to manage all of our systems, we set time aside each day as often as possible to discuss options, select which ones we preferred (or felt would work best) and wrote everything down. This might seem redundant, however you won't need to do this after a while, but in the beginning take notes often! When we tried strategies, plans, procedures etc., we would debrief and consider the pros and cons, make changes/ adjustments as needed, and start to plan again. 

I can honestly say that over time, my co-teacher and I know each other well (see post #2 about trust!) and we can tell how to support one another. We are also realistic knowing that everyday in teaching brings new surprises, and sometimes the plans go out the window, and you work together to make the day flow. I feel it's because we spend a lot of time outside of school and our preps/lunch planning and discussing management, that we are able to manage our work well. This is helpful since we usually have a large team of other teachers that work with our students, so we want to do our best to be prepared. 

Here are some final thoughts to take away: keep communication going- it's the key factor to success. Keep spending time discussing how you want to manage the class and the other work, keep creating plans, analyze, and adjust. Keep in mind you have options with co-teaching models; use them to help you get started! Keep sharing out your "crazy" ideas. Nothing says trust more than being able to share your thoughts for reaching for the stars! Lastly, keep working together... things will become easier with time!