Inclusion Question

What is the role of a special education teacher in the inclusion class? The woman i work with (I'm the general ed teacher) is extremely nice, but she has never addressed the class, never disciplined, never assisted a student that wasn't hers, etc... I'm exhausted.

Does anyone else have experience with this? Should she be co-teaching? I do all the lesson planning, the only thing she does is read their exams to them and maybe cross off a choice on testing days. Did I go into the wrong profession?

Message edited 10/29/2010 3:44:19 PM.

Re: Inclusion Question

She should absolutely be co-teaching. Sounds to me like she doesn't really do anything. I would totally have a talk with her. It is her classroom also, and should be doing half of the work.

Re: Inclusion Question

I'm the special ed teacher in an inclusion class...I do half the planning for the class, plus I do all the modifications for my classified students. I teach half the day (we alternate subjects throuhgout the day). When we write report cards, we alternate so we both have a hand in writing them. Discipline comes from both of us consistently. We split everything in the classroom, and truly view all the students as "ours".

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As an elementary special education teacher I have done coteaching. I did if for three years and every gen ed teacher had a different view on how it should work. One wouldn't let me say a peep and it was horrible. The other two actually let me coteach.

She may assume you don't want her do anything but what she does for "her" kids. Prior experiences could have led her to believe that. Or she could be lazy.

If you both never talked about roles and responsibilities, then I think you should have that conversation now.

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Thanks for the replies. We never had the "conversation". I just assumed she would step up, instead of stepping up she checked out.

Okay, I was just checking what the norm is...Thanks again. I wish people just did there job, I hate the fact that I have to say something.

Re: Inclusion Question

She may think that she is supposed to teach "her" kids and you teach "yours." Since you are doing all the work, she might think she lucked out. She might not know what you expect of her. Definitely have a talk with her and tell her, going forward, what you would like her to do. Its not fair for you to be doing everything.

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I had this problem when I taught an inclusion class. The special ed teacher would grab a magazine & sit in the back of the room The kids called her my "helper" (yet she's a certified teacher too, and she makes more than I did because she'd been in the system longer).

After a short while I got annoyed, so I gave her work to do. If the kids took a test, I'd hand her the stack to grade. I made her in charge of marking homeworks & labs. I asked her to help quiet them down when they were noisy. I'd tell her every so often "I was wondering next week if you could teach the unit on....." She wasn't happy but she would plan it out & do it... even though I was nice about it, I gave her no choice!

Bottom line, you can't let her take advantage of the situation. The more you do, the more you're letting her get away with doing nothing. In my case, the woman was known for doing this with all the inclusion classes yet the administration knew she was lazy and never wanted to rock the boat. So you have to take control of it & make sure she does her part. The more you do, the less she'll do, trust me.

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I am a special ed. teacher in a collab class (that is what my district is calling inclusion now) bc it should be a COLLABORATIVE teaching style. We do all different collab teaching methods.

We parallel teach, co-teach, team teach and do some subjects separately. We both take small groups for guided reading and we both discipline and reward students.

If she is teaching, I am circling with all students and she does the same when I am teaching.

We plan together and both contribute to lessons.

How long has this teacher been teaching? Is she new and maybe doesn't understand how it should be run?

Also does your district have Collab coaches?
If so, have them come in and they will discuss what the roles should be.

Good Luck!!

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I teach ICT (or whatever they are calling it now ) and I am the gen ed (but cert SE also) and we share all the responsibility. We discuss what we are doing, we split planning I do writing and math, she will plan reading and fundations etc (but sometimes we do it together, this just works for us, we have been together 4 yrs). She NEVER ONLY teaches the SE students. Our groups are mixed. Many times we have SE students who may be better than our gen ed students in a subject or gen eds that need extra help or slower pace. I often modify for the SE or work in small groups with a few. It is never her kids and mine

True coteaching is suppose to be diversified. It can be done where the 2 teachers teach as the same time, one teach-one observe (we rarely do this) , alternative teaching, station teaching, and parrallel teaching. We will do a few of these each day. We often co teach or parrallel

If you go here to the link below you can watch videos of coteaching. My coteacher and I were filmed for this, but they havent posted the video yet. HTH

VIDEOS

Re: Inclusion Question

I teach in an integrated classroom, as the Special Education teacher. My co teacher and I are equals, and we each work with all the children in the class. We plan together and both teach whole group lessons. I as the case manager of the IEP students make sure that whatever modifications are stated on their IEP is being implemented in the classroom, as well as their goals be addressed.