Abstract
One-teach/one-assist and one-teach/one-observe are the two most widely used co-teaching models. Special educators often take on the support role when these models are used. At times, co-teachers in the support role may be unclear about how to implement active instructional practices that engage students and improve student outcomes. In this article, opportunities to respond and contingent support are described as two research-based practices that can be implemented by co-teachers in the support role.
Co-teaching occurs when general and special education teachers partner to deliver instructional experiences to students with disabilities and their typical peers in general education classrooms (Friend, Cook, Hurley-Chamberlain, & Shamberger, 2010). Students benefit from the respective expertise each teacher brings to co-teaching, typically with general educators’ experiences in curriculum and special educators’ experiences in pedagogy (Hang & Rabren, 2009). Co-teachers’ instruction can be organized around six co-teaching models, each depicting co-teachers’ varying roles and responsibilities (Cook & Friend, 1995). In the team teaching model, both co-teachers are about equally active in sharing the lead instructional roles with whole-group instruction of students with and without disabilities. For the alternative and parallel models, co-teachers divide the class into one large and one small group (alternative) or in half (parallel), and each co-teacher leads instruction in a group. Station teaching is usually comprised of three stations, with each co-teacher leading one station and a third independent station. When implementing these four co-teaching models, each co-teacher is active in delivering instruction.
Conversely, in the one-teach/one-assist and one-teach/one-observe models, one teacher leads instruction, while the other observes, circulates, or assists students, usually in a manner dictated by students’ learning needs (Harbort et al., 2007). One-teach/one-assist and one-teach/one-observe are the most widely used co-teaching models (Scruggs, Mastropieri, & McDuffie, 2007; Strogilos, Stefanidis, & Tragoulia, 2016). The role of the assisting or observing teacher has been described as the support role (King-Sears, Jenkins, & Brawand, 2018; Solis, Vaughn, Swanson, & McCulley, 2012), often filled by the special educator (Hang & Rabren, 2009). For this article, the one-teach/one-assist and one-teach/one-observe models are combined and referred to as a “one-teach/one-support model,” with the teacher not leading instruction in the support role.
Although the potential benefits of co-teaching seem intuitive, research paints a mixed picture of its efficacy in meeting students’ needs (Murawski, 2006; Murawski & Swanson, 2001). Some researchers found positive academic gains across multiple subject areas for students in co-taught classes (Brusca-Vega, Brown, & Yasutake, 2011; Fontana, 2005; Hang & Rabren, 2009). Conversely, others found that co-taught classes are no more effective in meeting students’ needs than solo-taught classes (Moin, Magiera, & Zigmond, 2009; Murawski, 2006). Additional concerns exist about the efficacy and efficiency of the one-teach/one-support model, particularly when the special educator takes on a subordinate role (Scruggs et al., 2007; Solis et al., 2012) or when students need more intensive instruction than what typically occurs in co-taught settings (Wexler et al., 2018).
Co-teaching experts have posited that the mixed research findings may reflect inconsistent definitions of the practice, inconsistent implementation, lack of training, and school culture dilemmas such as limited co-planning time (Friend et al., 2010). They proposed that co-teaching may be better understood through research and practices that delineate the models, rather than viewing co-teaching as a single intervention. Given the consistency of one-teach/one-support as the most widely used co-teaching model, and the concerns about lack of parity between general and special educators using this model (Scruggs et al., 2007), there is a need to disseminate information about research-based practices that can be effectively and efficiently used with the one-teach/one-support co-teaching model. Opportunities to respond (OTR) and contingent support are two such practices.
Research Supporting Opportunities to Respond and Contingent Support
Opportunities to respond is a research-based practice resulting in increased student participation, improved assessment scores, and decreased disruptive behavior (Haydon et al., 2010; MacSuga-Gage & Gage, 2015). Group response strategies, specifically, have a large, statistically significant effect on academic and behavioral indicators when compared with hand-raising (Randolph, 2007). A teacher-directed OTR is an instructional condition in which an adult presents a curriculum-related question, direction, or task to a single student or group of students (Sweigart & Landrum, 2015). McKenna, Muething, Flower, Bryant, and Bryant (2015) examined the use of OTR in co-taught classes, finding that co-teachers used low levels of OTR. Implications for low levels of OTR include decreased student engagement with educational material and the potential for increased off-task behavior.
Contingent support is a form of scaffolding in which teachers use a continuum of feedback to assist students in demonstrating a new skill or concept (Rodgers, D’Agostino, Harmey, Kelly, & Brownfield, 2016). The level of support provided by teachers is contingent upon the degree of assistance that students require to accomplish the designated task (Hedin & Gaffney, 2013; Wood, 2002). Researchers evaluated the effects of contingent support when implemented by teachers, tutors, parents, and computer-assisted learning programs (Gonzalez-Calero, Arnau, Puig, & Arevalillo-Herraez, 2015; Hedin & Gaffney, 2013; van de Pol, Volman, Oort, & Beishuizen, 2015; Zhang & Whitebread, 2017). Findings, regardless of delivery mode, reveal increased self-regulated learning behaviors in students who received contingent support.
Steps for Implementation of Opportunities to Respond
Group response strategies for OTR can increase student engagement throughout lessons as well as during warm-up and closure activities. Support co-teachers can efficiently collect formative assessment data to guide future instruction by observing students’ behaviors and responses during OTR. In addition to planned use during lessons, co-teachers may find benefit in the spontaneous use of group OTR activities to increase student engagement during an unexpected lull in instruction or to productively fill time during transitions.
When co-planning for OTR during instruction, co-teachers can develop prompts that require concise responses that students complete in unison (i.e., choral responses) or prompts that elicit responses from individuals. Multiple choice questions work well and can be implemented with a variety of response tools, such as response cards, clicker systems, and hand gestures. Dry-erase boards and preprinted response cards are also options. See Table 1 for free OTR systems. Prompts requiring single word responses or short phrases can also be used with verbal choral responses or dry erase boards. For example, when given a definition, students can concisely respond with the matching term. Conversely, it would be more difficult for students to respond in unison with a full definition.
Free Student Response Systems.
Support co-teachers can be responsible for generating the OTR prompts during their co-teachers’ instruction. In addition, co-teachers can increase higher order thinking and promote collaborative learning by developing OTR prompts that require student discussion before unison responses are given. For example, co-teachers can provide an OTR prompt such as “Which alternative title best reflects this passage?” and list multiple choice answers. Students can then be given a brief opportunity for peer-to-peer discussion of which answer is best and why. The co-teacher would then request a unison response using the group OTR method and call on a few students to justify their reasoning. In a review of OTR research, MacSuga-Gage and Simonsen (2015) found evidence that this type of mixed responding, combining student-to-student OTR with student-to-teacher OTR, may positively impact student outcomes. Researchers have not found significant differences in the effectiveness of different types of response tools (Hott & Brigham, 2018; Randolph, 2007). Therefore, co-teachers can be intentional in choosing tools that best match content, students’ needs, and available resources.
The instructional presentation of group responding involves (a) presenting a prompt or question, (b) providing wait time to allow all students to formulate an answer, (c) cueing students to respond in unison using the predetermined response method, and (d) stating feedback regarding students’ responses (Haydon et al., 2010). Table 2 provides an illustration of the lead co-teacher’s actions for group responding followed by support co-teacher’s actions. As one co-teacher leads the prompts and responses, the support co-teacher can take an active role by collecting data with specific attention to students who may need additional support or content that may require re-teaching. For example, as the lead co-teacher cues students to respond in unison, the support co-teacher can observe for students not consistently responding. For support co-teachers acquiring this type of data, an exemplar is shown in Figure 1. Note that OTR activities may provide an opportunity for the traditional lead and support teachers to switch roles.
Opportunities to Respond as Group Responding.
Data sheet for support co-teacher’s use during opportunities to respond.
Steps for Implementation of Contingent Support
Hedin and Gaffney (2013) found that teachers tend to use the types of support they are most comfortable with rather than making adaptations contingent upon student needs. Consequently, support can be highly teacher-directed, limiting student responsibility for problem-solving. The goal of contingent support is to transfer responsibility for task performance from teachers to students in a way that maximizes student success and minimizes student dependency (van de Pol, Volman, Oort, & Beishuizen, 2014; Wood, 2002). Wood (2002) described five levels of support that co-teachers can use in their interactions with students. These levels, from least-to-most direct teacher support, follow:
General Verbal Support—Provide a verbal cue with no specific directive. The teacher’s statement indicates that action is needed, but offers no specific guidance on what the student should do.
Specific Verbal Support—Verbally specify the action that is required.
Specific Intervention and Nonverbal Information—Provide specific verbal intervention, paired with a gesture to focus the student’s visual attention on the item requiring action.
Prepares for Next Action—Use a closed question or present the student with two options for the next action.
Demonstration—Model the next action.
The appropriate level of support is determined by the phase in the instructional cycle and the students’ learning needs. When new skills are introduced, co-teachers will move from a high level of support to lower levels of support. During guided practice and independent work, the level of support provided by the co-teacher increases when a lower level of support is insufficient to meet students’ needs. For example, if general verbal supports were not effective, the co-teacher would transition to specific verbal supports, not to demonstration. Figure 2 provides examples of teacher prompts for each level of support along the continuum. Figure 3 is an example of a data sheet to use when needing to track students’ progress.
Contingent support continuum from least to most support.
Data collection for contingent support.
Contingent support can be implemented by the support co-teacher during the guided practice portions of lessons or when individual students need extra support as they are progressing to independent practice. Co-teachers may find that recording levels of support can be useful for monitoring student progress toward Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals or specific content objectives. Sample data sheets are presented in Figure 4.
Data sheet to monitor student level of contingent support.
To shift intentionally from noncontingent support to contingent support, co-teachers actively engage in a continuous cycle of assessment and decision-making, followed by spontaneous adaptation based on students’ needs. Van de Pol et al. (2014) described this shift as a four-step process. First, support co-teachers diagnose a student’s understanding of the content or skill. This can occur through error analysis or, more frequently, by asking open-ended questions during instruction. Second, co-teachers create shared understanding; essentially verifying the co-teacher’s perception of the student’s understanding. Third, co-teachers provide the level of support aligned with the individual student’s level of understanding. Co-teachers aim to start with the least support, then scaffold to more support rather than providing support a student may not need. As a student experiences challenges, the support becomes more teacher-directed and explicit. As a student demonstrates increased understanding, support becomes less teacher-directed. Finally, co-teachers reassess the student’s understanding, and the cycle continues until support is no longer required.
Summary
Increased opportunities to respond and contingent support are examples of research-based practices that support co-teachers can incorporate in their role when observing or assisting students. Although these practices are described to activate support co-teachers’ roles, the practices can and should be used by both teachers. Co-teachers in a support capacity enrich their roles when they use research-based practices that engage students with and without disabilities toward improved learning outcomes.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
