Browsing by Author "Salo, Janette"

Co-teaching is a growing form of work. It is a very different way of teaching compared to a traditional, individualistic way of teaching. Teachers who teach together are jointly responsible for planning, implementing and evaluating. Co-teaching is a versatile way of giving support to students who need it. It is based on co-operation between teachers and aims to diversify teaching and enable special support in the classroom of general education. The aim of this study is to describe the different ways in which co-teaching has been carried out, and the benefits and disadvantages experienced by teachers. I conducted my research as a descriptive literature review. I describe the phenomenon of co-teaching with the material I have chosen. I chose an explicit method for the selection of the data. I have used a total of 11 different sources to answer the research questions. The study show that co-teaching is a very diverse form of work. Finding out about the situations of the studies and the experiences of the teachers shows that many different models have been applied in practice. You need to be motivated and committed to working as a co-teacher. The teachers had experienced the same advantages and challenges of the co-teaching. The most common advantages were the support given by the co-teacher, decrease of disorder behaviour in classroom, providing support for the pupils, providing inclusive education for the pupils and teachers had less stress about the work. The most common challenge was definitely the lack of planning time together. Other common challenges were noise, unequal division of work and sometimes teachers’ personal chemistry doesn’t work. Research of the use of co-teaching as an appropriate and effective way of working is rare and requires further research.