The C-Lever Side of Co-Teaching

Presenter Information

Jessica J. Morris Ed.D., College of Coastal GeorgiaFollow
Carol Geiken Ed.D., College of Coastal GeorgiaFollow
Hannah Foldy, College of Coastal GeorgiaFollow
Molly Rowell, College of Coastal GeorgiaFollow

Location

Group Two Sessions: Room 101

Start Date

23-2-2024 11:00 AM

End Date

23-2-2024 11:50 AM

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Dr. Jessica Morris is an Assistant Professor in the Education and Teacher Preparation Department with a Reading and Literacy Specialization at the College of Coastal Georgia. Her graduate degrees include a M.Ed. in Reading, Language and Literacy Education with a focus in English for the Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) from Georgia State University and an Ed.D. in Curriculum and Leadership from Columbus State University. She has been with the department since 2017, teaching literacy courses and supervising aspiring K-8 teacher candidates. Dr. Morris has almost a decade of classroom experience as a Georgia educator with diverse populations of learners. Her current certifications include: K-8 Reading Specialist, Middle Grades English Language Arts, Social Studies and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). She has had numerous leadership roles and has earned awards for both highest gains in student achievement and Teacher of the Year in her K-12 career. Dr. Geiken received her Doctorate of Education, Curriculum and Instruction from Argosy University. She received her Master of Early Childhood from Armstrong Atlantic, and her Bachelor of Arts, Elementary Education and Special Education from Calvin College. In 2016, Dr. Geiken was awarded the Lillie Moncus Special Education Administrator of the Year. Her professional affiliations include Phi Delta Kappa, Council of Exceptional Children, and the Georgia Educators Association. Before joining the Coastal Georgia faculty, Dr. Geiken worked for the Glynn County School System as Director of Special Education for six years. Prior to that, she was the Special Education Coordinator and Special Education Teacher for the Glynn County School System.

Presentation Type

Concurrent Session

no

Abstract

“The C-Lever Side of Teaching” will explore how university faculty collaborated with a local elementary school to create a clinical experience for pre-service teachers (focus: Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and academic vocabulary instruction). Current teacher candidates will present their experiences using parallel teaching as co-teachers in this setting.

Conference Strands

Evidence-Based Practices

Description

“The C-Lever Side of Teaching” will explore how university faculty collaborated with a local elementary school to create a clinical experience for pre-service teachers with a focus on Universal Design for Learning (UDL), co-teaching and academic vocabulary instruction. Through the courses Inclusive Instruction for Diverse Learners and Developing Critical Readers, Writers & Thinkers, faculty were able to provide a practice-based experience to second semester Early Childhood and Special Education (ECSP) majors to use evidence-based practices through a co-teaching model of choice. Twenty-two teacher candidates and two faculty members from the College of Coastal Georgia spent five weeks at Oglethorpe Point Elementary School (OPES) on St. Simons Island, Georgia where they were able to practically study UDL and academic vocabulary instruction through a clinical setting and faculty-led mini-lessons each week at the elementary school. Teacher candidates were initially paired up and strategically placed into classrooms at OPES to observe and eventually teach in the classroom. Pre-service teachers collaborated with their mentor teacher to prepare a lesson to teach in the classroom.

While many components were required in the lesson plans, multiple means of engagement, multiple means of representation and multiple means of expression (Chardin, M., & Novak, K., 2020 & Rose, D. 2000), were planning pieces of focus for all candidates, with weekly coaching sessions from faculty members on effectiveness in UDL. Additionally, developmentally appropriate and evidence-based academic vocabulary instruction was required for all lessons in this clinical experience. Overall understanding of vocabulary instruction for teacher candidates encompassed identifying and implementing research-based content area vocabulary learning (Fisher & Frey, 2014; Moats, 1999). Throughout this clinical experience, weekly scholarly readings, checkpoint tasks and observation journals were required of teacher candidates in addition to collaborating with the paired mentor teacher at the elementary school. Over the five weeks, teacher candidates built rapport with students, wrote a lesson incorporating evidence-based practices, taught it to students, recorded it to GoReact and reflected upon the effectiveness of the instruction (Kolb, 1984).

The pre-service teachers who will be presenting observed and taught their lesson in a fourth-grade science classroom where they focused on UDL and academic vocabulary in a lesson over simple machines using the parallel teaching model of co-teaching. Their effectiveness of instruction was measured through strong assessment data and qualitative experiences in the classroom. Overall, this was a mutually beneficial experience to not only pre-service teachers but also to the PK-5 students in the elementary school.

Chardin, M., & Novak, K. (2020). Equity by design: Delivering on the power and promise of UDL. Corwin Press.

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2014). Content area vocabulary learning. The Reading Teacher, 67(8), 594-599.

Kolb, D. A. (2014). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. FT press.

Moats, L. C. (1999). Teaching reading is rocket science: What expert teachers of reading should know and be able to do.

Rose, D. (2000). Universal design for learning. Journal of Special Education Technology, 15(4), 47-51.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.