PLCs & Co-Teaching, Katie Wood

PLCs

     A Professional Learning Community is a group of education professionals coming together to collaborate and discuss ways they can improve how students learn. They all have a shared goal of the success of their students. This source discusses ways to continue improvement, the responsibility of the teacher in the classroom, and includes a video of Shirley Hord telling about the PLC standard:

     This resource can be applied in the classroom because it gives teachers a bulleted list of how they can continue to improve student success in the classroom. Since PLCs and co-teaching are all about collaborating for the benefit of the students and as teachers we need to learn how to work together, not just individually, so that we can pass back and forth ideas of how to help all students succeed. 

Co-Teaching

     Co-Teaching occurs when two educators are collaborating the instruction in the classroom. Each co-teacher may bring something different to the classroom. For example, one teacher may be better at teaching math than the other teacher. Therefore, during a math lesson, the teacher with more expertise could teach the lesson while the other teacher floats around the room making sure students are on task and answer any questions. Co-teachers are planning for the successful learning of all students. Co-teachers are building off one another and their relationship must be strong in order to be successful. 

     The resource I used is a video discussing what co-teaching is and the importance of it in a diverse classroom. The video informs it's viewers of what makes a co-teaching team successful and how research has proved co-teaching to be a beneficial tool to use in the teaching and learning of our students. This video can be applied to the classroom because it discusses it's benefits when there are special needs students or other diverse students in the classroom and how it co-teaching can shorten the teacher to student ratio and benefit all students needs. 

References

PLC Reference:
Learning Communities. (n.d.). Retrieved February 15, 2018, from https://learningforward.org/standards/learning-communities 
Co-Teaching Reference: 
W. (2016, January 15). Co-Teaching at Its Best. Retrieved February 15, 2018, fromhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xurgvdq3J8s