Remote Co-teaching During COVID-19

One red apple and two green apples in a triangle.

by Amanda Goddard

Amanda Goddard is a English Language Education Department Head at Foxborough Regional Charter School. She earned her Master of TESL from Framingham State University in 2017 and is currently pursuing her PhD in Educational Studies at Lesley University. Follow her on Twitter at @oh_mygoddard.

As many districts are eagerly moving toward virtual and remote learning during this uncharted time in our lives, we need to work together to ensure ALL of our students’ needs are being met. I write this post to remind educators of the importance of leaning on their ESL/ELE co-teachers. As an ELE (English Language Education) Department Head in a K-12 district, I have worked with staff on building our co-teaching model over the past few years. Building our co-teaching bonds has proved to be instrumental in the teaching and learning that occur in our buildings. Now, I hope to see these bonds be instrumental in the teaching and learning that is occuring outside of our buildings. Think back to “The Building Blocks of Strengthening an ESL/ELE Co-Teaching Partnership” and remember how effective they can be. Now, I challenge you to keep these building blocks in focus as you venture into a new chapter of digital teaching.

 
 

  • Hi, my name is Amanda, and I'm an ESL Department Head. And recently, over the last couple of weeks, with the COVID-19 crisis, I've been thinking a lot about our teachers, and our ESL students and all of our students.

    And there are three main things that I would like to bring to our attention today.

    The first one is establishing norms between you and your co-teacher. These are things that you wanna make sure you're both on the same page with, things that you might normally do at a school setting, that you're now doing in a virtual setting. Something along the lines of when you're going to have your consultation time, to who's posting what, when.

    Some things for teachers to keep in mind during their consultation time, or what visuals might students need to support the readings that are being assigned, what vocab might need to be pre-taught in order for them to access the content, and how will students be assessed on their learning? Although we might not be grading during this time away from our school buildings, we still wanna consider if our students are understanding the material or not.

    So those are things that you can talk about with your co-teacher to make sure you're on the same page, and to make sure that all students are getting the supports they need.

    The third building block that I discuss in my blog, is to try new things twice. Right now, we are being inundated with a lot of virtual learning platforms and resources that we can use in our instruction and also for students to use. And I find that if you work with your co-teacher to go through these resources, you might get through a lot more in a shorter amount of time, or if you both wanna look at the same resource and you're coming at it from two different angles, and you can see if you think it would work for all of your students or not.

    So these three pointers have been useful to you, and I encourage you to bring them back to your co-teacher. And for more information, check out the blog on ELLstudents.com.

Building Block #1: Agreed Upon Norms

Although your norms may not look the same, they are still important. Instead of meeting every Friday afternoon to discuss the next week’s plans, you may now be video-conferencing every Monday and Wednesday morning to discuss the next few days’ plans. Rather than having a shared physical space, you may now have a shared virtual space. Discuss together what that will look like. If you are using a digital learning platform that allows a co-teacher, make sure your co-teacher is invited to join. If you are using a video-conferencing tool, take turns with which one of you is hosting the class. Perhaps you will have a norm that neither of you can post an assignment without clearing it with the other one first. Remember, these are merely suggestions, norms will only work if they are agreed upon and followed by both of you.

Building Block #2: Regular Consultation

I cannot stress enough how important it is to consult and collaborate with your co-teacher. ESL/ELE teachers need to know what material is being sent to students for many reasons. One of these reasons being that a student may need a few words to be pre-taught before receiving the assignment in their digital classroom. Perhaps a student needs a completely different reading passage, or at least an accommodated one. The ESL/ELE teacher and general education teacher can work together to make these determinations and decide who will complete which task. Consulting prior to delivering content is important to ensure you are both on the same page for when you inevitably get questions. Using your consultation time to determine what visuals need to be found or how you can still incorporate all four domains of language into your lessons is imperative during this time as well. 

Building Block #3: Try New Things, Twice!

I don’t know about you, but I have never had so many new resources being sent to me on such a continual basis. My advice to try new things (twice!) still stands. This does not mean that I am suggesting your co-teacher and you start trying everything that is sent your way. However, what better time to try and find a great new resource that helps your co-teaching than now when a lot of services are being offered for free? Perhaps you can both try one new resource each week and then share out your findings during your next consultation. Because there are two of you coming at the resource from different angles, you will be able to offer insight that the other may not have thought of. 

I know that virtual teaching is new to many teachers, and many teachers may just be focused on figuring out how to deliver content at this time, but I urge you all to see each other as a resource and not as a restriction. Together, we can still provide a high-quality learning experience for all of our learners. 

Additional Resources

Professional Learning, Curriculum and InstructionConfianza: For Educators of Language Learners