Facilitating Collaboration Through a Co-Teaching Field Experience

Abstract

This article describes an action research project in which two teacher educators implemented a coteaching field experience with pre-service teacher candidates acting as co-teachers to facilitate collaboration among peers. The goal of the action research was to better meet the needs of preservice teacher candidates and continually develop their ability to grow as reflective and collaborative future teaching educators. To increase collaboration, co-teaching models were implemented in an early field experience. Teaching activities and assignments provided opportunities for collaboration as co-teachers and as members of a teaching community. Data collection and observations indicate peer-to-peer co-teaching helped create a collaborative atmosphere for PTCs, while also revealing areas that need additional refinement in the field experience course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]