Pi R Scared

  One of many items to discuss with your co-teacher is how instruction will be delivered. There are many different options, these are just a few from my experience. 

  I've spent 10 of my 14 years co-teaching in a secondary classroom. During this time, I've learned a good deal about what sets a year up for success, how to change things in the middle when they aren't working, and what is not helpful.   This video is short and shows just the basic conversation I would recommend having with your co-teacher before you even jump into talk about the classroom. 

  This is an easy activity to do with your students. Organize the groups and the amount each person has based on numbers that work for your students. A denominator of 10 or 20 for each student works well for my middle schoolers.  After many holidays parents will often donate leftover candy, this may be a good time to ask students to bring in a small pack for themselves. Businesses will often donate to classrooms as well, after a holiday you could always ask a business to donate as they will most likely already have these items on discount.   Here's the worksheet , after making a copy, you should be able to adapt it to your needs. 

   When teaching exponents, I often gave my students a sheet of all the exponent rules but the question of why they work comes up.  In this video, I show a brief explanation for why the product rule works.  I know it takes time to show students why it works but in the end, I think it's worth it.

      This is a saying I started telling my Algebra 2 students a few years ago so they could learn the difference between the less than and greater than sign.  This year, I've been using this saying with my middle school students.  

       In my 10 years of co-teaching I've had 9 different special education teachers. I remember the first time a school was going to keep me with the same co-teacher, I was so excited because it had never happened before.  I always heard, you are a good general education co-teacher and they are a good special education co-teacher so we are going to split you two up to be with co-teachers that need help.  While I understand this thought process, some co-teachers just click really well and work together.       These co-teacher relationships can form quickly or slowly and lots of conversations need to take place.  One year a school sat us down with our co-teachers about day 3 of in service week and we had these discussions.  I remember how awkward it was as a general education teacher yelled at the co-teacher, they wanted nothing to do with co-teaching and the co-teacher could just sit in the back of the room.  I worked with the same co-teacher that year and let me tell you they were