VALUE ADDED OF THE SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER IN SECONDARY SCHOOL CO-TAUGHT CLASSES

This naturalistic observation study sought to identify the activities undertaken by the special education co-teacher in co-taught high school content subject classes in urban, rural, and suburban high schools, and to understand the contributions of the special education teacher, the value-added, to the educational experiences of the students in the class. The work focused on what is accomplished when ordinary special education teachers go about doing their assigned co-teaching jobs. We found that, as a group and across subject areas, special education co-teachers spent more time in contact with students than not, and most of their contact time helping individual students or small groups of students through an assigned task. There were substantial differences in the distribution of co-teacher activities across subject areas.