“We don’t have time to get through all the content!”
“None of these kids participate or engage in anything!”
“We are just so overwhelmed by the number of needs in our class.”
Do any of these refrains sound familiar to you? We hear them all the time, especially from co-teachers who rely primarily on whole group instruction. One of the best ways to address some of the above issues is to teach your lessons in Parallel groups.
What exactly is Parallel Teaching, anyway?
Parallel Teaching is when two heterogenous groups of students are being taught the same lesson at the same time.
Here’s how to do it. First, create two equal-sized heterogeneous groups. One teacher works with one group for the lesson, while the other takes the other group for the lesson. When it’s over, you and your co-teacher compare notes! As you can see, the setup for Parallel Teaching is pretty straightforward, but here are some guidelines to keep in mind:
What each group is doing
In planning your lessons, you may decide to teach the exact same lesson, the exact same way, or you can decide to put your own spin on it. What makes it parallel is that you are both reaching the same exact objective with your students by the end of the allotted time. Whether you were teaching it the same way or different ways, it is important that you are aligned in what it is you want students to know or be able to do.
How long Parallel lessons should be
Parallel lessons can last anywhere from five minutes to multiple days, depending on what you want to accomplish. Especially if you are just starting out with parallel teaching, we recommend trying something small at first, like a Do Now or an exit ticket. Starting small will help you both figure out what you need in order to make Parallel work in your classroom. Once you develop comfort with the model, you can begin staying in your group for longer.
How to group students
The most important thing to consider when deciding on your grouping method is that groups need to be heterogeneous, meaning mixed-ability. It can be tempting to split students by ability, but this can lead to instructional loops in which the students in the group that you deem “low” get further and further behind and are not exposed to the same content as the “high” or “grade-level” group receiving the lesson. Be especially mindful that one of the central tenets of co-teaching is to teach students with and without disabilities together. Therefore, make sure your students with disabilities are integrated in groups with their non-disabled classmates and not all grouped together.
Use ability grouping when you have data on the specific skill you are teaching. For example, after a station or parallel taught lesson, come together with your partner to discuss formative assessment. Create new groups based on what you learned. Some students will need modeling again, some will need guided practice, and others will be ready for independent practice.
Where and how to position your groups
First of all, there are no rules on where your groups take place. We have seen countless successful set-ups for parallel. Plan your groups to be wherever in the classroom you want them, as long as it works for you and your students. Most teachers teach their Parallel lessons in the same classroom. However, if you happen to be one of the lucky few that has a room available to you nearby, it is fine for one group to go out into a different classroom, or even the hallway. Just make sure that it is not always the special educator leaving, and always make sure that the group leaving the room is a heterogeneous mix of students.
Planning for Parallel
Once co-teachers get into Parallel Teaching, most find it makes the planning process much faster, because you don’t have to plan every detail together. Here’s what you DO need to decide together:
- What you’re teaching
- How long it will take
- Exactly what students should know and be able to do by the end
- Where groups will take place
You can plan all other details separately!
A Common Obstacle
One of the most common obstacles for co-teachers is adjusting to the noise of another group learning the exact same thing at the same time. Here are a few things to try to if you’re finding the other group distracting:
- A divider to visually separate the spaces
- Stagger the start to avoid the “echo effect”
- Position the groups so students are facing away from each other
- The unicorn: a separate teaching space
For more strategies and solutions for noise issues, stay tuned for next month’s blog where we’ll dive a bit deeper!
A Few Reasons to Try Parallel
If you still need some convincing, we get it. It can be a hard sell to leave your comfort zone, especially when it feels like what you’re doing is working! But here are a few things that might happen if you and your co-teacher start using Parallel Teaching:
- You might get through content faster, finding that you have more time for review, re-teaching, enrichment, and fun end-of-the-year stuff.
- You might get to know your students twice as fast, because you only need to pay attention to the learning of half the class at a time.
- You might hear from students you’ve never heard from before, because they feel more comfortable speaking up in a smaller group.
Hopefully you’re feeling more confident about taking small steps towards teaching in parallel groups. As you can see, we’re big fans and we’re excited to welcome you to the Parallel Teaching fan club!