We wanted to take this opportunity to give you some actual hands-on examples of small-group co-teaching models in action. While the structures may look a little different from classroom to classroom, the common thread is that each of the teams below found a model that maximized both teachers’ strengths and increased opportunities for students to learn in smaller, more supportive settings. Read on for some inspiration!
Elementary
Steve and Hilary co-teach fourth grade. When they began working together, neither of them had prior co-teaching experience or formal training. They set a goal they believed represented exemplary co-teaching: no visitor should be able to tell “who was who” in the classroom.
They achieved that goal. Their team teaching was seamless. They shared the instructional spotlight, collaborated naturally, and balanced one another’s teaching styles beautifully.
What they did not initially realize, however, was that they were not maximizing their collective potential.
After learning how to implement small-group co-teaching models, they began to see meaningful changes within just a few weeks — both in their own sense of effectiveness and in student performance.
Today, their daily structure looks like this:
- Morning Meeting — Team Teaching
- ELA — Parallel Teaching
- Math — Station Teaching
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- Hilary always leads the day’s core teaching point.
- Steve’s station alternates between number talks and word-problem work.
- The independent station focuses on spiral review, with students choosing between working on Chromebooks or on paper.
- Science & Social Studies — Two Large Stations
- The class is divided in half. Hilary teaches science to one group while Steve teaches social studies to the other. The following day, the groups switch.
This structure allows Hilary to focus fully on science content and Steve to concentrate on social studies. Both teachers work primarily with smaller groups of students, creating a more focused and manageable instructional experience. For them, it has become a true win-win-win.
Secondary
At the secondary level, we coach Jen, a special educator who co-teaches Algebra I with Jamal and English 9 with Sophie.
After extensive problem-solving, Jen and Jamal determined that station teaching worked best for their classroom context. Depending on pacing and instructional goals, they sometimes run two stations and sometimes three.
Typically:
- Jamal leads the main lesson objective at his station.
- Jen facilitates review activities or skill-based games at hers, often incorporating kinesthetic, hands-on approaches.
- Independent work is differentiated through an online platform that assesses students’ math skills, recommends targeted practice, and allows students to make choices about what to work on.
Jen’s partnership with Sophie developed differently. They experimented with station teaching but never felt it fully matched their vision. Because the class is highly text-based, they initially assumed parallel teaching would be too distracting — that they would hear one another’s instruction and struggle to maintain focus.
Eventually, they agreed to try it.
Aside from the occasional “echo” from across the room, both teachers quickly realized that parallel groups created a powerful instructional shift. Students responded positively to the smaller, more intimate setting, describing the experience as feeling more like a cozy book club than a traditional English class. Engagement increased — and so did class averages.
Jen and Sophie now consider parallel teaching their most effective model and have no desire to return to a whole group lesson format.
Conclusion
Across these examples, the impact was clear. Students were more engaged, learning felt more personalized, and growth showed up in both the data and the day-to-day classroom experience. Teachers also felt more confident in their roles, collaborated more naturally, and found greater satisfaction in their work together.
It’s why we continue encouraging the educators we coach to lean into small-group co-teaching models whenever possible.