Co-Teaching in the “Academia Class”: Evaluation of Advantages and Frequency of Practices

Abstract

This article constitutes the continuation of a research process that investigated models and methods for co-teaching in the “Academia Class” program in the Ohalo Academic College (Nissim & Naifeld, 2018). The article focuses on the contribution of this program to all those who participated in it, identifying co-teaching practices and the connections between the sense of contribution and identification of those practices. The research relied on the collection and analysis of quantitative data. The research population included 125 respondents, 51 (40.8%) schoolteachers, 36 (28.8%) student-teachers studying general education, 18 (14.4%) kindergarten teachers and 20 (16.0%) student-teachers studying early childhood education.
 Three main research questions guided the investigation: 
 1) To what extent does each group of participants in the program estimate that co-teaching methods are advantageous for the teachers/kindergarten teachers, student teachers and pupils?
 2) Which prevalent co-teaching practices are used in the Academia Class program?
 3) Is there a correlation between the respondents’ attitudes concerning the advantages of co-teaching and the practices prevalent in the Academia Class program?
 The responses to these questions indicate the extent of success or lack of success of co-Teaching. The main finding indicates that the trainer teachers and the student teachers agreed that there were many advantages to co-teaching and that it contributed to school pupils and the kindergarten children. Thus, it seems that the Academia Class program has an influence beyond mere training processes, on the learning processes in the classes and school pupils. With regard to the advantages of the co-teaching for the school teachers and kindergarten teachers.