CO-TEACHING WITHIN THE INCLUSIVE CLASSROOM: CASE STUDY IN KORCA COUNTRY SCHOOLS

Arjan KAMBURI, Zenel ORHANI, Ilirjana NASE

Abstract

Co-teaching is a practice that helps inclusive processes in regular classrooms. It is a practice that asks teachers to master professional competencies to work in a team. About these competencies, we consider the knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes that the teachers must have to guarantee the standards of quality in education. This study, albeit in a small sample, seeks to bring attention to regular classes, in the Albanian context, where the curricular teacher and the support teacher teach. In Albania, the support teacher has been introduced as a professional figure in regular schools since 2013, when the concept of inclusive schools was gaining ground more and more. Today, we need to understand how the two teachers, the curricular and the support teacher, interact with each other within the same class. In our study, we collected interviews from curricular teachers and support teachers to understand if and how co-teaching takes place in their classrooms. Additionally, we collected data via the Co-Teaching Rating Scale (Gately & Gately, 2001). Likewise, we observed, with the teachers' permission, the carrying out of the lesson in some classes where both teachers were present to see if co-teaching applied or not. From the data analysis, it appears that most teachers experience difficulties not only in seeing if co-teaching was applied but, also in understanding the practices that help this process.

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