What the Research Says

Traditional student teaching hasn’t changed much in over 80 years. So why is it important to modify this long-held tradition of introducing novice teachers to the profession? It’s because the research has shown co-teaching to benefit students, credential candidates, and mentor teachers.

Research conducted by St. Cloud University in Minnesota found co-teaching to have a significant positive effect on K-12 student achievement. This four-year study involved 826 co-teaching pairs and over 25,000 P-12 students in central Minnesota.

Findings from the study revealed that students in grades 1 through 6, who were in co-teaching classrooms, had an average 78% passing rate in reading proficiency while those in non co-teaching classrooms averaged a 68% rate.

The results were similar in math proficiency. Elementary students in grades 1 through 6 had a 73% passing rate while those in non co-teaching classrooms had a 64% passing rate.

Data for students in grades 7-12 also showed that co-teaching had a positive impact on student learning. Survey data revealed that students felt they received more help with questions, benefited from different styles of teaching, received more individual attention, and heard two perspectives on a topic. Finally, over 500 K-12 students in focus groups shared that they received all of these other benefits from co-teaching.

Co-teaching has been found to benefit credential candidates and mentor teachers as well. Focus groups of over 150 teacher candidates and over 280 mentor teachers showed that they enjoyed all of these benefits from co-teaching.

As you can see, research supports the use of co-teaching due to its many benefits for student, the credential candidate, and the mentor teacher.