The Six Co-Teaching Models Every New Teacher Should Know

What co-teaching actually means, as a starting definition

Friend and Cook define co-teaching as two or more certified professionals who share instructional responsibility for a single group of students, primarily in a single classroom or workspace, for specific content or objectives, with mutual ownership, pooled resources, and joint accountability. That last phrase — mutual ownership and joint accountability — is the part that distinguishes genuine co-teaching from one teacher simply having an extra adult present in the room without real shared instructional responsibility.

The six models below are not a hierarchy from best to worst, and no single model should be your default for every lesson. Experienced co-teaching pairs typically move between models depending on the content, the specific students' needs that day, and how much planning time the pair actually had that week.

One Teach, One Observe

One teacher leads instruction while the other actively observes, typically collecting specific data — on student engagement, a particular student's response to instruction, or how well a strategy is landing. This model is useful early in a co-teaching relationship, or when there's a specific instructional question the team wants data on, but it should be used sparingly, since overuse can make the observing teacher feel more like an aide than an equal instructional partner.

One Teach, One Assist

One teacher leads instruction while the other circulates, providing individual support to students who need it in the moment. This is often the easiest model to implement with minimal joint planning time, which makes it common — sometimes overused — in co-teaching pairs that struggle to find shared planning time. Like One Teach/One Observe, it works best as one tool among several rather than the default for every single lesson.

Station Teaching

The class is divided into small groups that rotate through different stations, with each co-teacher leading a different station (and sometimes an independent or technology-based station included). This model naturally creates smaller group sizes at each station and works well when content can be broken into distinct chunks that don't strictly need to happen in a fixed sequence.

Parallel Teaching

The class is split into two roughly equal groups, and both co-teachers teach the same content simultaneously to their respective groups. This lowers the student-to-teacher ratio for the lesson and can be useful for practice, discussion-heavy content, or situations where more individual response opportunities per student are valuable.

Alternative Teaching

One teacher works with the majority of the class while the other works with a smaller group needing something different — pre-teaching a concept, re-teaching after a gap, or extending content for students who are ready to move faster. This model requires care in how the smaller group is composed and framed, since it can drift toward always pulling the same students if not planned thoughtfully.

Team Teaching

Both teachers share instruction of the whole group simultaneously — presenting together, building on each other's points in real time, sometimes even finishing each other's sentences in a well-practiced pair. This is generally considered the most collaboratively demanding model, since it requires deep shared planning and comfort, but it also most visibly models the 'two experts, one classroom' dynamic that co-teaching aims for.