Specially Designed Instruction for Co-Teachers

Co-teaching has evolved over the past four decades. Today, it is conceptualized as a service delivery option designed to accomplish three goals: (1) access to the general curriculum; (2) education in the least restrictive environment (LRE); and (3) improved student outcomes (Friend & Barron, 2021; King-Sears, et al., 2021; Losinski et al., 2019). Attention is focused on the quality of instruction for students with disabilities in co-taught classes. The expectation is that co-teachers provide research-based specialized instruction because doing so enables students to reach state academic standards and prepares them for adult life.

This guide is a roadmap to help teachers, administrators, other school staff, and parents understand the requirements for specially designed instruction (SDI). It outlines versatile and validated strategies and techniques particularly well-suited to co-teaching, although it is a small sample of the many SDI interventions available.