“For us it works” Co-teaching in a High School Global History Class V. Sue Atkinson 1 Binghamton University Images of a teacher in a classroom surrounded by schoolchildren are deeply embedded in my consciousness and memory -- images from my own school experiences, from literature and media, and my life as a teacher. Conversations about teachers and teaching often reference the same image: Each teacher in (typically) her own classroom with her own group of children, grouped by age, or in high school, by subject. When autonomy is desired, “Just close your classroom door,” is the advice that teachers give and get. But today, it is not always clear whose room, whose door, or even whose students that statement might address. Effective collaborative teaching is an expectation of teachers today, especially when addressing the needs of special education students, and co-teaching involving paired general education teachers and special education teachers is an increasingly popular model. Currently 93% of all special education students spend time in general education classrooms, on average, 4.8 hours a day (Wagner & Blackorby, 2002). Most of these students receive services from a special education teacher and from general education grade level or subject teachers. Increasingly, this support is provided through team teaching in the general education classroom rather than through pullout programs. The co-teaching model, defined by Friend and Cook (2007) as a partnership between two or more professionals who share instructional responsibility 1 V. Sue Atkinson, corresponding author, atkinson@binghamton.edu