East teachers Hannah Huseman and Stacey Lane love teaching College Prep (CP) Biology. This year, though, they decided to shake things up. Instead of having their own classes, they decided to bring their students together in a combined class. Now, whenever a student needs help, they have two teachers they can reach out to for help.
“We took two rosters and put them together,” Huseman told Spark. “We start off each day in the same room, and then we split into two rooms after that.”
To stay organized, the pair planned out what each of their classrooms could be used for. They also go to the HUB once a week to ensure their students can spend time all together. While one teacher gives instructions, the other works on managing the classroom and helping students who have questions.
“They all start in [room 264] for ‘small group whole instruction,’” CP Biology teacher Stacey Lane told Spark. “We have enough room between the two classrooms, so they can break off after that. We really maximize the space.”
Their students also appreciate this setup more, since they are able to connect with both teachers individually.
“You can get different perspectives from each of them,” sophomore Alex Gallegos told Spark. “They work great together and you can learn a lot from them.”
The duo met three years ago, when Lane was teaching CP Biology on her own. According to Huseman, Lane was “working on switching up her classroom to make it more self-paced and personalized to what the students need when they come in.” Huseman was able to share her ideas for the class with Lane, and together they were able to finish off the school year with their combined work. Last year, the pair still had separate classrooms, though the work they did was the same.
“We were essentially administering the same class separately,” said Lane. “Our flair was very similar. That is when we said, ‘Hello! Doing this together would be easier!’”
The combined roster allows each of the teachers to teach the parts of the curriculum that they excel at, which allows the teachers to comfortably go in-depth with each lesson. To ensure the students are receiving the same grades between their teachers, the two work together to have the same grading foundation.
“The plus side of [this grading system] is that it gives us the ability to talk as teachers and really hone those skills,” said Huseman. “This way, we’re better at what we do.”
The teachers wanted to combine their classes for a few reasons, the biggest one being that they wanted to help students understand their work as much as possible and “meet kids where they’re at,” according to Lane.
“We wanted to make our jobs more meaningful and manageable,” said Lane. “Being a teacher can be hard, especially when you have 30 students, each with their own walks of lives. When one of us is dealing with a situation, the other one is able to swoop in and help the students, and that’s really big.”
Since the rosters are combined, there can be some confusion around which students are on each roster. The teachers navigated that by being allowed access to each other’s attendance forms. Now, one teacher can take attendance for the combined class, and the students can split off into the other classroom as needed. The combined rosters do not apply to only the classroom, though.
“The Ohio’s State Tests (OST) reflect back on us as teachers, meaning, no matter which teacher they spent more time learning from, the score would reflect upon the teacher they were originally supposed to have,” said Lane. “We just found out today that the students’ scores will now reflect 50% on each of us, which is really exciting. This confirms that we really are co-teachers.”
The most important thing to this duo is how to best help their students. Since combining the rosters is atypical, they want to make the transition for students as seamless and simple as possible.
“One of the things we both very much share is asking what’s best for the kid to learn,” said Huseman. “Not only on the OST, but also just giving them the feeling that they can learn more and making sure they come away with something from taking biology.”
Together, the two can teach the topics they love to students that are eager to learn. Sophomore Payton Hall loves learning about the lessons they planned together and talking to them for advice.
“They just fit together,” sophomore Payton Hall told Spark. “Watching them teach together and interact with students, it’s clear that they’re a great team.”
In the next few years, the two hope to be able to have combined classes every day for CP Biology to continue and further grow this new idea.
“We try to be together as much as we possibly can,” said Lane. “The sooner we can get to one room with all of us together, the sooner our model will truly come together.”
