Planbook Plus from a Co-Teacher’s Perspective

Special education teachers are assigned a number of daily tasks ranging from IEP writing and managing a caseload, to teaching direct instruction courses. Now, we continue to see co-teaching with regular education teachers resurface in education. Current trends in pedagogy push for a model of co-teaching that allows for both teachers to lead the class together with shared responsibilities (teaching, grading, and planning). In theory, a shared planning period will allow for the co-teacher and regular education teacher to plan together, discuss student needs and analyze data from assessments (formative and summative!), and yes – grading. However, the busy regular education teacher’s schedule coupled with the unpredictable schedule of a special education teacher often hacks away at this shared planning period. Overwhelmed yet?

Enter Planbook Plus. Planbook Plus allows special education teachers to collaborate with the regular education teacher, while the demands of special education tug our teachers from all sides. Planbook Plus allows teachers to share their planbooks with each other. The special education teacher can input their idea for plans for the day and then the regular education teacher can edit as needed (or vice-versa). Both special education and regular education teachers can also pull lessons from the library in Planbook Plus and assign them to individual students or an entire class! Teachers can even add a field when customizing the element design to give each other opportunities to discuss critical items. Items such as student needs to ideas of pulling out students, splitting the class in two, grouping the students or just a place for “drafted ideas.”

In this day and age of 504s, IEPs, and overall RtII models, the “add field” feature provides both teachers an opportunity to keep tabs on individual student needs while also incorporating Universal Design for Learning and creating diverse modes of instruction that will reach every individual student. For instance, teachers can create bullets with each individual student and identify the accommodations required. Additionally, the field can be used to group students by accommodation, level, or to scaffold instruction so that every student achieves success in the classroom. Planbook Plus’ features continue to grow so that teachers are able to collaborate and better reach every student in the classroom without losing vital hours out of their day!