Achieving symbiosis: Working through challenges found in co-teaching to achieve effective co-teaching relationships

•Achieving effective co-teaching relationships is a complex process.•Obtaining external dimensions is not enough for effective co-teaching partnerships.•Teachers can use individual differences as strengths to overcome challenges.•Compatibility can be achieved through being similar or complementary.•In an effective co-teaching state, teachers are interdependent of each other.

This grounded theory study explored how secondary school co-teachers in an urban Eastern Iowa school district resolved challenges to co-teaching relationships. Five partnerships (N = 10) participated in focus group interviews, interpersonal behavior questionnaires, classroom observations, and individual interviews. The resulting theory, Achieving Symbiosis, explains how co-teaching partnerships became effective in their collaboration through using personal differences and strengths to become interdependent. This theory provides helpful strategies grounded in the field for co-teachers as they seek to begin or improve collaborative teaching relationships, for administrators as they support co-teachers, and for teacher educators as they prepare students for collaborative partnerships.