Team teaching between the subject teacher and the additional professional support provider is one of the most important factors in meeting the needs of students with severe specific learning difficulties (SpLD) who are included in program with adapted implementation and additional professional support. In Slovenian schools, additional professional support is mostly provided outside the classroom, which is not in line with the inclusive guidelines. Cooperation between the class teacher and the additional professional support provider is more frequent than between the subject teacher and the additional professional support provider. In the school year 2022/23, as many as 78 % of all students with severe SpLD were in the grades 6th–9th, where instruction is predominantly provided by subject teachers. The level of difficulty of the learning content increases rapidly in the upper grades of primary schools, and students with severe SpLD need additional tailored training, materials and support in addition to mastering new learning content in the classroom. Teachers who teach students with severe SpLD also need support, so collaboration between the additional professional support provider and the subject teacher is essential. One of the possible forms of collaboration is team teaching, where the additional professional support provider and the subject teacher participate in all phases of teamwork with the same goal, but can take different active roles in the implementation itself. In such an approach, the student with severe SPLD benefits both from a pedagogical point of view, as he/she is taught new learning content by a subject teacher who is an expert in a specific field, and from specific adaptations necessary for his/her learning process offered by the additional professional support provider, and from a social inclusion point of view, as he/she is not excluded from the class during the hour of additional professional support. The other students also benefit from having an additional teacher in the class as well as from the two professionals sharing their knowledge and experience and growing professionally during the exchange. In the Master's thesis, we used quantitative research to investigate how team teaching in Slovenian primary schools is perceived by subject teachers and additional professional support providers, how competent they feel in implementing it, how often they use individual team teaching approaches and what impact they perceive on the social inclusion of students with severe SpLD. Using qualitative research, we wanted to find out what attitudes additional professional support providers and subject teachers have towards team teaching before and after the experience of team teaching and how team teaching is perceived by students with severe SpLD and their peers. Empirical research has shown that the majority of respondents believe that team teaching is necessary for all groups of students with severe SpLD, that it has a positive impact on the social inclusion of these students and that they feel competent to implement team teaching, but at the same time the majority of respondents never or rarely use team teaching approaches to teach these students. The majority of respondents see the more effective provision of professional help and support and the continuous sharing of feedback on working with students with severe SpLD as an advantage, while the lack of time for planning as a barrier to team teaching. Personal experience with team teaching has a significant positive effect on attitudes towards team teaching, especially the attitude that team teaching of the subject teacher and additional professional support increases the learning motivation of students with severe SpLD. Both students with severe SpLD and other students who are team-teached highlight more advantages than disadvantages, regardless of the type of team teaching they received, most often effective support, interesting activities and more effective explanations.
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