Join us for an institute on Integrated Co-teaching (ICT) for NYC educators.

28-29 August 2024

Being a part of an integrated co-teaching team can be a joyful and fulfilling experience. It also can be challenging to manage balancing the needs of students with teaching models, curriculum demands, collegial relationships and time pressures. At this two-day institute, you and your teaching partner will have an opportunity to:

  • Explore a range of co-teaching models and how to practically implement them

  • Understand ways the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework can be applied in an ICT setting

  • Develop strategies for working with a range of learning needs such as dyslexia, ADHD, and ASD, in ways that will work well inside of your particular setting

  • Apply current research about co-teaching to your plans for this coming school year

Who we are

  • Woman with long curly hair, glasses is in conversation with two teachers and smiling..

    M. Colleen Cruz

    Co-presenter

    M. Colleen Cruz is an independent consultant and fierce advocate for the students and teachers with whom she shares her passion for accessibility, research-based instruction and equity.

    An educator with over two decades of experience in both general education and inclusive settings, Colleen is also the author of several books for teachers including Risk. Fail. Rise: A Teacher’s Guide to Learning From Mistakes; Writers Read Better: Narrative; Writers Read Better: Nonfiction; and The Unstoppable Writing Teacher, as well as the author of a young adult novel, Border Crossing, a Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Finalist. Colleen co-edited the Not This But That series with Nell Duke - a popular series of books that pairs research and practice.

    For several years Colleen worked as a public school teacher in Brooklyn in both general education and team-taught classrooms. Colleen then worked at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she was instrumental in designing new curriculum, developing practices to support students with IEPs, leading a partnership with ChildMind Institute, devising and composing a comics-based phonics and phonemic awareness intervention program for elementary through middle school, and architecting a large-scale tutoring project.

    Her newest book (Corwin Press, Fall 2025) focuses on supporting students with IEPs in general education and inclusive settings. She currently supports teachers, schools and districts in NYC, nationally and internationally.

  • A woman with short light brown hair, wearing a denim shirt, smiles while turned to the side.

    Kass Minor

    Co-presenter

    Kass Minor is an inclusive educator and author who is deeply involved in local, inquiry-based teacher research and school community development. Her newest book, Teaching Fiercely: Spreading Joy and Justice in Our Schools is a heartfelt, yet strategic journey that moves through the historical, personal, and professional school experience, catalyzing human-centered care and joy in classrooms everywhere–centering students at the core.

    Alongside partnerships with the Teachers College Inclusive Classrooms Project and the New York City Department of Education, since 2005, she has worked as a teacher, staff developer, adjunct professor, speaker, and researcher.

    A frequent blogger, writer, and podcaster on matters connected to developing more humane schools, she primarily serves as the co-founder and Chief Strategist of The Minor Collective, a community-based organization designed to foster sustainable inclusive practices in schools.

    While she has worked in numerous capacities in partnerships with universities, school districts, and is currently a doctoral student, classroom teacher has been her most coveted role. Her pedagogy is centered in joy from the communities that surround her and motivated by the idea that every adult can teach, and every student can learn. Teacherhood, paired with motherhood, has driven her love of information sharing, redefining who gets to be a knower in the fiery world we live in today.