



































Risk Taking in Education: A Growth Experience


Volume 1, Issue 2 

2018 

Allies for Education 2018, 1, 2 
https://journals.library.csuci.edu/ojs/index.php/afe 

 

Risk Taking in Education: A Growth Experience 

 
Talya Drescher 
Assistant Professor of Special Education 
CSU Channel Islands 

 

I have been a teacher for almost twenty years. Currently I teach people who are becoming teachers, but 

I like to tell my students that in a previous life I taught every grade from kindergarten through twelfth 

grade with the exception of sixth grade. As a special educator, my credential has the breadth and 

flexibility to allow me to teach multiple subjects and grade levels, and, over a period of time, I have done 

just that. Of course, every time I teach a new age or subject, I become nervous; it is a risk to move from 

something comfortable to something unknown. Part of the problem is that I am not innately a risk taker. 

I like things to be in order. For instance, my planner is set to the next school day when I leave in the 

evening. Despite my wish for comfort, calculated risk taking has great value for improving my practice, 

professional growth and effectiveness in the classroom.  

During my time in the K-12 environment, I managed to navigate the waters of learning new grade level 

standards, learning about children at various stages of life, and learning how to work with special and 

general education colleagues, as well as related service providers and administrators. It was not always 

easy, but I had support and relied on what I had learned in my teacher preparation program. When I 

look back, I realize that any risks I took were calculated and the propensity for failure was minimal. 

Ultimately, I relied on the teacher script I had been taught and found success and comfort with that 

practice. 

This year, as an assistant professor in the School of Education, I had the opportunity to co-teach a course 

with a colleague, who at the time, I did not know very well. We agreed to teach the course together and 

that was it. Gone were my neat rows of pens and pre-planned lessons; I was taking the biggest risk of my 

teaching career and it did not hit me until the ink was dry on the contract. It was an opportunity to take 

risks, experiment with new methods of teaching, and pass along practical advice to my students. Over 

the course of the term, three things occurred that, while exciting, pushed me a bit outside my comfort 

zone. I could not have done them without putting myself in a new, untested situation. 

The first risk was that we were combining two distinct groups of students into one heterogeneous 

group: future content area specialists (general educators) and future education specialists (special 

educators). We were of the belief that these two groups of future teachers should learn, share and 

collaborate with each other as they work toward earning their professional credential so that once in 



Risk Taking in Education: A Growth Experience 
Talya Drescher 

Allies for Education 2018, 1, 2 
https://journals.library.csuci.edu/ojs/index.php/afe 
 

the field, these skills would be practiced rather than new. Traditionally, general and special education 

programs have unique requirements and therefore classes do not overlap. As a result, students lack an 

opportunity to collaborate with those outside their credential pathway as part of their coursework. 

Teaching this class flashed red signs of “risk” to me, but we proceeded and moved forward with the 

plan.   

During the plenary sessions, we discussed how we would teach about co-teaching and knew that we had 

to address some of the issues that might arise in co-teaching settings. We decided to take our second 

calculated (but scary nonetheless) risk using an unfamiliar technology. Available to us was the 

opportunity to work with a technology which allows instructors to create a case specific scenario to be 

played out with a screen projected avatar in place of traditional role play. In this instance, we decided 

on a co-teaching scenario where a student plays the role of a newer general education teacher and the 

avatar “George” plays the role of the veteran special educator. We split our class into manageable 

groups of students and they met George, with whom they had to negotiate a co-teaching relationship. 

George was ornery because the relationship had gone awry and some of the students in the 

hypothetical class were not successful, partly due to the breakdown of the co-teaching relationship. One 

at a time, students interacted with George and their classmates to work through the scenario, and 

together, find meaningful resolutions to the issues at hand. Students reported being scared of 

interacting with George and to be honest, I was filled with worry about all the things that could go 

wrong: the technology not working as expected, students refusing to participate, and my own ability to 

integrate teaching with the tool. The “What ifs?” were overwhelming and at various points, I regretted 

the decision to pilot this technology.  

In the end, the groups cycled through the simulation, resolutions were determined, and students left 

with an understanding of the value of collaboration between general and special educators. At this 

point, we knew that we had successfully brought together two groups of students to work together 

toward common goals. Due to the nature of the merged class, they learned the art of collaboration 

across disciplines on course assignments and in class discussion. As a result of interacting with George 

and each other in the simulator, together, they practiced skills often neglected in teacher preparation – 

the art of negotiation and navigating some of the difficult conversations among colleagues that many of 

them will face over the course of their careers.   

As a capstone to the course, my co-teacher and I decided to take one final risk: to model self-reflection 

and provide each other constructive criticism during our last class with students. Prior to this class, we 

each created two lists to share. One list noted all the wonderful aspects of teaching together and the 

other list was comprised of ways to refine our collaborative relationship. I had never done anything like 

this before in front of an audience and I was nervous. I was nervous about what the students would 

think, but more importantly, I was nervous about what my co-teacher would think of my reflections and 

was concerned about hearing her constructive criticism in a public forum. Despite shaky hands and 

nervous laughter, we proceeded to expose the soft underbelly of our co-teaching experience to our 

students hoping that they would learn from our experiences. The classroom was quiet as we shared one 

at a time. To be honest, when we were done, I was glad it was over. 

In the end I wondered how these risks paid off (or not). I learned a tremendous amount from my co-

teacher and treasure the late night talks about assignments and the hours upon hours of planning and 



Risk Taking in Education: A Growth Experience 
Talya Drescher 

Allies for Education 2018, 1, 2 
https://journals.library.csuci.edu/ojs/index.php/afe 
 

negotiating. I found the experience of co-teaching and collaboration more valuable than reading about 

theoretical models. As for the students, when asked what they liked about this class, overwhelmingly, 

they responded with expressions of gratitude for being exposed to the collaboration process throughout 

the course, particularly with students outside of their credential program. In reflection, almost every 

student found value in the interactions with George; in fact, George made his way into most midterm 

examinations and personal reflections on the course. Many students appreciated the transparency of 

the instructor experience. When I think about it, the three biggest risks we took had the biggest impacts 

on our students and certainly on me as I look toward planning future courses. 

Bringing risk into the classroom can be uncomfortable but has the potential to pay out dividends. The 

merged course created a collaborative experience that was reflective of their future professional 

experiences. The course also allowed me to experiment with a technology which I will continue to use to 

help students realize the benefit of working together to find classroom solutions. Working with my co-

teacher helped me see pitfalls in co-teaching and the knowledge gained will help me manage 

collaborative relationships in the future. Finally, our students benefitted from the experience by getting 

to see real life modeling of a co-teaching relationship and understand the role of self-reflection in 

teaching.   

I dedicate this paper to my co-teacher, and now friend, who inspired me to take risks with teaching and 

not just step, but leap, outside of my comfort zone.   

About the Author 
Dr. Talya Drescher is an Assistant Professor of Special Education at California State University, Channel 

Islands.  She has over a decade of experience as a K-12 special educator in Los Angeles area public 

schools.  Her areas of research include co-teaching in pre-service programs and the use of mixed reality 

simulation in post-secondary education. 


