AMARILLO, TEXAS -- Teachers in the Canyon Independent School District are collaborating on different education methods. 5 differentiated coaches, 4 are teachers who have stepped out of their classrooms and stepped into others as those coaches. The program to improve student learning started in August. Pronews 7 is shining the spotlight on the program in this week's Region 16 Education report.

"Our main goal is to work with teachers and give them instructional strategies that they can use with their students in the classroom in order to differentiate specifically focusing on those Special ED students," said Paige Tebeest, Lead Differentiating Learning Coach. 

The differentiated coaches spend time in Canyon ISD classrooms where at least one student has to have special needs. The coaches along with teachers collaborate on teaching methods. Even bringing in more hands-on learning techniques, benefiting both teachers and students.

"It's always great to be able to talk to somebody else about your ideas. Or one of the things that are working great for teachers is being able to go into lesson study with the teacher or one of us will teach the morning and one of us will teach the afternoon," said Leah Cruse, K-4 Differentiated Coach.

"We use a system called d-mac and we work with teachers looking at the assessment data in order to determine which students might need more targeted tutorials," said Tebeest.

"We can talk together about specific ways we can meet the needs of the kids so I think through that collaboration I think that's a huge part for teachers and then I think the kids are benefiting from my collaboration because we really, if we're working together I think that says together everyone achieves more, I really think it's true," said Cruse.

Besides the coaches helping improve students performance in the classroom, they're also able to help both teachers and students prepare for TAKS.