Emily Hang Duong believes in a nimble, transparent model of integrated co-teaching that allows students to be active participants in their learning. “My students want to work hard,” she says of the group of students with disabilities she focuses on in her 7th-grade science and math classes at IS 234 in Brooklyn. Duong, a second-year special education teacher, and her co-teacher prepare three sets of materials for each lesson: one for students who are on grade level, one for those who are accelerated and one for those who are approaching grade level. She believes in designing lessons that challenge all students and encourage them to push themselves.

“They all understand that the different materials don't mean they’re not smart — just that some students might need more help,” she says. And because she has regular student conferences in which she shares her assessment data, they are kept apprised of their learning and growth in real time. This, she says, motivates them to work hard. “The fact that they know there is somewhere to go — it gives them an opportunity to grow," she says. "Even the accelerated students know they will be challenged with the extension questions.”

Duong, who immigrated to the United States from Vietnam in 2016 to attend New York University, originally majored in economics but switched to education in her junior year. She appreciates the way in which special education is delivered in New York City and particularly in her school — an integrated model that encourages movement for students who are meeting or exceeding their IEP goals. “In Vietnam, we didn’t have differentiation within a classroom — students were sorted by ability into classes,” she says, and there was very little opportunity to move.

As the math and science teacher, she is alert to students’ individual strengths and weaknesses across subjects. A child who is struggling in chemistry, for example, might be given more challenging content in biology if they are consistently showing growth over weeks or months. “They always have a clean slate with a new topic and can move up if they demonstrate an understanding,” she says.

Duong takes great care to prepare detailed, differentiated lessons that meet her students’ needs.

In a lab measuring density in fluids, for example, she premeasures the liquids for students who need that support. “What we see with students with IEPs is they are easily discouraged,” she says. “So if they have to waste all their energy on measuring — which is not the point of the lesson — they are losing the benefits of the lab.” Duong reduces the challenges by allowing them to focus on evaluating density and not on getting the measuring right. “My goal is to make sure megacognition isn’t wasted on the directions themselves but is spent on the lab.”

“The object isn’t to decrease the rigor of the lesson,” she says, “but to increase access points. At the end of the lesson, we get to the same place.”

General education students also can move into her group if they need extra support, and her careful recordkeeping means that at reevaluations she can sometimes recommend a student have certain IEP supports removed or that the student be declassified entirely.

Duong credits her own struggles in middle school with her ability to connect with students with behaviorial and other challenges. “I was a rough kid, a behavior-challenged student,” she says. “When I catch them sneaking in cellphones, and they say ‘Ms. Duong, how did you know?’ I say, ‘I did the same thing in middle school — only I was better at it.’”

Duong considers her primary role to be laying out a path that will eventually lead each child to success. “Kids want to do well when they can do well," she says. "There’s always more to learn.”