Researchers recognize adaptive teaching as a component of effective instruction. Educators adjust their teaching according to the social, linguistic, cultural, and instructional needs of their students. While there is consensus that effective teachers are adaptive, there is no consensus on the language to describe this phenomenon. Diverse terminology surrounding the same phenomenon impedes effective communication and comprehensive understanding of this important aspect of classroom instruction. Moreover, researchers have studied this phenomenon using a variety of methods, in various disciplines, with different results. Therefore, our research team completed a comprehensive literature review of the empirical research studying adaptability across academic disciplines. In this article, we describe how adaptive teaching is defined and conceptualized in the education research literature from 1975 to 2014, the methods used to study instructional adaptations, and the results of these studies.

Abstract:The historical under-representation of diverse youth in environmental science education is inextricably connected to access and identity-related issues. Many diverse youth with limited previous experience to the outdoors as a source for learning and/or leisure may consider environmental science as 'unthinkable'. This is an ethnographic study of 16 diverse high school youths' participation, none of who initially fashioned themselves as 'outdoorsy' or 'animal people', in a four-week summer enrichment program focused on herpetology (study of reptiles and amphibians). To function as 'good' participants, youth acted in ways that placed them well outside their comfort zones, which we labeled as identity boundary work. Results highlight the following cultural tools, norms, and practices that enabled youths' identity boundary work: (1) boundary objects (tools regularly used in the program that facilitated youths' engagement with animals and nature and helped them work through fear or discomfort); (2) time and space (responsive, to enable adaptation to new environments, organisms, and scientific field techniques); (3) social support and collective agency; and (4) scientific and anecdotal knowledge and skills. Findings suggest challenges to commonly held beliefs about equitable pedagogy, which assumes that scientific practices must be thinkable and/or relevant before youth engage meaningfully. Further, findings illustrate the ways that fear, in small doses and handled with empathy, may become a resource for youths' connections to animals, nature, and science. Finally, we propose that youths' situated identity boundary work in the program may have the potential to spark more sustained identity work, given additional experiences and support.

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This article defines the process of adaptive teaching in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). We assert that teachers who possess a well-developed STEM pedagogical content knowledge, a constructivist paradigm of teaching and learning, and an ability to draw on a vision while reflecting on and during teaching to help negotiate challenges are well positioned to engage in the process of adaptive teaching. This article acknowledges the valuable knowledge, skills, and dispositions that novice teachers bring with them as they enter the workforce. To illustrate the process of adaptive teaching in STEM, we use an in-depth case study of a novice teacher. Our conclusion offers a discussion of how teacher educators and those who provide professional development services during induction can best support teachers in their development of becoming adaptive, and therefore, effective.

This case study explored the nature of one elementary school teacher's adaptive teaching during an integrated science and literacy unit. Data were collected during four consecutive weeks of instruction, weekly interactive planning sessions, 20 classroom observations, and 20 post-lesson interviews. Our analysis suggests that adaptations may be established during planning or emerge while teaching. This study also indicated that an adaptive teacher uses ongoing formative assessment to scaffold students' learning. A coding system that typifies how and why a teacher adapts instruction across disciplines can be used to examine adaptive teaching. Implications for teacher educators and researchers are discussed.Article: