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.

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This three phase longitudinal multiple-case study, framed by positioning theory, investigated how four novice teachers learned to use professional judgment in their literacy instruction. Data sources from coursework, student teaching, and novice teaching were included. Interviews, observations, researchers’ observational notes, and school and classroom demographics were compiled and analyzed to create case reports. Findings indicated while they differed in their use of professional judgment as novice teachers, participants learned this skill in student teaching rather than in coursework, which caused us to question whether teacher preparation programs are preparing teachers to use professional judgment or training them for technical compliance.

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This research sought to develop argument as a problem-solving process by adding debate to social studies instruction with three groups of fifth-grade students. This design-based research (DBR) reports on the ways that instruction was refined across three topical units to develop argumentative agency and a critical participatory literacy. Students addressed current issues extended from historical events and engaged in issues collaboratively through debates, then individually in their writing. DBR approaches afforded a description of the factors that enhanced and inhibited argument development across the debate cycles and chronicled the modifications that were put in place to refine the instruction. A retrospective analysis led to pedagogical assertions that illuminate what was learned about the interrelationship of oral and written argument and the instructional refinements that were required to support arguments as a means of solving problems.