Teachers' Instructional Adaptations: A Research Synthesis. (April 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Parsons, Seth A.; Vaughn, Margaret; Scales, Roya Qualls; Gallagher, Melissa A.; Parsons, Allison Ward; Davis, Stephanie G.; Pierczynski, Melissa; Allen, Melony
• Is Part Of: Review of educational research. Volume 88:Number 2(2018)
• Page Start: 205
• Page End: 242
• Publication Date: 2018-04
• Subjects: adaptive teaching -- responsive teaching -- teacher decision making -- teacher adaptation -- teacher metacognition -- teacher flexibility; Education -- Periodicals; Education -- United States -- Periodicals; Education -- Bibliography -- Periodicals; 370.7
• DOI: 10.3102/0034654317743198
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0034-6543

Abstract

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.