Adaptive Teaching in the Context of Increasing Standardization

• In Event: Pedagogy and Learning Environments

Abstract

The current accountability context in education results in teachers, particularly those working with high-poverty students, increasingly facing instructional mandates to use restrictive curricula to fidelity. These mandates contradict research finding that the most effective teachers are thoughtfully adaptive. Although it is widely recognized that high-quality teachers are adaptive, little research has explicitly studied how and why teachers adapt their instruction. Our sustained research agenda has attempted to address this gap in the literature. For the past eight years our research team has used observations and teacher interviews to document teachers’ instructional adaptations and their reflections on their adaptations. In this proposal, we present the cumulative findings from this research agenda.

Authors

• Seth A. Parsons, George Mason University

• Margaret Vaughn, University of Idaho