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| According to Davis & Varma (in press), adaptation is defined as the real-time adjustments a teacher makes during instruction. Teaching is complex. One way of addressing some of the complexity of teaching is by helping teachers make productive adaptations to materials. |
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Theoretical background:
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Looking at how individual teachers use curriculum materials in their practice shows that teachers appropriate tasks (as-is) from curriculum materials, adapt tasks included in the curriculum materials, or use the curriculum materials as a source of inspiration for developing new tasks (Brown & Edelson, 2003; Remillard, 1999).
Promoting teacher learning through the use of and with regard to curriculum materials and technology relies on recognizing a few key points. First, teacher learning is situated within teachers own practice (Putnam & Borko, 2000). Second, teachers mediate the influence of any curriculum materials and any technological innovation (see, e.g., Remillard, 1999). Third, using curriculum materials and technological innovations effectively requires a rich and integrated knowledge base, as discussed above. Finally, effective teaching practice is a process of ongoing sense-making (Spillane, Reiser, & Reimer, 2002).
Teachers need to adapt even high-quality curriculum materials to better support their own students learning (Barab & Luehmann, 2003; Baumgartner, 2004; Squire, MaKinster, Barnett, Luehmann, & Barab, 2003). This adaptation during both planning and enactment is especially important when the goal is engaging students in meaningful learning experiences. For example, an experienced teacher might adapt a unit to allow students greater opportunity to design their own investigations; on the other hand, a beginning teacher may adapt the same unit to provide more structure. Another teacher might adapt a unit to incorporate experiences to capitalize on her students language or cultural backgrounds. Some teachers make productive changes to curriculum materials toward these ends while others—for example, those who do not deeply understand the rationales behind reforms promoted in some materials—may make unproductive changes (Collopy, 2003; Remillard, 1999; Schneider & Krajcik, 2002).
Taking a broader view of curriculum development in which teachers play an active role is grounded in an assumption that teachers must recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the written curriculum materials they are using (Ben-Peretz, 1990). When teachers change high-quality curriculum materials, the changes must be principled, maintain the integrity of the original design, and work toward attaining the same goals as were the goals of the original (Ben-Peretz, 1990; Bridgham, 1971; Brown & Edelson, 2003; Davis, 2006b; Pintó, 2005). On the other hand, sometimes curriculum materials are not effective as written (Kesidou & Roseman, 2002), and teachers might need to make more significant changes to these materials.
Even experienced teachers may need significant support in learning to make decisions about using curriculum materials effectively, especially when the materials represent an innovative or reform-oriented approach to science teaching that is unfamiliar to the teachers. Preservice and beginning teachers need these same skills, and may in fact need to come to recognize that adapting curriculum materials to meet their needs is (or can be) in fact a part of the professional role identity of practicing teachers. For all these teachers, then, it is important for science educators to provide support for adaptation.
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