Running Head: USING THE ADAPT STRATEGY FOR LESSON PLANS

Using the ADAPT Strategy to Facilitate the Thinking Process of Creating Universal Design

Based Instruction Adaptions and Differentiation in Lesson Plans for Diverse Learners

Jordan Ott

Winona State University

USING THE ADAPT STRATEGY FOR LESSSON PLANS 1

Using the ADAPT Strategy to Facilitate the Thinking Process of Creating Universal Design

Based Instructional Adaptions and Differentiation in Lesson Plans for Diverse Learners

The typical classroom environment is meant to be for the average student, however there

are many diverse students in the classroom that have different abilities, needs, and learning

styles. According to Michelle Chamblin, in order to accommodate the variety of learners in the

classroom it is important to make adaptions to the general curriculum to keep everyone engaged,

motivated, and learning to the best of their abilities (Chamblin, 2017, p. 2). College classes for

future educators teach them a variety of different examples of adaptions, however they do not tell

them a process for making these adaptions. (p. 3) The failure to explain how these adaptions are

supposed to be made causes the lesson plans to have a lack of different formats, methods, and

stimulation ideas (p. 6).

There is a plan that is recommended to learn how to properly write adaptions in lesson

plans that follows the acronym FLEXIBLE. This acronym stands for Feasible, Lively,

Eliminated, Explicit, Intentional, Beneficial, Limelight, Evaluated. There are specific questions

that go along with these words to make them easier to follow. These questions are as follows. Is

it feasible to implement this in classrooms? Is the adaption lively enough to engage the students?

Is the adaption able to be slowly eliminated from the classroom? What does this adaption

explicitly address? Is this adaption intentionally going along with a student’s IEP? Will the

adaption truly benefit the student? Does the adaption unnecessarily place the student in the

limelight? How will this adaption be evaluated? This strategy is extremely important in allowing

new teachers to make adaptions that are useful, intentional, and meaningful. The overall goal of

this strategy is assisting teachers with transforming a preplanned lesson into something that puts

the individual learners in mind and makes appropriate adaptions for all (p. 5).
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This article was very useful for my classroom in the future for many different reasons.

The first reason that I found this useful is because it explains that adaptions from the preplanned

curriculum are important not only for students with disabilities but also for students that learn in

different styles. I really appreciated how they broke down the three sections that were important

for adaptions explaining how it is essential to make a curriculum that gives the students options

for the material used to learn the content, the methods used to show knowledge of the content,

and different ways to be engaged in the content. All of these things are important to know in

order to make good lesson plans in the future which will be an essential part of my job when I

begin my teaching career. Making adaptions is a major part of lesson planning in order to help all

of the students in the classroom learn the critical parts of the lessons and be engaged.

Another reason that this article is useful is because it gives good strategies of how to

adapt lessons instead of just giving examples. I found this very useful because the lesson plans

that we had to make in class were very difficult based on just a few examples. Using this way of

creating adaptions would help the lesson planning process go much more smoothly and create a

lot more ideas of how to adapt lessons to each student while still maintaining the integrity of the

lesson. I think that after reading this article and applying the strategy of the FLEXIBLE acronym

I will be much more successful in lesson planning. The information in this article will be very

important specifically for my first few years of teaching when I do not have experience with

making real lesson plans that students will actually be using. After I gain experience in my field

this information will still be useful, however I will rely on it less. All of the information in this

article will make me a better teacher because I will be more prepared for adapting lesson plans

and making the classroom effective, enjoyable, and engaging for all students despite their ability,

learning style, or special educational needs.

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References

Chamblin, Michelle. (2017). Using the ADAPT Strategy to Facilitate the Thinking Process of

Creating Universal Design Based Instructional Adaptions and Differentiation in Lesson

Plans for Diverse Learners. Open Access Library Journal, 4, e3585.