Modern classrooms are characterized by pronounced learner heterogeneity, thereby confronting teachers with the ongoing challenge of responding to diverse learning needs in the immediacy of classroom interaction. While inclusive education research has generated profound knowledge about principles and conditions of inclusion (de Bruin, 2024), the way in which teachers put this knowledge into situational instructional practice is underrepresented. In this context, adaptive teaching strategies, particularly micro-adaptive strategies, represent a necessary condition for participation and learning opportunities for all pupils (Westwood, 2018). 

Diversity-sensitive teaching features a critical and reflexive engagement with aspects of diversity and categories of difference, appreciation of all students, and the provision of meaningful learning opportunities for the whole class. Accordingly, adaptivity plays a central role in translating diversity-sensitive principles into everyday classroom practice. 

In research on adaptive teaching, micro-adaptive strategies are conceived as spontaneous, situational adaptions emerging in interaction with learners and requiring flexible reactions to individual learning processes (Hardy et al., 2019; Parsons et al., 2018). In contrast to macro-adaptive planning-related decisions, micro-adaptive strategies refer to moment-to-moment adaptations occurring during teaching. From this perspective, adaptivity can be understood as the dynamic linking of learning conditions and learning opportunities within ongoing classroom interaction. Following the Ada-LIT framework (Bach et al., 2025), adaptivity is captured from multiple, interrelated perspectives that connect teachers’ perception, decision, and realization of adaptive strategies. This theoretical framework lays the foundation for the systematic identification and analytical structuring of micro-adaptive strategies and for relating them to different dimensions of heterogeneity in inclusive teaching contexts. By integrating the Ada-LIT framework with inclusive didactic models, an analytical approach that operationalizes micro-adaptive strategies as observable, comparable units is developed.

To operationalize diversity dimensions, the allocation of micro-adaptive strategies is based on inclusive didactic frameworks which model inclusive teaching as a synergy of subject matter, individual learner conditions, and developmental differences (Heimlich & Kahlert, 2014). These frameworks provide a structuring perspective for analysing how adaptive actions address diverse learner needs in classroom practice.

Although research consistently highlights adaptivity as a central strategy for high-quality teaching in very diverse classrooms and as a prerequisite for the fit of individual learner conditions and learning opportunities (Dumont, 2018), existing conceptualizations of micro-adaptive classroom practices often remain at a generic or subject-independent level. Consequently, they usually offer only limited insights into teachers’ situational and moment-to-moment acting in class. To date, empirically grounded models that systematically identify, conceptualize, and make micro-adaptive strategies accessible for ecologically valid analysis and further development of inclusive teaching practices are still lacking.  

Tackling this gap, the AdamS project aims to develop an analytical framework that systematically records micro-adaptive teaching strategies and outlines concrete options for action subject to different dimensions of learner diversity.  Hereby, the framework seeks to broaden the scope of adaptive teaching strategies and to facilitate teachers’ decision-making in inclusive classrooms. The AdamS project is funded by the German Ministry of Education (01JV2401A) and carried out by an interdisciplinary research group from three German universities working in collaboration with teachers within a research-practice partnership. 

The study addresses the following research questions, linking knowledge generation about micro-adaptive teaching strategies to their potential for guiding instructional action in inclusive classrooms: 

1. Which micro-adaptive strategies can be identified in inclusive primary social and science education (Sachunterricht) classrooms?
2. How can these strategies be theoretically conceptualized in an analytical framework?
3. How do these strategies relate to different dimensions of student diversity? 

To bridge the gap between conceptual knowledge on inclusive education and teachers’ situational actions, the study follows a design-based research approach to systematically identify, conceptualize, and empirically verify micro-adaptive teaching strategies in authentic classroom practice.

The AdamS project follows a Design-Based Research approach and focuses development work within an intensive research-practice partnership to identify micro-adaptive teaching strategies in classroom videos (e.g., McKenney & Reeves, 2019). The empirical foundation for identifying relevant micro-adaptive strategies comprises video data (approximately 235 hours) from the DiPoSa project (Schroeder et al., 2025). The material originates from the school year 2022/2023 and documents primary social and science education in twelve classrooms (grades 1–4) across seven heterogeneous primary schools. The methodological approach enables identification of micro-adaptive strategies not only empirically, but also in terms of their ecological validity. The project realizes this approach through three sequentially building, iterative steps: First, an analytical framework is developed and validated through collaborative piloting (1), followed by systematic video analysis (2), and finally theoretical clustering of the identified micro-adaptive strategies with regard to different dimensions of student diversity (3). (1): Development, Piloting, and Validation of the Analytical Framework In the first step, the video analysis is methodologically prepared. Based on relevant literature reviews in adaptation research (Hardy et al., 2019; Parsons et al., 2018) and supplementary literature searches, established micro-adaptive teaching strategies are identified and systematized. The findings are synthesized using the Ada-LIT framework (Bach et al., 2025) and operationalized from multiple perspectives. In cooperation with practice partners, the analytical framework is piloted on selected teaching sequences to examine its applicability and ecological validity, and iteratively refined. (2): Systematic Video Analysis In the second step, the validated framework is applied to video material until theoretical saturation is achieved (no further relevant micro-adaptive strategies are expected). The analysis follows a mixed-methods design (Creswell, 2015): Initially, systematic rule-based coding of the material according to the developed analytical framework is conducted, documenting which adaptive strategies are realized under specific teaching conditions (instructional phase, learning content, student characteristics). In parallel, another analysis team conducts qualitative video interaction analysis on selected sequences to understand the concrete implementation of these strategies in real classroom interactions (Knoblauch & Tuma, 2022; Tuma & Schnettler, 2022). Results are synthesized, triangulated, and prepared as joint-displays (Kuckartz & Rädiker, 2022), creating a systematic overview of strategy distribution and interaction patterns. (3): Theoretical Clustering and Practical Operationalization In the third step, the identified micro-adaptive strategies are clustered and structured according to dimensions of student diversity (e.g., "developmental areas"; Heimlich & Kahlert, 2014) to facilitate the development of a practice-oriented adaptation matrix.

The AdamS project targets the identification and systematization of various types of micro-adaptive strategies in inclusive teaching contexts. To achieve this, strategies displaying situational moment-to-moment adaptions of teachers in response to heterogenous learning conditions are identified. The aim is to analytically describe the underlying functional logic of those strategies in inclusive teaching. The micro-adaptive strategies are integrated into a multidimensional analytical framework. Within this framework, different forms of micro-adaptive teaching are differentiated and assigned to several dimensions of learner heterogeneity as addressed in inclusive education contexts. Here, special needs areas such as cognitive, linguistic, or behavioural needs for support are considered. Furthermore, a complementary model is proposed that systematizes the starting points of micro-adaptive strategies as well as their realization in classroom practice. This model distinguishes whether an adaptive adjustment is teacher-, peer- or learning material-delivered. These modes of delivery do not exclude one another and may co-occur within the same instructional situation. Overall, the contribution provides an analytical framework that operationalizes micro-adaptive teaching strategies in inclusive classrooms and makes them analytically observable and systematically comparable. The outcomes are expected to establish a basis for the analysis of inclusive teaching processes and may enhance teacher training by extending the repertoire of describable adaptive possibilities for action. By situating micro-adaptive strategies derived from authentic classroom situations within a structured framework, the project aligns with current debates in inclusive educational research on how diversity is faced in everyday classroom practice. In perspective, the framework and the model are designed for application across subjects and school forms.

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