Educational Design & Development: Planning for a STEM Learning Research Transformation

Terc Inc, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

TERC and the International Society for Design and Development in Education (ISDDE) support a virtual workshop to examine the rigorous scholarship behind educational design and explore its potential for the transformation of STEM teaching and learning environments. The virtual workshop engages a core group of ISDDE principals in the articulation and examination of design processes. Key questions are: What do we know about the elements of effective design as well as the process of designing? What features of designs and the process of designing transform STEM learning? The planning group develops a collection of papers that present fundamental tenets surrounding design issues in the domains of instructional materials and professional development for STEM learning and teaching. A virtual panel of respondents and critical thinkers respond to these papers and help develop an agenda for further discussion and research conceptualization. Four to five papers are commissioned that address fundamental tenets about what to design and how to design for enhanced student learning in the domains of STEM instructional materials and professional development. The papers are to address various characteristics of enhanced student learning such as Universal, Backward and Strategic Design, embedded formative assessments, electronic communities, personalized learning, cyberlearning, culturally responsive teaching and learning. Up to 10 "correspondents" prepare written comments about the commissioned papers. Their comments are circulated among project participants and one or more virtual discussion panels are convened to assemble and analyze the comments. A final report that informs subsequent research and development in the use of design in STEM learning is compiled and disseminated. Instructional materials are presently being developed without a theory of good design underlying the activity. The virtual workshop develops an active community of people who have long experience in developing instructional materials and professional development and people with expertise in design to engage in substantive dialogue to produce an up-to-date body of knowledge to inform a research agenda for designs and design processes to transform STEM teaching and learning.