Design-Based Research in the Context of Curriculum Development: Benefits and Challenges

• In Event: Intensified Algebra: A Design-Based Research and Development Project for Double-Period High School Algebra

Abstract

Intensified Algebra is a “research and development” project for which design-based research (DBR; Cobb, et al., 2003; Kelly, et al., 2008) has been a primary mode for conducting work and advancing the curricular materials and instructional model. While DBR is a major aspect of project activity, effective implementation of DBR has been a challenge for multiple reasons, several of which will be discussed in this presentation. Despite the challenges, DBR has played a crucial role in directing the curricular and instructional design and redesign process toward attaining desired student achievement goals.

What was to be designed, implemented and studied is a year-long curriculum with substantial consequences for teachers, students, and participating schools. The press to create multiple, coherent instructional units sequenced over an entire year often overwhelmed the capacity to study the components and design principles and to feed back information into the design/re-design process. This doesn’t mean that serious DBR didn’t occur in the Intensified Algebra project and have an impact on curricular and instructional redesign – it did occur and substantially impact the final product. However, the lag between what was learned and its incorporation into revisions was often less fully considered than one would typically desire. In point of fact, the developers needed to make decisions and do things on a time frame that allowed less than full consideration of all the evidence by the researchers.

A second issue in conducting DBR was the grain size for systematic study – the “Goldilocks” effect of choices about levels of analysis that are not too big, not too little, but just right! In reality the developers were focused on the day-to-day and moment-to-moment aspects of the units and lessons. Another critical time scale issue is understanding how classroom practices and culture evolve over multiple lessons and units and the ebb and flow of student learning indicators. Early on in the DBR process it became clear that the research could not inform every curricular decision. Thus, focal concepts and lessons within units were prioritized based on the centrality of the mathematics components, in lieu of other components of the curriculum design (e.g., linguistic supports). In the long run this was the right place to focus the research effort.

A third issue surrounds the pragmatics of working in urban schools in the current climate of educational accountability. In general, the lives of teachers are driven by a host of classroom, school and district pressures that often render it difficult to follow their implementation plans, let alone for researchers to engineer the processes of data collection even when both have been established and agreed to well in advance. This creates a less than optimal situation for purposes of assisting design and redesign or for determining efficacy with respect to student outcomes.

We will discuss what we have learned about each of the above challenges, ways in which they were “overcome,” and the benefits derived from the DBR process as the Intensified Algebra program was developed, implemented and evaluated across successive years.

Authors

• James W. Pellegrino, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Susan R. Goldman, University of Illinois at Chicago