Navigating Tensions and Structuring Co-Design Together

• In Event: 54.042 - Co-Design in Practice: Seven Case Studies

Abstract

Purpose
Involving teachers as co-designers helps ensure that teachers’ expertise is integral to the design, and that the design is both feasible (Couso, 2016) and adaptable to a variety of contexts (Ormel, Roblin, McKenney, Voogt, & Pieters 2012). But, what does co-design look like in practice? This paper examines the tensions that arose in designing one unit within the Composing Our World project and how teachers and researchers collaborated to navigate those tensions and simultaneously structure the work of co-design.

Perspectives
This paper draws on co-design literature within design-based research, which views teachers as integral members of the design team and as agents of change (Couso, 2016; Hillgren, Seravalli, Emilson, 2011; Penuel, Roschelle, & Shechtman, 2007). This paper also draws on community-based research frameworks, which value the expertise and experience of both teachers and researchers and their potential to collaborate (Strand, Murullo, Cutforth, Stoecker, & Donohoe, 2003).

Data sources
I examined data sources from 2015-2016, including notes from monthly design team meetings, meeting notes with individual teachers, email correspondence between team members, and design team summaries by researchers. In addition, data specific to the design team teachers was analyzed, including a mid-year survey and transcripts from interviews.

Methods
The co-design team worked together for one year and included 6 people: 3 teachers from 2 districts, 2 graduate students, and one professor. As a member of the co-design team, my role was one of participant observer (Spradley, 1980). I analyzed data sources using first-cycle coding, employing deductive coding to identify segments of data that revealed how the team approached co-design and engaged in collaboration, as well as inductive coding to remain open to emerging analysis (Miles, Huberman, & Saldana, 2014). In the second-cycle coding, I looked for patterns in the data. I continued analysis by writing analytic memos and reconstructions with segments of data that represented critical moments (Carspecken, 1996).

Results
Two key tensions emerged in the data, which influenced the way the design team structured the co-design work. First, designing curriculum for a local context that can later be scaled involves tacking back and forth between designing with a local focus and designing for a broader context; second, designing curriculum requires a balance between conceptual planning and concretizing the unit into actionable learning activities. In an effort to address these tensions and simultaneously value the expertise of all members, the design team struggled to come to consensus and collectively decided to suspend team planning to focus on the individual iterations of the units unique to each teacher’s context. Meetings shifted to include researchers and one teacher at a time, resulting in final design iterations that honored local contexts over broader ones.

Significance
Surfacing tensions and making them visible may be generative for determining ways to iterate, improve the design, and develop conditions that lead to “productive co-design experiences” (Penuel et al., 2007, p. 53). This paper adds to the literature on co-design by offering one case study, providing insight into the practical challenges of engaging in co-design work with teachers and researchers.

Author

• Ashley Seidel Potvin, University of Colorado - Boulder