[edX] Week 6 - Design Based Research

This week, the course (11.132x Design and Development of Educational Technology) is all about design-based research(DBR) and research of educational technologies in the "wild" as means for continuous improvement of the tool students will be promoting in the final pitch.

For instance in one of the first interviews, Barry Fishman rapidly defines what DBR is and contrasts it with design bases implementation research(DBIR). According to Fishman, DBR is about designing activities (or interventions, as we often call them in this field) and testing them in some sort of a real file setting. DBR implies that the theory or the intervention are adjusted and revised based on the results that are obtained during testing. In addition, DBIR suggests that there should also be a component of long term implementation of successful interventions into everyday practice. In essence, it is about adapting interventions developed in perfect conditions into a sustainable and scalable practice.

In my case, it was a bit boring week because I already had my share of readings about DBR and many variants including DBIR. The only thing that caught my attention were the proposed examples of activities with technology use in the classroom. Frankly, the examples and the reflection that were proposed sounded so familiar to many things I have done in my McGill class (see my posts on EDPE 640) that I felt like I'm in a Groundhog Day movie of my own.

One of the interviews that saved the day (or should Is a the week?) is the interview with Susan Yoon about Biograph project in high-school. The interview is really all about DBR implementation in the case of Biograph project. However, there are some details that are particular to this specific research. First of all, the researchers have used some teachers as resources for the second iteration of the project. These teachers have helped in preparing new "cohort" and differentiating the material. Moreover, an extensive bank of activities and resources was developed in a second phase of the research to help teachers in their every day life. I would actually say, from the description by Yoon, that the project is an example of DBIR and not DBR: the focus on sustainability and scalability seems to be at the heart of the research.

Nonetheless, I was so interested in the idea of teaching complex systems to high school students that I did not even watch the interview with Mike Murray, one of the teachers participating in the Biograph project. I just went directly to resources of the week and to Biograph website: http://education.mit.edu/projects/biograph. naturally, I have immediately found some familiar elements: StarLogo Nova - a simulation tool discussed in my week 3 post. Unfortunately, the available information is rather succinct and limited to a general description. Google Scholar did not return any relevant results for searches on Biograph, project, Susan Yoon, complex systems and their combinations. Despite my great interest in the topic of complex systems and even more interest in the idea of teaching this topic to high-school students, I think I will have to wait a little or spend a lot of time searching for information.

Overall and despite my multiple complaints above, I think it was one of the most interesting weeks for me. It was exciting mostly because of the complex systems project Biograph. It intrigues me. How can you teach something to K12 students that many university students do not get? What is actually taught? What resources are used? How long does it take? What can I apply in my own programming classes? Can I adapt some ideas to Quebec high-schools and CEGEPs? I will be definitely looking into it more in depth as soon as I find some information.