Understanding Problems of Practice

Classroom practitioners are often asked to adopt continually changing standards, to be collaborators and reflective practitioners, and to make new and evolving technologies an integral part of their practice. Understanding Problems of Practice: A Case Study in Design Research describes a process for thinking about and reflecting on innovative practice – the design research process. Each of the five phases of the design research process is exemplified by a discussion of how the authors used this process to create a technology education course for perspective secondary educators. In Chap. 2, the authors explore the central role understanding a problem of practice plays as the first phase in the design research process. They present the need to establish and understand the magnitude, importance, and urgency of the problem before investing time and energy to solve the problem. They present strategies useful for understanding a problem of practice including asking a series of questions to establish the need for a solution and to contextualize the problem by identifying possibilities and constraints. Next, they briefly explore techniques used by design researchers to gather information to construct a rigorous and viable understanding of the problem. They conclude the chapter by presenting the first design research phase of a case study to create a technology education course for perspective secondary educators, focusing on the ways in which they as classroom practitioners used a literature review and a review of their personal knowledge to understand the problem and derive initial design decisions.