Teachers and Researchers as a Design Team: changes in their relationship through a design experiment using Computer Support for Collaborative Learning (CSCL) technology

Design experiment is a new approach to educational research that could lead to a major change in educational practices in schools. This article analyses a design experiment carried out in Japan, focusing on the elementary science curriculum, and using a Computer Support for Collaborative Learning (CSCL) technology, called Knowledge Forum®. The authors outline two particular challenges faced by participants in this experimental work: the redesign of the classroom environment, and the management of the design team. They illustrate how, in its first year, this team failed both in successfully managing its teamwork and in designing classrooms in such a way that students could engage in knowledge-building activities. Such failure, they argue, was because team members continued to work as members of different and distinct communities, i.e. researchers from the community of the learning sciences and teachers from the lesson study community. The authors analyze how they attempted to create a new institutional context for the design research in the second year of the project, in order to improve the organizational structure and work of the design team. By collaboratively engaging in every step of the lesson study, conflict between participants in the design team could be discussed and the distinctive perspectives of the educational communities of the participants recognized. Distributed/shared cognitive processes in the instructional design, together with classroom-based analysis, they argue led the team to be more productive.