Reinventing Learning: A Design-Research Odyssey

Design research is a broad, practice-based approach to investigating problems of education. This approach can catalyze the development of learning theory by fostering opportunities for transformational change in scholars ’ interpretation of instructional interactions. Surveying a succession of design-research projects, I explain how challenges in understanding students ’ behaviors promoted my own recapitulation of a historical evolution in educators ’ conceptualizations of learning – Romantic, Progressivist, and Synthetic (Schön 1981) – and beyond to a proposed Systemic view. In reflection, I consider methodological adaptations to design-research practice that may enhance its contributions in accord with its objectives