Design-based research is uniquely positioned to adapt instructional resources quickly to meet the needs of teachers and students. This chapter explores how researchers adapted and improved two educative tools over the course of two academic years. The educative tools were designed to support scientific argumentation through supporting students to develop task models of NGSS storyline routines. Both educative tools were developed, field-tested, and improved in the context of two different middle school science curricula in the city of Chicago. Iterations were informed by teacher feedback, analysis of student-written work, classroom observations, and analysis of teacher and student surveys. Changes to the educational supports were designed to support student task models, support NGSS storyline routines, support areas of student difficulty in argumentation, and to support the rapid, unexpected, and unprecedented transition to online instruction due to COVID-19 pandemic. Implications suggest benefits to continually revising and improving educative tools through field-testing and user feedback. Future research will explore whether there is a causal relationship between use of these educative tools and quality of student-written arguments.
Easley, K. M., McGee, S., & McGee-Tekula, R., Britt, M. A., Rupp, K., & Higgs, K. (2023). Designing educative tools for scientific argumentation: A case study of DBR before and during the pandemic. Learning, Design, and Technology. In: Spector, M.J., Lockee, B.B., Childress, M.D. (eds) Learning, Design, and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17727-4_178-1