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The authors argue that design-based research, which blends empir- ical educational research with the theory-driven design of learning environments, is an important methodology for understanding how, when, and why educational innovations work in practice. Design- based researchers' innovations embody specific theoretical claims about teaching and learning, and help us understand the relationships among educational theory, designed artifact, and practice. Design is central in efforts to foster learning, create usable knowledge, and ad- vance theories of learning and teaching in complex settings. Design- based research also may contribute to the growth of human capacity for subsequent educational reform.

transforming knowledge into change - tons of free resources for evaluation and capacity building.

Educators As Learners: Creating a Professional Learning Community in Your School" -

Resources on: Participatory Action Research Summary Articles - Part 1 & 2 Toolkit for Conducting Focus Groups

Bereiter and Scardamalia (1996) argue that there is a difference between learning and knowledge building. Learning is activity directed towards improving personal knowledge. Knowledge building is trying to improve knowledge itself by considering ideas in regard to their strengths, weaknesses, applications, limitations, and potential for further development. Both learning and knowledge building are needed in schools. This paper traces the development of both in a Grade 5/6 classroom studying physical science. Knowledge transforming discourse is central to knowledge building because it is the means through which knowledge is formed, criticized, and amended (Scardamalia, Bereiter & Lamon, 1994). In this knowledge building classroom, the capacity for transformative discourse was afforded by Knowledge Forum® and classroom processes. Our paper deals with how this class engaged in the process of articulating and changing their learning goals as they reflected on and evaluated their class' knowledge building progress. Our sources of data come from discourse in the Knowledge Forum® database and videotapes of classroom discussion. A second set of analyses designed to capture students' activity in the database used data from the Analytic Toolkit, a suite of tools designed to track each student's use of Knowledge Forum. A third set of measures came from a pretest and post-test of students' knowledge of physical science. Our results showed that students who engaged in knowledge building discourse around central features of physical science also improved their learning.