Yael Kali and Tamar Ronen-Fuhrman: Making Expert Design Knowledge Useful for Novices

In order for novices to take advantage of design guidelines (design principles, narratives or patterns), a pedagogical framework is required. This study explored the learning processes of 14 groups of graduated students in education who used a pedagogical model aimed at assisting them to design technology-enhanced curriculum modules. The model utilizes a set of design guidelines called the Design Principles Database. Two rubrics were used to evaluate students’ design processes: (a) the Maturity Of their Design Artifacts (MODA rubric) which was expressed as the degree to which students were able to translate their design ideas into concrete design artifacts, and (b) the degree to which they designed artifacts that followed a socio-constructivist pedagogical approach versus a teacher-centered transmissionst model (epistemology rubric). Outcomes indicated that as students developed their concretization skills, they were able to become aware to and reduce gaps between their “theoretical” and “applied” epistemologies. By making their design ideas more concrete, students were able to carry out productive negotiations about these ideas with instructors and peers, and to explore them in relation to theory and to expert design knowledge in the Design Principles Database.