In the course Educational Design Research (EDR) master student teachers collaborate in groups to design and evaluate lesson materials. EDR aims to enhance future STEM teachers in making justified choices, to learn how educational research is conducted, and to reinforce their critical, academic attitude as a teacher. By collaborating in a studio with two supervisors and by connecting to and within schools, these future teaches focus on enhancing, improving and innovating STEM education.

Design of the program

The questions that elicit the design of the materials come in the form of challenges. Examples of last and current year lesson materials that have been designed are a lesson series about climate change or a curriculum trajectory on robotics. These challenges are put forward by schools in the network of ESoE. Representatives from these schools act as project owner.

In the first phase of EDR, students perform an problem analysis, where they explore the current situation and wishes of the project owner. Students also explore scientific sources that relate to the challenge. Based on both the context exploration and the literature study, students formulate a problem statement and aims and they develop initial design principes.

In the next phases, designing and evaluating the lesson materials go hand in hand in a cyclic process. For example, students interview the project owner or teachers in the schools about the relevance of a first draft. Or, when the lesson series is further developed, a walk-through is organized to explore the feasibility of the materials. The students conclude the project by answering their research questions and sharpening the design principles.

Learning objectives

EDR has two main, overarching objectives:

(1) making justified choices about teaching, focusing on student learning. The justification is based on theoretical insights/concepts and is shaped/adapted to the students’ context.

(2) (further) developing an academic, inquiry, critical attitude.

For each product, specific learning goals have been formulated.

Scale and structure

EDR starts in the second quartile, and runs three quartiles. Roughly speaking, the problem analysis phase is conducted in the first quartile; the design and evaluation phases in the next quartiles. Midway, there is an intermediate poster market, and at the end, a final presentation session. EDR awards 15 ECs. In the current year (2025-26), 23 students are enrolled in the course, working on five different projects.

 

Successes and challenges

EDR is now in its fourth year of implementation, and still under development. The main issues from the first year have been improved. The scheduling of the course itself as well as how this relates to the other courses in the program is optimized. The assessment procedure, including the rubric, has been improved. Students are enthusiastic about the course, and mostly create good products. Project owners are very satisfied with what the students have developed.

Current challenges exist in the level of engagement of the project owners and the possibilities to design, evaluate, and implement the materials in classes, and to collect data.

 

Vision for the future

With the Connects project and insights, we hope to promote project owners to be more involved in the projects and to be a learning participant; and to enhance supervisors’ scaffolding. With intermediate deadlines for first versions of the products, we hope that students start writing earlier on, so that they do not experience a huge pick of workload at the end of the year, and so that enough time for feedback and revisions remains. Finally, we hope that, in the future, we have long standing collaboration and partnerships with schools, so that the way of working becomes part of their culture.