EDIT 803- Design-based research
Description:
This course provides an introduction to systematic cycles of design-based research in education. It is applicable to all content domains to explore cycles of research within design, development and implementation of educational and training interventions.
Reflections:
I signed up for this course as a research methods course to explore the methodology of conducting design based research since I considered it to be central to the design of many learning environments. Since I am interested in enhancing student learning through designing learning environments, I found this course to be a useful practice in doing so. Initially,  I was interested in working on enhancing an LMS that is built by an IT team at a university in Lebanon, so I designed a design research plan for that purpose based on existing literature and suggesting several iterations of design that could result in an efficient tool. Not only did this task teach me about the affordances of exisiting successful LMSs, it also contributed to my critical thinking when designing digitally-based learning environments. It also helped me understand the structure of existing design-based research studies through articles that we read and analyzed in class. This course also taught me that when designing a study in the future, it is worth looking at the different components and be realistic in figuring out whether a study can be conducted by an individual researcher or needs a team of researchers or designerss to work on it. Below are the outcomes of the course and what I learned from it through the literature review and the design-based research plan.
Literature review for the affordances of existing LMSs, Ghania Zgheib- (Final) Design based research cycle