Publication

Co-design in action in the ITEST program

This research brief from the STELAR Center at EDC highlights how NSF ITEST projects are utilizing co-design approaches in their research and development. In education, co-design is a highly facilitated, team-based process that actively involves diverse stakeholders in designing, prototyping, and evaluating educational innovations to address specific needs or goals (Penuel et al., 2007; Roschelle et al., 2006). 

To prepare this brief, we identified a set of conference papers and articles related to nine active or recently completed ITEST projects that engaged stakeholders in the co-design process. Drawing on these publications, we summarize lessons learned from the projects and share strategies used to design and develop more inclusive and contextually relevant technology-enhanced tools, resources, and programs for pre-K–12 STEM education. 

Related Projects

AI Educator Make-a-Thon (DRL-2048746)
DiPaola, D., Moore, K. S., Ali, S., Perret, B., Zhou, X., Zhang, H., & Lee, I. (2023). Make-a-thon for middle school AI educators. In SIGCSE 2023 Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Vol. 1, pp. 305–311). Association for Computing Machinery.

AI for Georgia (AI4GA) (DRL-2048502, 2049029)
Gelder, W., Yu, X., Touretzky, D., Gardner-Mccune, C., & Uchidiuno, J. (2025). From lecture hall to homeroom: Co-designing an AI elective with middle school CS teachers. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education.

Birds and Bots: B-Squared (DRL-2147699)
Lyublinskaya, I., Okita, S., Walker, E., & Yan, X. (2024). Developing teachers’ cultural competencies through co-design of robot-coding mathematics activities for Latinx and Black elementary school students. London Review of Education, 22(1), 1–14.

Chicago Geospatial Semester Project (DRL-1759360, 1759370, 1759371)
James, K., McGee, S., Uttal, D., & Kolvoord, B. (2020). Design-based research in GIS-infused disciplinary courses: Toward a design framework. In M. Gresalfi & I. S. Horn (Eds.), The Interdisciplinarity of the Learning Sciences, 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences – ICLS 2020 (Vol. 2, pp. 1111–1117).

Computer Science (CS) Frontiers (DRL-1949472, 1949488, 1949492)
Grover, S., Cateté, V., Barnes, T., Hill, M., Ledeczi, A., & Broll, B. (2020). FIRST principles to design for online, synchronous high school CS teacher training and curriculum co-design. In Proceedings of the 20th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research (pp. 1–5). Association for Computing Machinery.

Making Waves with Radio (DRL-2005784, 2053160)
Dixon, C. G., Hsi, S., & Van Doren, S. (2022, December 25). Keeping voices in the room: Values clarification in codesign for equitable science and technology education. Curator: The Museum Journal, 66(1), 9–28.

Native American Middle-School Students Afterschool STEM (NAMSAS) (DRL-2048987)
Chandrasekera, T., Colston, N., Asino, T., Orona, C., Allen, K., Howard, A., Bott, P., & Adewumi, O. (2022). Work-in-progress—decolonizing the digital divide: Problem based spatial design through immersive technology for STEM education in minority populations. In 2022 8th International Conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN) (pp. 1–3). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

STEM Career Connections (STEMCC) (DRL-1948709, 1949299, 1949322)
Bhaduri, S., Biddy, Q., Elliott, C. H., Jacobs, J., Rummel, M., Ristvey, J., Sumner, T., & Recker, M. (2022). Co-designing a rural research practice partnership to design and support STEM pathways for rural youth. Theory & Practice in Rural Education, 12(2), 45–70.

WeatherBlur (DRL-1933491)
Harris, M., Brasili, A., Peterman, K., Collins, I., Hafford, A., Plummer, A., Salter, L., & Train, M. (2023). A model of programmatic co-design with teachers: Five factors for success. CoDesign, 20(3), 499–514.