Collaborative design as a form of professional development
What does the research say?
Research by Voogt, et al. (2015) shows that collaborative curriculum design is a promising form of teacher professional development when it incorporates three critical features: situatedness (learning occurs in meaningful contexts connected to teachers’ workplace and everyday teaching realities), agency (teachers act as agents of change with collective and distributed responsibility for creating curricular materials), and cyclical learning (iterative processes of questioning, analyzing, developing, testing, and reflecting on practice).
The research demonstrates that teachers engaged in well-scaffolded collaborative design processes over extended periods show increases in knowledge, skills, and beliefs about teaching, while also developing technology integration competencies and instructional planning abilities through the integration of design and enactment cycles. Studies across all contexts found that students showed increased interest and engagement, while teachers developed stronger collaborative practices and sense of ownership over curriculum innovations. The effectiveness depends on high-quality, scaffolded processes that allow teachers to reflect on practice with peers and experts, create materials they consider usable in their contexts, and engage in sustained collaboration rather than one-off professional development.
Why is it important?
Teachers’ collaborative design has become critically important in the 21st century educational landscape because it directly addresses the complex, interconnected challenges facing modern education. Persistent research-practice gaps require collaborative processes where teachers work with experts to translate cutting-edge educational research into practical, contextually-appropriate curriculum materials, ensuring that evidence-based practices actually reach classrooms. The imperative to foster 21st century skills like critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication demands that teachers move beyond traditional content delivery to design learning experiences that authentically develop these competencies—a complex undertaking that benefits from instructional design support and collaborative problem-solving. The shift toward competency-based learning and performance assessments requires teachers to fundamentally re-conceptualize how they design learning experiences and assess student learning, moving from standardized approaches to authentic and performance assessments that capture deeper learning—a transformation too complex for individual teachers to navigate alone. Meaningful technology integration goes far beyond simply using digital tools; it requires understanding how technology can transform pedagogical approaches and enhance learning outcomes, which necessitates collaborative exploration and iterative refinement of tech-enhanced curricula.
Finally, as teaching and learning evolves into a design science, educators must develop sophisticated design thinking capabilities, understanding how to align curriculum, pedagogy and assessments to integrate learning objectives, learner needs, contextual constraints, technology and assessment strategies in systematic ways—competencies best developed through collaborative design processes where teachers can share expertise, iterate on solutions, and collectively build professional knowledge. This transformation requires teachers to master design thinking, incorporate design principles, practice design processes, and implement design tools that enable them to approach curriculum development with the same rigor and intentionality found in other professional design fields, skills that are most effectively developed through collaborative learning and practice. Collaborative design thus serves as both the method and the outcome needed to successfully navigate 21st century educational transformation.
What are the implication for education?
The research on collaborative design as professional development has profound implications for transforming education systems to meet 21st century demands. Teacher professional development must shift from traditional one-off workshops to sustained, workplace-situated collaborative learning that positions teachers as active curriculum creators rather than passive implementers. Organizationally, schools must restructure their cultures to support collaborative team-based work and invest in the infrastructure necessary for effective design processes. Curriculum development needs to be democratized, moving from top-down mandates to collaborative teacher-researcher partnerships that bridge research-practice gaps and enable responsive innovation based on classroom evidence. Technology integration must focus on transformative pedagogical approaches rather than mere tool adoption, requiring teachers to develop technological pedagogical content knowledge (Mishra, 2006) through collaborative exploration and refinement. Assessment and accountability systems need realignment to support performance-based evaluation approaches. Teacher education programs must be redesigned to integrate design experiences and model the iterative, collaborative practices they want teachers to use. Finally, educational policies and leadership must create enabling conditions through flexible policies, redefined teacher roles that recognize educators as designers and innovators, and systematic approaches for scaling effective collaborative design practices while maintaining local adaptation and ownership. These implications collectively suggest that collaborative design serves as both a catalyst and mechanism for the fundamental transformation needed to prepare education systems for 21st century learning demands.
reDesignED applies this research by offering teacher professional learning opportunities that support teachers in becoming the designers of evidence-based solutions for their local classroom.
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