ABSTRACT
"Design Based Research Forum" is an intensive curriculum-development practicum for graduate students in training to become educational researchers. The course introduces the design based approach to educational research and, more broadly, themes, theories, methods, and lore of the learning sciences field. Design research is a proactive approach to educational inquiry, in which problems germane to the learning sciences emerge in the context of debating and evaluating best solutions for enduring problems of instructional practice. Design research could be viewed as a constructionist approach to educational inquiry, in the sense that the practitioner's core design and development efforts create opportunities for more significant conceptual growth emanating from deeper insights informing each iterated decision. The chapter argues that the residual effect might be in the form of epistemic practices, in particular new ways of thinking and communicating about matters of educational research.
