ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the productive messiness of design decisions around tools to support students' grasp of the fundamental elements of argumentation-claims, evidence, and the reasoning connecting them. It elaborates the overall context of Project Reading, Evidence, and Argumentation in Disciplinary Instruction (READI) because it introduced several constraints on the design process. The chapter discusses participatory design process for one component of the larger effort: Evidence and Interpretation (E/I) charts, a tool we conjectured would support students in differentiating claims from evidence. The authorsproposed to design Evidence-Based Argumentation (EBA) modules that would provide students with inquiry tasks that scaffolded opportunities to develop the knowledge. Design-based research (DBR) as theorized within the learning sciences aims to enhance theoretical understanding of mechanisms and processes of learning, while grounding inquiry in improving learning in situ in real-world learning environments. Requirements of the Institute for Education Sciences' (IES) call for proposals shaped the research and design space for READI.
