ABSTRACT
Why do well-researched innovations so rarely make the leap from research and development to the real-world? What makes it difficult to sustain or scale-up research-based learning interventions? The Learning Sciences has a long history of classroom-based design development, and scholarship, yet relatively few of these efforts translate into lasting classroom change or new ways of organizing teaching, learning, or schooling (Fishman, Marx, Blumenfeld, Krajcik, & Soloway, 2004). A key reason is that much research—even when well-designed and well-intentioned—treats sustainability as an afterthought; a problem of translation left up to practitioners or others to carry out. This chapter describes a methodological approach that takes sustainability as a key commitment for research and design.
