Cultural-Historical Activity Theory Approaches to Design-Based Research (PDF)

William R. Penuel is professor of learning sciences and human development in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder, USA. His current research examines conditions needed to implement rigorous, responsive, and equitable teaching practices in science education.With colleagues from across the country, he is developing and testing new models for supporting implementation through long-term partnerships between educators and researchers.

Michael Cole's research focuses on the role of culture in human development, with a special emphasis on the role of schooling. Since the early 1980's he has engaged in a series of educational intervention projects motivated by theories and methodologies ideas inspired by the work of Russian cultural-historical developmental psychology, combined with ethnographic methods favored by American cultural anthropologists. Relevant publications describing this work include Cultural Psychology (1996) and The Fifth Dimension: An afterschool program built on diversity (2006).

D. Kevin O'Neill is Associate Professor of Education and Technology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. The main focus of his research for the past decade and a half has been the teaching and learning of history with the aid of digital technologies. A more recent focus of his scholarship has been critique of design-based research methodology, and lessons that learning scientists can learn from design in other fields, such as aeronautics and architecture.