Design research in mathematics education: assessing progress and identifying future challenges

In the first part of this paper, Ihighlight recent advances in design research evidenced by the five core papers of this special issue. These advances include planning classroom design studies with an eye toward scale from the outset, design studies that are investigating and supporting the development of cadres of accomplished professional development facilitators, and design studies that are investigating how to support the development of school system capacity to take up and adapt potentially productive innovations. In thesecond part of the paper, Idiscuss three significant challenges for the future. The first concerns the challenges inherent in specifying the learning goals that orient various types of design studies. Thesecond is the challenge of thinking in terms of systems of supports for learning and of seeing those systems as aspects of the school and school system contexts in which educators develop and refine their practices. The third is the challenge of ensuring that aconcern for the equitable distribution of students’ learning opportunities is integral to all types of design studies.