A systematic review of the design work of STEM teachers

Background: To support a paradigm shift for 21st century learning, teacher design work is emphasized by conceptualizing teachers as designers. Despite the fact that teaching is increasingly referred to as a design science, both teacher educators and curriculum developers know little about how to enhance teacher design work in technology-enhanced learning environments. Further, teachers’ design knowledge, design experience and supports available to them are not articulated in a systematic manner.Purpose & Method: To address these issues, this study reports a systematic review of the literature on the design work of teachers within technology-enhanced learning environments, in STEM domains. In this review, there are four main themes: the context where teachers’ design work takes place, the form that the design work took, the aspect/phase of design process that the paper focuses on, and details of any supports that assist teachers in the work of design.Findings: Teacher design work takes place in a variety of contexts, and teacher design work also takes many forms. Research that reports on design work tends to focus on the implementation and evaluation components of the design process. Teachers have access to a variety of supports, including design materials and design frameworks.Conclusions: This synthesis identifies future areas of research in supporting STEM teachers’ design knowledge.