DESIGN-ED: a pedagogical toolkit to support K-12 teachers’ emergency transition to remote online education

Purpose: K-12 educators face persistent and nascent challenges as they grapple with making an emergency transition to remote online modes of engaging with their students. Crossing the digital divide that exists between multi-site educational engagement is challenging. This paper aims to address the particular challenge of maintaining or, perhaps re-conceptualising, the constructs that support social interaction in the face-to-face setting. A second pressing challenge is considering issues of equity when making the emergency transition to remote online engagement that are, in the physical classroom, somewhat mitigated by practitioners and the systems that support them. Design/methodology/approach: DESIGN-ED is the output of a design-based research study. Findings: However, in the rush to support this transition, it is possible that such challenges could be exacerbated if practitioners are not supported by a sustainable pedagogical process to frame their engagement with K-12 students in remote online formats. This paper explores these nascent challenges, presents a conceptual framework and explicates a subsequent design research model the form of a practitioner focussed “toolkit” that has the consideration of equity at its core. The “DESIGN-ED Toolkit” adopts and adapts a contemporary, effective and rapidly iterative design process from industry known as design thinking. Research limitations/implications: The core components of this this process (empathy, definition, ideation, prototype and test) are pedagogically translated for use in complex and dynamic educational settings such as remote online engagement. Practical implications: Lessons learned from the design, development and iterative refinement of this toolkit over three years are presented, and affordances of engaging with such a process are explored. Originality/value: Lessons learned from the design, development and iterative refinement of this toolkit over three years are presented, and affordances of engaging with such a process are explored.