Educational Designer

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Between Hawaiian communities and tourists there exists a dynamic tension of boundaries and welcoming. While Hawaiians welcome the tourism that fuels the local economy, they rightly demand respect for their lands and sacred spaces. Rather than a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit, rising tourist vandalism and disrespect has led to substantial discord between entitled visitors to the islands and those who live and steward the land. This paper shares one Hawaiian community’s efforts to design and implement a community centered, geographically responsive curricular project known as the Advocacy Apps, a set of youth designed and constructed phone applications that inform tourists of the rich histories and expected codes of conduct in Hawaii’s wahi pana, or sacred spaces. Using the dual lenses of consequential learning and rightful presence, this paper explores youth agency within a design process that centers their community, culture, geography, and temporality. Through a series of vignettes of student experiences, we explore the ways in which student rightful presence can be fostered through explicit design choices.

Tofel-Grehl, C., Hansen, T. (2025). When the Land Whispers: Engaging Geographic Consequential Learning with Indigenous Hawaiian Youth. Educational Designer, 5(18). ISSN 1759-1325
Retrieved from: http://www.educationaldesigner.org/ed/volume5/issue18/article73/

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Increasingly in our work as designers in mathematics education, we are conscious of, and grappling with, systemic issues of marginalisation and proximity to power. It is apparent that much work needs to be done to ensure that mathematics education is a welcoming space for students with a wide range of historically minoritised identity markers. This paper reports on the design and development of a set of guidelines intended to support designers through a process of attention focusing on issues of equality, diversity, inclusion, and belonging in order to create mathematics education resources that support access to mathematics for students whatever their identities.

Macey, D., Rycroft-Smith, L. (2025) Developing Guidelines for Assessment and Resource Design In Mathematics Education to Support Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging. Educational Designer, 5(18). ISSN 1759-1325
Retrieved from: http://www.educationaldesigner.org/ed/volume5/issue18/article74/

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We describe a lesson model, recently developed as part of our MinD project (Math in Democracy), for designing mathematics lessons that promote engagement with civic deliberations. A core tenet driving the development of these lessons is that a mathematical lens is essential to understand aspects of many societal issues and that these mathematical elements should be part of the public discussion and deliberation about the issues. Such math-informed civic dialogues can lead to a fuller understanding of the issues, accounting for more perspectives, resulting in more fair and just actions. Another tenet driving our work is that education should contribute to the development of skills needed for engagement with civic dialogue and political decision making across different forms of government. In this article, we describe how the current MinD design principles were developed, through multiple iterations, from the Encounters program which uses a dialog protocol to engage a wide variety of community stakeholders in civic dialogue. We also share specific examples to illustrate the development process and analyze how the final lesson structures reflected design principles which adhere to the original elements of the Encounters dialogue protocol.

Staples, M., Seeto, K., Wei, X. (2025) Designing for Mathematically Enriched Democratic Dialogues: The MinD Lesson Model. Educational Designer, 5(18). ISSN 1759-1325
Retrieved from: http://www.educationaldesigner.org/ed/volume5/issue18/article75/

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This paper presents design principles to create digital clinical simulations that support pre-service mathematics teachers in developing equitable teaching practices: first, how to contextualize moments of decision-making; second, how to illustrate the complexity of decision-making through sequential pathways; and third, how to emphasize the broader consequences of decisions about equity. By focusing on the intersection of instructional decision-making and power dynamics in classrooms, the paper addresses how to design simulated approximation experiences that elicit reflection about deficit perspectives and systemic inequities in mathematics education. The authors illustrate how such design principles, when coupled with improvisational teaching decisions in a simulation made on the Teacher Moments platform, enable reflection on how a teacher's instructional choices can influence student participation, cognitive demand, and the redistribution of power. This work contributes to the field of mathematics teacher education by providing a framework for integrating critical equity considerations into the design of practice-based learning environments.

Barno, E., Benoit, G., Dietiker, L. (2025) Designing Digital Clinical Simulations to Support Equitable Mathematics Teaching. Educational Designer, 5(18). ISSN 1759-1325
Retrieved from: http://www.educationaldesigner.org/ed/volume5/issue18/article76/

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Looking across the collection of ten papers in this special issue of Educational Designer, in this editorial, we summarize the larger need, patterns in what was learned about design principles and design processes, and challenges in writing and reviewing papers in this area. This special issue explores the urgent need to integrate justice, equity, and belonging into educational design, particularly in response to persistent exclusions and inequities exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and broader sociopolitical shifts. The ten papers engage with diverse conceptualizations of justice and belonging, highlighting frameworks such as equity, accessibility, student agency, and cultural representation. Contributions address the characteristics of designed products, including curricula, professional development tools, and student materials that manifest justice-centered approaches. Additionally, insights into inclusive design processes emphasize stakeholder collaboration, diverse team composition, and iterative refinement. Common challenges in this work include resisting oversimplification in educational interventions, navigating tensions in defining justice across different contexts, and addressing resistance from those who do not perceive systemic inequities. The review process also revealed difficulties in balancing specificity and generalizability, as well as the emotional weight of criticism in justice-focused scholarship. Ultimately, this special issue underscores the necessity of sustained, reflective engagement in designing for justice and belonging.

Dietiker, L., McKenney, S., Rycroft-Smith, L., Schunn, C. (2025) Editorial for Special Issue of Educational Designer: On Design for Justice and Belonging. Educational Designer, 5(18). ISSN 1759-1325
Retrieved from: http://www.educationaldesigner.org/ed/volume5/issue18/article77/