DeLect: Join us for two online lectures on DBR in December

This presentation introduces the conceptualisation and theoretical grounding of the Boundary Task (BT), a new educational device designed to address the teaching and learning of mathematics in vocational education. Anchored in the frameworks of Boundary Objects (Star & Griesemer, 1989) and Boundary Crossing (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011), the BT was developed in response to the observed gap between school mathematics and the situated knowledge practices of vocational students. Drawing on literature from mathematics education and practices from professional learning (Bakker et al., 2012; Boistrup & Lindberg, 2020; FitzSimons, 2014), the study defines a set of design principles—both semiotic and semantic—guiding BT construction. These principles aim to foster cognitive reorganisation, embodied engagement, and the autonomous mobilisation of mathematical meanings within contexts initially perceived as non-mathematical.

The design process requires a first-level boundary crossing among teachers from different disciplinary areas, whose collaboration enables the identification and reformulation of meaningful mathematical content within professional domains. In the implementation of the task, students are then invited to engage in a second-level boundary crossing, negotiating and reconstructing connections between school and workplace knowledge. The BT thus emerges as a flexible and transferable device, supporting mathematical sense-making across domains and promoting interdisciplinary collaboration in both classroom and teacher education contexts. The first implementation of the BT was carried out in 2025 in a vocational training school for future cooks and bartenders, at the boundary between mathematics and professional culinary practice, with proportional reasoning as the central mathematical content. This experience constitutes the initial cycle of a design-based research process, with the dual aim of improving the design and broadening the related theoretical understanding.

Initial stages of design-based research projects are typically limited to small sample sizes and single classrooms. As the intervention design matures, however, an important question arises: How can an innovative design be scaled up once its theoretical soundness and practical feasibility have been confirmed? This talk addresses the often underexplored challenges of implementing and spreading educational innovations beyond their original setting.

Drawing on six years of research on fostering oracy in foreign language classrooms, I will illustrate how a project that began with the design of oral communication exams in one German secondary school evolved into the development of a task-based learning and assessment framework (‘The OraCycle’; Siepmann 2024; Siepmann & Bruns forthc.). Over time, the framework was adopted by several state pedagogical institutes (Landesinstitute) as the basis for teacher training programs and instructional materials, thereby extending the project’s reach. In addition, it is disseminated via a website and a (planned) book publication to appeal to an ever larger audience.

I will highlight critical incidents, challenges, and moments of serendipity encountered when scaling the project from a single school to a state-wide level. Based on these experiences, I will outline strategies that can support design researchers in anticipating and navigating logistical, structural, and social obstacles. The talk will conclude by considering how design-based research can contribute to the sustainable diffusion of innovation and knowledge transfer within education systems.