Constance Steinkuehler is a doctoral student in Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison specializing in cognitive science applied to education and micro-analytic methods for analyzing social interaction. Her interest is in (online) social interaction as a mechanism for learning and her research focus is on individual and social argumentation. Since 1998, she has been working as a research assistant for the Secondary Teacher Education Project (STEP) and, during the past year, she has led the design and development of an online problem-based learning environment (STEP pbl).

Dr. Sharon Derry is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the principal investigator of STEP, a program of research that includes the design and empirical investigation of the use of videocases as a basis for collaborative learning and problem solving in teacher education. Sharon has led numerous large-scale, theory-based instructional technology research and development projects over the past decade that focus on individual and collaborative problem solving, mathematics literacy, interdisciplinary research, case-based learning in teacher education, and the development and assessment of professional Internet learning communities. Based in the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER), her recent work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the National Institute for Science Education, and the Office of Naval Research,