Design research aims to generate theories and empirical evidence about complex, contextually bounded mechanisms of learning. This often motivates a methodological toolkit that makes use of small numbers of participants in order to closely analyze talk, gesture, and artifacts related to learning. Yet, design research also aims to inform theory and practice on a large scale. This can create a tension because the theory and mechanisms generated from small scale studies can be difficult to implement and study at larger scales. In this paper, we aim to contribute to other efforts to conceptualize design research as an act of scholarship that extends across multiple scales by sharing an approach to characterizing whole class discussions across a large number of diverse students, teachers, and settings.