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The Engagement Collaborative for Research and Equity (ENCORE), a subnetwork of the AIMS Collaboratory, brings together product developers, researchers, and educators to investigate how edtech design can impact teaching and learning. Using common measures and shared research protocols, ENCORE generates evidence in real classrooms and synthesizes insights for the broader field.
Building on three years of rapid, feature-level edtech research, ENCORE’s expanded strategy focuses on enhancing math instruction and curriculum by improving the quality, reliability, coherence, and classroom-readiness of embedded AI components.
ENCORE’s work is anchored in three core outcomes that were identified as critical for improving math instruction for Black and Latino students and students experiencing poverty:
Treating these core outcomes as essential catalysts for student learning, ENCORE identifies what works, why it works, and how it can be scaled to strengthen professional learning, support teacher capacity, and boost student success.
ENCORE is part of the AIMS Collaboratory, a network dedicated to advancing equity-focused, evidence-based solutions in education. Together, we are co-designing strategies with educators and partners to improve teaching and learning at scale.
See how educators, researchers, and product teams design together for teacher impact and student success. Explore elements of the cohort, educator, student, developer, researcher, and learning partner experience and roadmap below.
ENCORE brings together educators, developers, researchers, and learning partners to collaboratively design, test, and refine products. Through iterative cycles of design and feedback, each cohort ensures products are informed by classroom needs, grounded in research, and guided by shared measures.
Educators and students co-design tools to ensure they are relevant, culturally responsive, and practical for real classrooms. Their insights inform what works, enhance teaching practices, and boost student motivation and engagement.
Product developers partner with schools and districts to pilot tools through rapid iteration. Collaborating directly with teachers and learners helps them identify key features, improve usability, and create products that are scalable and impactful.
Researchers take an embedded approach, collaborating directly in the co-design process to build data sets, prototype, and refine study designs with educators and developers. This iterative model strengthens ENCORE’s evidence base, ensuring insights are rigorous, timely, and grounded in real classrooms.
Learning partners provide independent rigor and accountability by defining shared measures, ensuring equitable and ethical protocols, and offering external validation. Their involvement builds trust in the results and supports their application across the field. Examples include WestEd, CASEL, International Society for Transforming Education, English Learners Success Forum, Diffusion Venture Studio, and Learning Data Insights.
Across cohorts, ENCORE has engaged dozens of organizations and classrooms nationwide. Its collaborative design process drives innovations that are tested, refined, and shared broadly, strengthening teaching, accelerating student learning, and scaling solutions that work.
| Event | Description |
|---|---|
| Kickoff | Establish partnerships and shared measures. |
| Co-Design and Prototyping | Design sprints with educators and/or students and developers to develop product features. |
| Rapid Cycle Testing | Real classroom implementation with data collection. |
| Individual and Collective Learning | Through shared measures, understand the impact and value of ENCORE solutions. |
| Convenings and Events | Cross-cohort and field sharing of lessons learned. |
| Findings and Scale | Report insights and expand adoption. |
ENCORE is funded by the Gates Foundation and works in collaboration with a diverse set of education partners nationwide.
Explore ENCORE’s growing library of reports, guides, and recordings for insights on co-design, conducting edtech research, and how to shape an equitable future for emerging technology in education. For a broader view of resources created across AIMS initiatives, you can also explore the AIMS Inventory of Public Goods, including toolkits, frameworks, and case studies that support evidence-driven, equitable edtech.
Are you interested in helping shape the future of teaching and learning? Do you have questions about ENCORE or how to join?
