RPIPs expand on traditional research-to-practice collaborations by bringing developers of education technology products directly into the R&D process alongside educators and researchers. Together, all parties work together toward a common goal grounded in the learning sciences and centered on classroom and learner needs. Guided by a Digital Promise facilitator through learning and reflection exercises structured feedback loops, every participant’s voice and unique value proposition are equitably included. Interactions among the parties are designed with a focus on collaboration, which enables purposeful interactions that can help bring potential future conflicts and opportunities into focus.
The result? EdTech products that are more likely to be used appropriately and achieve their desired impact for learners, while building every participant’s capacity for future collaboration.
An RPIP has four key components:
- Professional Learning: The participating educators receive professional learning on design thinking and perspective taking, which will enable them to represent their students’ needs effectively. They also receive technical training on the edtech tool.
- Collaborative Research Design: The educators, researchers, and developers collaboratively refine the study focus based on their context, content, and technical knowledge. Additional research questions may be added.
- Feedback Loops: The educators, researchers, and developers engage in cycles of software development, testing, and analysis of results. A Digital Promise facilitator leads design meetings where educators report on their experiences, researchers collect and analyze data, and developers make and report on product improvements.
- Product and Practice Improvement: Together, participants generate recommendations for classroom best uses, UX design, content improvements, and professional development/support materials.
In an RPIP, every partner involved receives a unique benefit from their participation.
- Industry/Product Developer: Developers can quickly gather feedback to build products that are more usable and feasible to implement. This helps edtech providers solve their most pressing challenges: ineffective use leading to ineffective outcomes; low rates of adoption; slow scale; churn and downsell.
- Practitioners: Educators engage in a rich professional growth experience. Benefits include access to new technology tools and deeper understanding of current tools, development of new instructional practices and resources, insight into the research and development process, and the potential for national and global connection and influence. Participating school systems benefit because the educator brings these experiences, insights, and learnings to the local context, and can help advance teaching, learning, and innovation.
- Researchers: Researchers rapidly generate knowledge for the field of learning sciences and disseminate products that can help close the research-to-practice gap. Digital Promise researchers bring expertise in artificial intelligence (AI), learner variability, mathematics, literacy, and much more. Digital Promise also has relationships with leading
