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ScaleReady

ScaleReady is a flexible edtech partnership model that drives scale through learning sciences research and participatory design, ensuring products are usable, adoptable, and effective for educators and learners.

Audiences

EdTech Developers, Educators, Researchers, School and System Leaders

Topics

AI and Emerging Tech, Evidence-Based EdTech, Systems and Leadership

Learning Environments

Adult and Workforce Learning, K-12

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Diverse Female Entrepreneurs Engage in Small Business Planning at Home

Research-Driven Pathways to Edtech Scale
ScaleReady is Digital Promise’s partnership suite for early-stage and scaling edtech companies. Our researchers and educators help you test usability, feasibility, product-market fit, and more while your product is still taking shape, so you’re ready when it’s time to scale.

Digital Promise was an ideal partner — they brought our designs and prototypes in front of teachers and students early on, gathered feedback, and gave us the data to drive development in the right direction. Having this support to ensure that what we built truly resonated with teachers in real teaching contexts was invaluable. — Erik Weitnauer, Graspable Math

What sets ScaleReady apart
Most accelerators focus on capital and connections. ScaleReady focuses on what happens in the classroom, pairing your team with learning sciences researchers and the educators who will actually use your product. It works alongside capital, adding the classroom evidence that capital alone can’t provide.

  • Test while you build. Participatory design informed by the learning sciences show what’s working, and what isn’t, so improvements happen before a product scales, not after.
  • Educators in the room. Access to Digital Promise’s educator networks and real feedback loops. This isn’t a survey after launch. It’s input gathered to help shape the product.
  • Proven model, right-sized. ScaleReady builds on Digital Promise’s research-practice-industry partnership model, adapted for early-stage products.
  • Choose your commitment. Multiple commitment levels let companies start where it makes sense and go deeper when you’re ready, and let funders support a company at a level that fits.
  • Evidence you can act on. Findings from classroom testing give companies, funders, and district buyers a clearer basis for their next decision.

Build better products. Earn educator trust. Create a smarter path to scale.

ScaleReady consists of three programs designed to scaffold and support edtech entrepreneurs’ strategic growth.

Research-Practice-Industry Partnerships (RPIP)

These comprehensive, customized partnerships combine educator learning, collaborative design, and iterative feedback to improve both product and implementation. A one to two year engagement limited to 1-2 companies annually.

Collaborative Research Sprints

These short-term research sprints deliver educator-informed, personalized feedback on one key feature–ideal for partners seeking low-lift user research. A three-month experience twice a year limited to 3–5 companies during each sprint.

Industry Innovation in Action Cohort

These cohorts are designed for early-stage partners to engage deeply in learning with experts from Digital Promise, while also gaining critical insights from potential users. A two-month experience offered twice a year with 5-7 companies in each cohort.

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What is an RPIP?

A Research-Practice-Industry Partnership (RPIP) expands 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.

  • 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.

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Partner With Us

We’re seeking edtech developers for our next Collaborative Research Sprint. During this three-month engagement, you’ll partner with a community of innovative educators who will use your product and share feedback to inform its development.

Looking for other ways to make sure your product reflects what today’s educators and students need? Explore more partnership opportunities with Digital Promise.

Connect with our team