The project proposes a workshop led by researchers at SRI's Center for Technology in Learning, in collaboration with the University of Michigan, to bring together researchers who are working to understand the implementation of innovations that support systemic STEM education reform. The workshop participants include researchers both within and outside education who have developed theoretical perspectives that can inform frameworks of STEM education implementation in the context of systemic change. Products of the workshop will include: (1) a long-term research agenda with prioritized grand challenges related to the implementation of STEM innovations; (2) a research network for sharing instruments, methods, and data; (3) an edited volume on improving implementation of STEM innovations in education systems.
This project developed a new approach to help bridge the gap between research and practice called "design-based implementation research," or DBIR. The approach helps bridge this gap by: focusing researchers’ attention on persistent problems of practice faced by educators today engaging teachers and educational leaders as full partners in designing solutions to those problem engaging in systematic inquiry to study the impacts of those solutions on teaching and learning, and helping build capacity of educational systems for continuous improvement. The primary activity of the project was an invitational workshop, held in May 2011. Work resulting from the that workshop has already had a large impact on research policy and practice. Today, requests for proposals at the National Science Foundation and Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education encourage submissions that use the DBIR approach. Other foundations, such as the George Lucas Educational Foundation and MacArthur Foundation, are funding research using the DBIR model. The model is infuencing research practice as well. Peer-reviewed articles published on the model have been cited already over 100 times by other scholars. The Principal Investigators have given multiple invited talks on the model to large research audiences. More than 200 researchers have attended subsequent workshops and webinars we have given on DBIR, and interest is so high we have developed a model for an annual, self-sustaining workshop on DBIR techniques. Educational leaders are interested in the model as well, and we have had broad participation and co-leadership from practitioners in developing the model. In addition to the workshop, the research team developed a range of other products: Five peer-reviewed articles that describe the key principles of DBIR and potential applications within science education to scientific and academic audiences. The essays, published since 2011, have already been cited a total of 117 times by other scholars and referenced in requests for proposals for research at the US Department of Education and NSF. An edited volume published by Teachers College Record that presented theories, methods, and cases of DBIR. The volume was an outgrowth of the invitational workshop. It included 15 different chapters written by 39 different authors, including three practitioners. An evolving web-based resource for practitioners and researchers interested in learning about DBIR (http://learndbir.org). The resource has over 100 different resources is updated continually with new resources provided to us by teams engaged in DBIR. A series of workshops and webinars addressing the needs of early-career researchers to expand their research work with DBIR ideas and concepts. This work continues under a new NSF-funded effort, the Research+Practice Collaboratory, which has a strand of work focused on supporting junior scholars’ development. DBIR represents a shift in how we think about design, development, research, and implementation of interventions that have an impact on real-world education practice.
