Charting the Landscape: An AERDF Case Study
Within an ecosystem, sits a landscape of diverse players. The Starfish Institute helps you understand this landscape by creating a visual snapshot of who the relevant players are, where those players are working, and what those players are working on.
Case Study: Charting the Emerging Education R&D Landscape
The education R&D sector is rapidly growing. In the wake of the pandemic, heightened calls for racial justice, and a sector-wide demand for evidence-based and scalable solutions, newfound attention and resources have poured into the sector. The Advanced Education Research and Development Fund (AERDF, pronounced like air-diff) launched in 2021 amidst these dynamics, ambitiously focusing on an opportunity to strengthen the existing education R&D sector. AERDF is an inclusive community that discovers breakthroughs in learning through advanced R&D for PreK-12 Black and Latino students, and all students experiencing poverty. They build learning solutions for the quality education students deserve—and because they know the evidence behind why these solutions work, they know they will be impactful for students nationwide.
In AERDF’s Inclusive R&D model, teams of educators, researchers, and developers on equal footing bring their particular perspectives and expertise and work together. To date, the organization has launched three programs – EF+Math, Assessment for Good, and Reading Reimagined – targeted at increasing educational opportunities for Black and Latino students and all students experiencing poverty.
The Challenge: As a newer organization in an emerging sector, AERDF approached The Starfish Institute in 2022 seeking to gain a deeper understanding of the education R&D ecosystem and how they could best contribute to advancing the sector. As we began our work together, we quickly contextualized the education R&D sector as experiencing a growth spurt with many opportunities for learning. In order to grow efficiently and effectively, AERDF and the sector as a whole needed a holistic view of the education R&D landscape. This view would increase individual and collective impact by making it easier to find collaborators, avoid duplicative efforts, and bridge gaps across the field.
The Result: Over the course of seven months, we designed a participatory mapping process, inviting collaborators to help define the education R&D ecosystem and share the R&D activities they are leading. More than 150 educators, researchers, developers, and PreK-12 changemakers contributed to the map. The free, publicly accessible tool shows who is a part of the education R&D landscape, where contributors are working, and what they are working on. And, just like the sector is emerging, the map is also emerging. The map offers a snapshot of the education R&D landscape as it stands today, and AERDF is continuing to think of ways to support an update of this or next iteration maps and connect with more collaborators over time.
At this unique moment in the education R&D sector’s growth, the map serves as a catalytic tool for building the sector in two primary ways:
Accelerating sector collaboration: The map increases visibility about what’s happening in the sector and helps potential collaborators find each other. Collaborators are able to see who else is working on their particular focus area or a complementary focus area, in the same geographic region, or with the same population. The map also illuminates clusters, or areas of convergence, highlighting common themes in the field such as “Research, Design Methods, Data and Analytics” that can be used to find and bring together less-obvious collaborators.
Expanding the boundaries of education R&D: The mapping process found that educators and PK-12 schools often do not see themselves as part of the sector. Another role of the map is to expand the boundaries of what constitutes and who contributes to education R&D – redefining, expanding, and evolving the sector. Further, we identified the important role of connectors– “people who help converge or unite divergent thinking and language of those on both sides of a boundary” – to support breaking down silos and facilitating communication across different parts of the ecosystem.
Learn More
Read EdWeek’s coverage of the map: “New Online Tool Seeks to Map the Universe of Educational Research and Development”
Join AERDF’s Community Garden for Inclusive R&D to get engaged with what’s happening in the field of education R&D and learn about opportunities to address the most pervasive challenges in PreK-12 education
The Experience: “The Starfish Institute is an unmatched team of sector builders. We approached them with a high-level vision of mapping the education R&D ecosystem. The Starfish team helped us grow this vision and bring to life a map that has not only informed the early stages of our organizational growth, but is a promising tool to help build this young, emerging sector. The journey to creating the map was just as valuable as the map itself. Working with the Starfish team equipped us to better understand perceptions around our role in the sector with thoughtful rigor. Alongside their team we were able to make strategic decisions which centered around our mission of building ambitious, inclusive education R&D programs with education practitioners, researchers and developers.
Our organization's work exists to affirm and celebrate the brilliant reader, mathematician, and learner in Black and Latino students and students experiencing poverty in the current programs we support: Reading Reimagined, EF+Math, and Assessment for Good. We are driven to develop promising innovations that must change the learning trajectory in these students’ lives. Teaming with the entire Starfish team was an incredible experience. They always stepped up when we were weighing certain choice points and needed support, and brought so much creativity and energy to our work that our collaboration was an absolute joy.”
Marvin Smith, Chief Public Affairs Officer, AERDF
Anum Malik, Senior Public Affairs Manager, AERDF