Building Capacity for Research-Practice Partnerships: Needs and Strategies

Improving STEM education in and out of schools depends on the collaborative efforts of educators, policy makers, education researchers, and community leaders. One promising strategy for structuring such collaborations is research-practice partnerships (RPPs) that bring researchers and educators together for sustained joint work around a key problem of practice of mutual concern. In June 2014, the Research + Practice (R+P) Collaboratory held two workshops focused on building capacity for research-practice partnerships in conjunction with the 11th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS). One workshop brought together active partnerships focused on STEM education to identify strategies and needs. A second workshop engaged doctoral student and early career researchers in activities designed to develop the skills and dispositions needed for messy but productive collaborative work.