While a crisis is a terrible context in which to start an RPP, it can reinvigorate an RPP in need of a minor tune-up.
When school buildings shuttered last year, I was certain that our research-practice partnership (RPP) had closed, too. For nearly four years, Stanford University had been partnering with three local school districts on research related to English learners (ELs). But in March 2020, the work we had been doing to document ELs’ access to high school math courses, although important, was simply not a high priority. Our district partners were scrambling to procure laptops, install hotspots, and coordinate meals for students. Administrators and teachers were feverishly creating Nearpod accounts and devouring Zoom tutorials in preparation for virtual learning. And researchers were spending spring break moving their university classes and laboratories online. On top of all that, due to an ill-timed trip to the Northeast, I was stranded in Boston. It’s fair to say that I was not prepared and, quite frankly, not very excited to manage our California-based project from 3,000 miles away.
Given these circumstances, I never would have guessed that now, 15 months later, our partnership would be stronger than ever. In the fall, we initiated a series of new research projects, all focused on improving outcomes for students classified as long-term English learners. With the support of our district partners, our research team has conducted dozens of interviews, examined samples of student files, and analyzed mathematics achievement and course-taking data, all without ever stepping foot into a physical conference room or sharing an obligatory cup of coffee.
How did we do it?
Many of the ingredients for our success can be found in the articles in the April 2021 Kappan. One such ingredient is what Stephanie Brown and Annie Allen (2021) call synchrony. Typically, researchers and practitioners operate on different time scales and value different kinds of data. But in our partnership, we have all made a concerted effort to, as Brown and Allen say, “sync up” our work and meet each other’s needs. For instance, at the request of one of our school partners, we expanded our research plan to include an analysis of their accelerated middle school math pathway. In return, our partners digitized important documents, which we otherwise could not have accessed during school closures. Put another way, researchers agreed to support practitioners to achieve their short-term goals, while practitioners opened themselves up to, as one district partner said, “thinking beyond PPE” (i.e., focusing on their most immediate needs).
But synchrony does not happen without well-established relationships, as explained in the April article on the Houston Education Research Consortium (Potter, Baumgartner, & López Turley, 2021). Before COVID hit, our partnership was already three years old, and many of us had been involved the whole time. It was only thanks to that accumulation of knowledge and trust that we were able to restart — and even expand — our projects in autumn 2020, months after they were so abruptly halted by the pandemic.
All in all, what I’ve learned is this: While a crisis is a terrible context in which to start an RPP, it can reinvigorate an RPP in need of a minor tune-up. Given the time and resources required to build and maintain healthy relationships among researchers and practitioners, it may seem counterintuitive to prioritize them at a time when reopening plans and safety protocols are top of mind. And, no doubt, RPPs divert some precious resources that could go to more immediate concerns. Still, and as the April 2021 Kappan suggests, RPPs will continue to support teachers, school and district leaders, and their students long after face masks and case counts are distant memories.
References
Brown, S. & Allen, A. (2021). The interpersonal side of research-practice partnerships. Phi Delta Kappan, 102 (7), 20-25.
Potter, D., Baumgartner, E., & López Turley, R.N. (2021). Reducing educational inequality through research-practice partnerships. Phi Delta Kappan, 102 (7), 26-29.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jennifer Altavilla
JENNIFER ALTAVILLA is a PhD candidate in Educational Policy at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, and affiliate faculty at the Alder Graduate School of Education. She is a former elementary- and middle-school English Language Development teacher and English Learner Program Director.
