By Marguerite Huber
November 29, 2017
How do we determine what research will be most relevant and useful for our alliance members? Our work is defined with our partners.
Through Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest’s structured research agenda-setting process, alliance members first identify priority topics for the alliance. Then, alliance members generate research questions associated with each priority topic. Finally, members vote on the most important topics and questions. The preferred questions form the alliances’ research agendas, which in turn guide our future work.
Leah Breen, champion for the Midwest Alliance to Improve Teacher Preparation, described the experience of the research agenda-setting workshop as “very different than working with other research partners. It really was about what we needed and using their tools and resources to give us the information to improve our policy and practice.”
Our newest video provides an overview of this research agenda-setting process and shares tips for how you, too, can develop a collaborative research agenda.
REL Midwest adapted its research agenda-setting workshop materials from REL Northeast and Islands resources. For more information and advice about facilitating the research agenda-setting process, please reach out to Carrie Scholz (cscholz@air.org).
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