Tools
The tools referenced below include ones developed for the learnDBIR website, as well as tools that are hosted by other initiatives. They are included here, because they can facilitate specific kinds of work that DBIR projects typically undertake, at different phases of a research and development process.
Tools for Partnership Initiation, Maintenance, and Evaluation
This resource provides a sample agenda and communications for initial meetings among potential partners. There is a study guide for teams who are interested in building partnerships to use to prepare for initial meetings and build excitement about a potential partnership.
Use this tool’s guiding questions to help establish and sustain equity in a research-practice partnership.
Visit the NNERPP website to learn more about and connect with other research-practice partnerships.
Use these questions early in a partnership to support “discovery” conversations between new partners about values and expectations across organizations.
This is a framework for assessing RPPs along five dimensions: (1) cultivate trust and relationships; (2) engage in inclusive research or inquiry to address local needs; (3) support practice or community organization in making progress on its goals; (4) engage with the broader field to improve educational practices, systems, and inquiry; and (5) foster ongoing learning and develop infrastructure for partnering. (NCRPP+NNERPP)
Learn More at the foundation's microsite on research-practice partnerships
Use this protocol to explore the self through critical reflection on identity and stereotypes and disrupting the myth of neutrality in team building and partnership development. [Renee Crown Wellness Institute]
Select from this set of tools to “see,” learn about, and grow towards collaborative health in a particular RPP project. Tools are organized along the five dimensions of the RPP evaluation framework.
Tools for Deciding on a Focus for Joint Work
This presentation provides an overview of tools and processes, including Fishbone Diagrams and Five Whys, for discussing and negotiating problems to focus on in DBIR.
Use this protocol to elicit multiple perspectives and support reframing of a problem of practice. (ACESSE)
This tool can be used to establish community and build connections among team members, to learn about the unique and shared perspectives and expertise that each team member brings to the co-design process, and to break down hierarchies and invite full participation of all collaborators. (Renee Crown Wellness Institute)
Part of deciding on a focus of joint work involves identifying research questions that address a problem or goal related to equity that is important to interest holders and can advance theory and knowledge. This protocol provides a tool for partnerships to generate such questions.
This activity is intended to help develop empathy for different perspectives on a problem of practice that a partnership is working to address.
[Paywall article] Read more about the critical role that up front and ongoing negotiation of a focus of joint work plays in partnerships that use a DBIR approach. Some of the complexities of defining problems of practice are explored in this conference paper.
Tools for Organizing the Design Process
Use this presentation to orient to purposes and key considerations for how to organize a co-design team and process.
This presentation offers images of what it can look like to organize for co-design in different kinds of partnerships (e.g., with schools and with community partners).
Use this protocol to identify people who can take on different leadership roles in design activities.
This tool is designed to support researchers to think critically about how and who they invite to participate in a collaborative design or implementation team and to think critically about how team members will work together in collaborative and equitable ways. (Renee Crown Wellness Institute, ACESSE)
A resource that describes different ways teams can find their way into a focus for co-design. (R+P Collaboratory)
To learn more about different ways that co-design can be organized, visit the Family Leadership Design Collaborative web site (co-design cases under resources).
Have participants complete this inventory to help make visible the relevant experiences and assets co-designers are bringing to a design team.
Use this tool to help prioritize iteration on designs in ways that are informed by participants’ experiences with design. (Renee Crown Wellness Institute)
Tools for Doing Research in DBIR
Use this guidance to design a research plan. This advice can guide a proposal for a funded partnership or research study, or can support partners as they develop cycles of inquiry in an existing partnership.
This paper provides the conceptual foundations for a key strategy for studying implementation and participant experiences in DBIR, practical measurement. (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching)
Use this simple heuristic to guide a discussion where a team decides how large to make a project, based on resource constraints and participants’ will to engage in supporting implementation and iteration on design.
Use this protocol to structure a meeting where partners review data on implementation collaboratively among researchers and their partners in schools and communities.
This presentation describes purposes and methods for studying implementation in a way that can inform iterations to designs to make them more effective, equitable, and sustainable.
This chapter highlights the theories and methods of DBIR, providing an understanding of the role that theories of implementation play in informing study design.
Developing Capacity for Equitable Transformation in Systems
This list can help expand participants’ vision and understanding for how to support partners’ work in ways that builds collective capacity for change.
[Paywall article] Read about how mutual learning within partnerships can build capacity for educational systems transformation.
Use this protocol to identify key actors, processes, and policies that influence an RPP’s ability to achieve its key aims. (ACESSE)
Use these prompts for discussing the individual, organizational, and partnership level learning and capacity building that is evident and yet to materialize. (NCRPP + NNERPP)