Edtech Insiders
Edtech Insiders
Why Inclusive R&D Matters: AERDF’s Auditi Chakravarty on Building Better Solutions
Auditi Chakravarty is CEO of AERDF (the Advanced Education Research and Development Fund). AERDF applies Advanced Inclusive R&D to find potentially transformative teaching and learning solutions that can scale, centering on the assets, strengths, and needs of Black and Latino learners and all learners experiencing poverty. Auditi also chairs the Board of Bottom Line, a national college access and success organization, and is a venture partner with LearnLaunch Accelerator. A former high school English teacher, Auditi holds a BA in English and M.Ed in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.
💡 5 Things You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- How AERDF models inclusive research by engaging students, educators, and researchers throughout the design process.
- Why centering Black, Latino, and low-income learners in R&D creates solutions that benefit all students.
- How AERDF’s three programs—EF+Math, Reading Reimagined, and Assessment for Good—are driving impact in education.
- The challenges of breaking silos between research, practice, and product development in education.
- The potential of AI to accelerate equity in education—and why it’s crucial to align it with evidence-based practices.
✨ Episode Highlights:
[00:01:51] Introduction to AERDF’s mission inspired by DARPA’s innovation model
[00:03:58] Centering Black, Latino, and low-income learners in R&D for solutions that benefit all students
[00:09:45] Building cross-sector collaboration to bridge gaps between research and practice
[00:22:22] Teachers feel ownership when involved in the co-design process
[00:30:25] Why edtech solutions must align with evidence to serve underserved communities effectively
[00:46:53] Creating an ecosystem of funders to support risk-taking and innovation in education
[00:48:31] AI as an accelerant for good or bad, depending on how it is used and supported by evidence
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🎉 Presenting Sponsor:
This season of Edtech Insiders is once again brought to you by Tuck Advisors, the M&A firm for EdTech companies. Run by serial entrepreneurs with over 25 years of experience founding, investing in, and selling companies, Tuck believes you deserve M&A advisors who work as hard as you do.
[00:00:00] Auditi Chakravarty: We believe that it is really important who is included and centered in the research. Knowing who is included matters when you're developing new science and new solutions. And furthermore, those of us who've been working in education know that Black and Latino learners and learners experiencing poverty are disproportionately impacted by a lack of access to great learning opportunities, and they're also underrepresented in R&D.
When we center these learners who have been most distanced from opportunities, we can create new solutions that we know are going to work for all students. It really also helps us to expand our understanding of how all children learn.
It adds nuance to the existing science and ultimately It's going to benefit all learners and it allows us to answer a critical question that increasingly is the question In education research, which is what works for whom and under what conditions?
[00:00:59] Alex Sarlin: Welcome to EdTech Insiders, the top podcast covering the education technology industry. From funding rounds to impact to AI developments across early childhood, K 12, higher ed, and work. You'll find it all here at EdTech
[00:01:19] Ben Kornell: Insiders. Remember to subscribe to the pod, check out our newsletter, and also our event calendar.
And to go deeper, check out EdTech Insiders Plus, where you can get premium content. Access to our WhatsApp channel, early access to events and back channel insights from Alex and Ben. Hope you enjoyed today's pod.
[00:01:44] Alex Sarlin: Auditi Chakravarty is the CEO of AERDF, the Advanced Education Research and Development Fund. AERDF applies advanced, inclusive R& D to find potentially transformative teaching and learning solutions that can scale, centering on the assets, strengths, and needs of Black and Latino learners and all learners experiencing poverty.
Auditi also chairs the board of Bottom Line, a national college access and success organization, and is a venture partner with LearnLaunch Accelerator. A former high school English teacher, Auditi holds a BA in English and a Masters in Education in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana.
Auditi Chakravarty, welcome to EdTech Insiders. so
[00:02:34] Auditi Chakravarty: much. It's so great to be here with you today, Alex.
[00:02:37] Alex Sarlin: It's great to have you here. You know, AERDF is a really interesting organization, and as we jump in to the real meat of it, can you just give our listeners who may not know about AERDF a little bit of the elevator pitch?
What is it? What does it do?
[00:02:51] Auditi Chakravarty: Yeah, sure. So AERDF is a national nonprofit organization that's dedicated to advancing research and development and pre K through 12 education. So we were Founded in 2021, and we were modeled on a model that exists in other industries, particularly in the government. There are ARPAs, Advanced Research Project Agencies, such as DARPA and ARPA Energy.
And we also see this in sectors like biotech, for instance, where there is this real discipline around doing R and D that is based on science. And so the idea was, can we bring that same model into the field of education, set that up as a nonprofit organization and use this to model how this work can be done.
And it can be a model for the private sector, for the public sector. And our focus is to develop ambitious five year R and D programs. That address major teaching and learning challenges. And we do so by drawing on community driven evidence and insights, as well as the learning sciences and all of the things that we know from learning science are important for learners.
And we take all of that evidence and we translate those fundamental insights into usable knowledge. Practical practices, equitable approaches, and transformative tools. And we do so through a method of inclusive research and development, which I can share more about as we continue the conversation today.
[00:04:25] Alex Sarlin: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, when I hear DARPA, right. The DARPA was the project that was sort of the original. organization that spawned the internet. So really big, ambitious projects. And you talk about these five year projects. So let's talk about this inclusive research that you just ended on, you know, what inspires it if, and you in particular to focus on inclusive research and development and to use the learning sciences and the R and D that you're mentioning specifically for black and Latino learners and for those experiencing poverty.
[00:04:57] Auditi Chakravarty: Yeah, so similar to what you would expect to see in other fields, for instance, medical research, we believe that it is really important who is included and centered in the research, and that that matters. Knowing who is included matters when you're developing new science and new solutions. And furthermore, those of us who've been working in education, For our careers, we know that black and Latino learners and learners experiencing poverty are disproportionately impacted by a lack of access to great learning opportunities, and they're also underrepresented in R&D So we believe that when we center these learners who have been most distanced from opportunities, and we bring them into the R and D, and we really center them in the work, we can add to the evidence base. And we can create. new solutions that we know are going to work for all students. It really also helps us to expand our understanding of how all children learn.
It adds nuance to the existing science and ultimately It's going to benefit all learners and it allows us to answer a critical question that increasingly is the question In education research, which is what works for whom and under what conditions? So that's really our motivator and You know, I'll actually just share an example.
I recently read about this and I thought it was such a powerful example of why inclusive R and D can make a difference and why it matters. There was recently some research that a psychologist named Dr. Suzanne Gaskins, who's a developmental psychologist. She did a bunch of studies with indigenous children in Mexico, including the famous marshmallow test, which, you know, you might know.
A lot of us who took. Intro site had to learn about the marshmallow test, which effectively is a test to see, understand children's self regulation and self control skills, which is one of many executive function skills that are really important for task accomplishment and goal achievement. So Dr.
Gaskins studied with these indigenous learners in Mexico and What she found, and found through replication of multiple studies, is actually in the process of changing the way that developmental psychologists who study executive functions for a living, how they think about how these skills are Manifest and learners because they're seeing that they manifest in different ways, even though we know that these skills themselves are powerful, and all of us have them.
It's not that everybody doesn't have the skills. It's that they look different. They show up differently in different ways in different cultures among different students and understanding that adds nuance to our understanding of learning. of what executive function skills are and what they look like.
So that's like an example, totally outside of the AERDF research world, that is really powerful for demonstrating how and why it can make a difference to center diverse learners in the research that we do.
[00:07:59] Alex Sarlin: So, I mean, the public school population in the U. S. is, I believe, majority Black and Latino learners at this point.
It's a huge percentage of learners, and yet the research, as you said, often under represents them. Whether it's, you know, that's research done with undergraduate students, that's one type of research, but even research done in classrooms. Somehow doesn't tend to represent black and Latino runners enough.
Can you talk a little bit more about why that is? Why historically people haven't been able to, or desire to sort of center that experience?
[00:08:33] Auditi Chakravarty: Yeah, I mean, I think that there's a few different things at play. One is that, and this is something that our AERDF model seeks to address, one is that the research sector tends to be very siloed from the, from where practice happens, which is in schools or where product development happens.
You know, academic researchers. Are working based on a particular set of incentives. Yes, they want to add to the body of research. They want to achieve new knowledge in their disciplines, but they're sometimes disconnected from where will this research actually take place? And will this actually work when you get into a real school setting?
And that siloing of research from practice is one that Yes. It's understood, it's known, there are efforts underway, and you see this in research practice partnerships as an example, where there are efforts made by researchers to work in communities, in partnerships with states and local organizations.
And that helps to break that down, that dynamic that you talked about. But I do believe that that helps to explain traditionally why Research, which is often centered in laboratories, happens in laboratories, is disconnected from practice and certainly can be disconnected from product, just like product development can be very disconnected from practice.
The lens of the person doing the work of the group doing the work is what kind of dominates how that work is structured and planned and thought through. One of our goals in leading inclusive R& D programs is to bring those sectors together so that we, through that collaboration, are able to bring some of those barriers and those silos between groups down.
[00:10:19] Alex Sarlin: Yeah, it's really important work. So tell us a little bit about how this actually manifests in practice. How does Airdiff's approach to education research Trying to center the experience on the assets, strengths, and needs of Black and Latino learners and all learners experiencing poverty. How do you start to try to break down those silos and how do you do it in a way that tries to move the field forward from traditional methods that we've seen in the past?
[00:10:44] Auditi Chakravarty: Yeah, there are two core ideas to our methodology that kind of undergird this idea, and one is this idea of inclusive R& D, which we've talked about as both who we center, but also the idea that the research involves engaging a community of Educators, learners, researchers and product developers and stakeholders from the beginning.
So we talk about co design and co development teams as being a very core part of the model of R& D within any of our inclusive R& D programs. And that's intended to break down those silos from the beginning. So from shaping research questions through the co design and implementation and evaluation, having those Teams work in partnership with one another is a very intentional piece of our design process that helps to achieve the inclusive part of our model.
The other part of our model, which I think is also really critical, and there's an interplay between these two, is that we are an advanced inclusive model. R and D organization, advanced R and D. That's a part of our identity. That's based on the ARPAs and that part of our model attributes of that include the idea of these multi year programs that are focused on unlocking big breakthroughs and doing so through clear and ambitious goals and focused.
Short iterative R and D cycles of innovation and learning. And those cycles are working toward achieving that breakthrough. So you put those two things together. So you have these multi year cycles of iterative innovation going toward this big breakthrough, but you have an inclusive team of participants of co designers and developers and those participating in the work who have time.
over the course of that iterative process to build and learn and test and iterate together. That has really been what we've been focused on designing and learning from as we go through this inclusive R and D process together.
[00:12:51] Alex Sarlin: I'm flashing back to your example about the marshmallow experiment that Walter, Michelle, and you know, the original thinking behind that experiment was that children who couldn't quote delay gratification were probably lower on executive function.
were unable to sort of curb their impulses, like you say, self control. And then I believe the new research, correct me if I'm wrong here, I'm not sure I have this exactly right, but I think it was the idea that in an environment of scarcity, it actually may make more sense to have the marshmallow now. And I think when I hear you talk about co design, there's this idea of the assumptions that underlie the research, like that having something now instead of waiting for is always.
A bad thing, right? Might not take into account the actual surrounding environment and culture and some of the things that actually are true in the real world in people's lives where maybe having, you know, a bird in the hand is worth to later. Am I close on how that research worked? And I'm curious if that's a decent example of how co design might come together.
[00:13:51] Auditi Chakravarty: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, again, there's so much in that research to dive into, but one piece that she had learned in the replication when she studied it with the Mayan children is that the children didn't sit and wait, they walked out of the room.
[00:14:06] Alex Sarlin: And that
[00:14:06] Auditi Chakravarty: reflected something about like, why would I sit here passively and wait for something, right?
Walking out of the room reflected a different mindset. That they were raised with, right? That was a culturally centered mindset around, you know, this idea of sitting and waiting for the marshmallows to be brought to them. And again, there were multiple iterations of this particular test, which again, has been largely debunked, I think, because it plays out so differently with different groups of learners.
But I think you're exactly right. And so an example of that with one of our programs and our EF plus math program, one of the co design teams, very early on, a group of researchers who have designed this intervention, Fraction Ball, which is a math intervention that implements teaching fractions using a basketball court, which is, you know, marked up with lines.
And it's a research team out of UC Irvine who had designed this based on lots of really great research on embodied learning. And they were partnering with, you know, With a school in California and the teachers and the students were part of the co design team to figure out, okay, so how do you take this concept and actually bring that into a lesson, into a classroom lesson or activity?
And the research team shared with us, they're like, we got feedback from the students and the teachers about things that we believed would be the things that would work. Let's design the lesson in a particular way because this is what's going to work. And the feedback we got was no, actually. We think what you're proposing won't work.
Let's do it this way instead. And that's just an example of the kind of interaction that happens in these co design teams where the people who are in the learning environment, they're in the learning environment thinking about practicalities of implementation, what's practical to implement in a classroom where, you know, technology or physical space or all of these things might be different from what a research team that.
Might have access to a lab or other particular kinds of places of learning might be thinking about that is a really important conversation to have happen in order to come up with something that is actually workable and still reflect. The research and the science and is able to kind of move the solution forward.
So yes, I think that there's something about the brilliance of what happens in schools that often gets lost when we think about research and product development happening. Outside those locations and then being pushed in. It's really different from actually being able to capture the brilliance of the work that's happening in the schools and incorporate that in to the solutions that are being built.
[00:16:47] Alex Sarlin: That's such an important point. I really appreciate that you keep bringing up product development as a sort of parallel paradigm for this type of research that's inclusive because as somebody who has done product at a number of places and who really believes very strongly in. user research and actually getting on the ground and out of the building, they say, get out of the building, you know, meet your users.
It feels like AirDiff is really considering that approach of making sure you're not designing in a vacuum or in a silo, as you say, and not actually including the people that are going to eventually use your tool, whether that's Educators or students or anyone else. I know that in product world, sometimes it's challenging to do that.
Even though, you know, the best intentions are get out of the building, you test everything, put it in front of people. Sometimes it feels like the timelines don't line up or it's hard to recruit people. I'm curious from your perspective, what challenges have you encountered? In sort of implementing this inclusive approach to research, because it sounds great, but I'm sure there's some on the ground, it can be difficult.
What challenges have you encountered and how have you overcome them?
[00:17:50] Auditi Chakravarty: Yeah, I mean, this has been a learning journey for us, for sure, in, you know, our first five years of existence. And while I'm really proud of a lot of the things that we've learned, we've absolutely encountered a lot of challenges. And the one you just mentioned is certainly one of them.
It is identifying schools. That can, you know, have the opportunity be want to be part of our R and D programs is itself. You know, that's a process. That's a big piece of work. And we've created, you know, a team and some structures and partnerships. Partnerships are huge. We have partnerships, networks of schools, and we've built deep partnerships with some schools and school communities that allow us to do that work.
In partnership with them, I would point to a couple of other challenges that I think we have experienced or we've encountered that we're working on addressing. One, and I think this one is related to the one that I think all of these three challenges are somewhat related. I think one that's really related to the one I just mentioned is There is not an ecosystem of education R& D right now in our field, right?
There's no people don't think education R& D, that ecosystem doesn't exist. So we have to help build this field of education R& D that's thinking about the work in this way. At the same time that we are running programs within it, scholars at universities, as I mentioned before, are working within one system and incentive structure at tech entrepreneurs are working in their own system and incentive structure.
Classroom teachers and school leaders are working in their own system and incentive structure, and they all speak different languages and have different Thank you. Definitions for what success looks like. So bringing them together into co design teams has been a way for us to break down some of those silos.
And then those strategic partnerships that I talked briefly about has been important. Part of that. And building our own network. So we have built a network called the National Inclusive R& D Ecosystem, which we shortened to NERDI. That is an ecosystem that includes researchers, school systems, organizations, who can become part of our R& D programs in multiple different ways and can be a way that the things that we learn through our R& D Can make its way back out into the system into the hands of educators and product developers and Organizations that are working with school systems.
So that's been one challenge. And I think I would say that a second challenge that we've had that is also related to this idea is that this kind of cross sector work where people are co designing together, co developing, needing to build trust with one another, figure out how are we going to Work together to design a solution and test it.
That can take a little bit of time. It takes some time to learn to work in that way. It takes some time to set projects up and get them going. And as undoubtedly, you know, Alex, if you've been working in this field, we are impatient to see results and to get to results fast. So one of the things we're learning at Aarif is that going slow to go fast can actually pay off.
And what that might mean is that over the course of a five year program, we might spend the first year, even 18 months to do planning and building inclusive teams through smaller efforts that then help us to accelerate progress through the rest of the program. So if we take EF Plus Math, which is our proof of concept program, if we take that as an example, in the five years of that program, which, by the way, that five years spans the years of pandemic disruption in schools, EF Plus Math has supported 11 plus different project teams to prototype and test EF Plus Math.
Multiple interventions and assessments, three of which have been demonstrated to be quite promising and are being starting this fall rigorously tested in randomized controlled trials, and two of them will soon be in the market available at scale. And that whole process has also produced 16 peer reviewed published research papers with more to come and as many peer reviewed conference proceedings.
So that. To me as an example of progress that was made possible by a couple of years of slow work up front. So those are a couple of the things I think we've learned, you know, going slow to go fast and really focus on building and strengthening the ecosystem so that we have more partners and Participants in this work.
[00:22:33] Alex Sarlin: I think it's so important. You're talking about the, you know, going slow to go fast and taking time to build those co design teams, make sure people are speaking the same language that they know how to work with each other. And yeah, that's, it's not obvious because there isn't a system for it. And everybody, as you say, has different incentives.
So putting in all that work upfront, I'm sure has lots of benefits. One of them I would imagine is that. Teachers and learners who then receive the projects, like, as you say, at scale later, are really invested. They've actually been part of the design. They understand that they're represented in it. Tell us a little bit about what that looks like.
Why, for the educator side, for the school partners, when they get to contribute and be really involved in everything, how do they react when the projects are actually start to grow and scale?
[00:23:22] Auditi Chakravarty: Yeah. I mean, it's actually really interesting that you mentioned that as an example. And again, I think it reflects your experience in building and taking products to scale that that is a really unique piece of this inclusive R and D approach because It allows us to effectively be building the community of practice and the stakeholders who are going to now want to continue to use a product, a solution, a tool as it might be.
And I think there are a few benefits to that. I mean, one is like, I've had a chance to even observe this myself when I've had a chance to talk to educators who are part of our R and D teams, there is a sense of ownership and a reflection of. Yes, this is teachers like me, students like mine, have had input and have benefited from this tool.
So, in the research world, we talk about understanding what works for whom and under what conditions. And in the world of practice, that's also something that teachers always want to understand. So, you think about all the times that. And this happens so often in education, right? A school or a district brings in a new tool, new ed tech tool, and teachers are like, okay, I guess this is what we're going to be using this year.
And so often the question, and frankly, it is a skeptical one, and often that skepticism is merited, is, well, who built this? Which students, like, Who are the students that this was tested with? Who is this for? And how does this reflect my lived experience, my students lived experience, and what we need? And, There's a uniqueness to that in any local context that it's really important to recognize on how we do product development.
Now, that doesn't mean that we should have, or it can have a unique product for every single individual local context. But being able to express how it is that the solution was built and developed and who informed it and what kind of evidence shaped it is a critical part of building confidence among those who acquire and use it and helping them to see where, if they're going to make adaptations, In their implementation, what might they want to adapt and what might they not want to adapt?
Because those are the things that actually make this thing work for students like theirs. So that deeper understanding of how a solution or a tool got to be what it is can both just change the enthusiasm that an educator is going to feel for using that tool, but also increase the likelihood that they're going to.
Use it, that it won't just sit on a shelf with all of the other tools that sit on their shelf and use it in ways that are ultimately gonna be effective for themselves and for their students.
[00:26:17] Alex Sarlin: I think you make such great points there. And this is something, you know, sometimes this funny narrative emerges, which I, I understand why it does, which is that, you know, EdTech is designed in a vacuum, or it's designed as you say, you know.
Without enough input or without enough understanding of teachers like me and students like mine. I love that phrase and teachers can be skeptical and the right to be skeptical at the same time. You know, I know a lot of ed tech, we've interviewed hundreds of ed tech CEOs in this and they absolutely want to get in front of teachers.
The number one thing they want is to really be working with their core users. But both sides, I think, don't always find a way to connect with each other for a variety of reasons. So I think that the co design, this advanced inclusive work is so important in making sure that everybody sort of believes in each other.
I mean, literally building confidence, as you say, getting buy in. So it feels like not just another ed tech solution sort of landing. In the school or something that's coming from the administration, but the educators aren't involved or something coming from some, you know, people have these skepticism about who funded this company, or there's so much concern in this complicated world.
And I think having everybody be working together from the beginning to create something, I'm sure creates such goodwill that's different.
[00:27:30] Auditi Chakravarty: And one thing I'll even add, because I think that's exactly right, that that is the experience that often, you know, ed tech entrepreneurs, and I get a chance to work with many of them and other work that I do.
They do say, but I want to work with educators. I want input. I want input. And I think that what I always say is go back to the beginning of what it is that you're building or creating and what problem are you trying to solve and who defined and came up with the problem. Because if you define the problem, And now you're shopping it around to see who will give me input in it.
Then it's not truly co design, right? The co design includes co designing and defining what is the problem or the opportunity? What is it that, that teachers need? What are the real things that they need? For themselves, what are the learning challenges or students are experiencing? So starting from there and co defining what the problem or opportunity is, is going to be an easier path to getting folks to work with you than saying, I have defined what the problem is, an idea of what the solution is first, and doing that separate from the practitioners.
And. You know, we're talking about the practitioners and the tech developers. The researchers are so important to also involve very early up front, because sometimes what happens is a tech entrepreneurs. I see a problem and I think I know the solution. They kind of skip past. All of the research that may have been done that has already helped to unpack some of that problem and the solution.
And often they bring researchers in way too late. They've already done some prototyping and developing and testing. And then by the time you involve researchers, you're so invested. It's really hard then to go back and say, Oh, I'm going to create something new. So it's so, so. Important. And again, it takes more time.
It takes a lot of upfront work, but it's so important to get these three sides of the solution development together early on. And that's how I think you get to ultimately over time, not only better but better. Tools, but better outcomes and better systems.
[00:29:40] Alex Sarlin: It's a really powerful approach. And, you know, all ed tech listeners to this podcast should take note.
I think that is such good advice that, you know, including educators and including researchers and the research itself earlier than you might expect much earlier than you might expect, maybe even in the. Problem definition in the first place, because you're right. I have seen many. I think we have all seen many ed tech companies that come in with an assumed problem and a proposed solution.
And then, like you say, start shopping it around. And, you know, when you talk to a teacher in that context, they say, well, I guess that, you know, I guess that could be a problem for me and I'll talk to you about it. But. Yeah. If you really want to know what I struggle with or what, what takes all my time or what makes our, you know, like I can tell you, so I love that take it's very simple, but it's, I mean, it's not simple to do, but it's simple to understand, you know, earlier, earlier, earlier.
Let's talk about the research side a little bit, because as you mentioned, research is often done in silos in the past. There's this feeling of, you know, there's no good. System in place, as you mentioned, and I know that a lot of ed tech companies don't really know when to start bringing in their randomized control trials or when to start doing correlative studies.
We have the S a tiers in place and they're trying, you know, people are trying to do more logic models, but it's unclear for both the ed tech companies and the buyers. You know, how much evidence is needed to really purchase an edtech solution. So tell us, you know, you've been deep in this, you know, why do you believe that it's crucial for edtech solutions to be backed by research?
It sounds like a silly question, but, you know, for edtech companies that have to decide whether to put money into their, you know, marketing or their research seems silly. Tell us about why it's so important to be evidence based, and especially for the communities that you're focusing on.
[00:31:25] Auditi Chakravarty: I think there are two things I would say to that question.
So first, from a pragmatic perspective, those on the school side, on the district system side, who are making purchasing decisions about what they're going to buy and use, they're becoming More and more savvy about and asking for and expecting evidence, and that is a good thing. And they, they should be, they are being and have to be very responsible about how they spend their resources.
And that's especially true when you're talking about underserved communities where they might be using title funds, and there are more, you know, rules around how those funds get spent. And you can't just, you know, You know throw that away on something that you don't know if it's going to work or not So that's already I think There's already a baseline amount of responsibility that districts are going to have to spending their resources and now as we're still dealing with the impacts of the pandemic and Ezra funding is winding down.
We're seeing That districts are looking for even more bang for their buck in terms of outcomes and measurable impact. They're going to have fewer dollars to spend and greater impact they need to see from those dollars. So they're getting more savvy about asking, questions like, not only does this work, but for whom does it work?
Under what conditions? And how do you know? Tell me more about the research itself. Who was it conducted with? What did that evidence look like? Now that doesn't always mean, show me the RCT. But certainly there is a point in time for a product where an RCT is in order, is the right form of research to do.
But it's not the only form of research to do. I mean, certainly for us, all AERDF programs, we incorporate RCT as the way to get the most rigorous evidence. Causal evidence that a tool is the reason that something works, but there's a lot of other ways that you can iteratively do research from the beginning of product development that will give you more confidence in making claims that the product or solution you have is associated with better learning is associated with better outcomes.
And there are, you know, districts aren't always going to ask for RCT, but they may ask for better outcomes. Some data or details about where was the research conducted? Tell me more about the diversity of the students or the, you know, were, were the students low income? Those are the kinds of questions that they're absolutely going to ask and ask much, much more these days.
So that's pragmatically. A reason right there that ed tech companies have to be thinking about evidence and research. And then second, I mean, I don't think this is idealistic of me to say this, but you know, I get to meet and work with a lot of ed tech entrepreneurs. So I do think I do say this from experience.
Most of them are doing this because they care about making a difference and having an impact. If I care about making a difference and having an impact, I wouldn't work in ed tech. I would, I would go into something else, right? If you're working in ed tech, you want to be able to have some impact through what you do.
And so gathering the evidence. Doing the research helps increase the likelihood that you're going to actually have create something that is effective, that produces measurable impact. And that just makes good mission sense as well as good business sense. I think that's just the reason to do it.
[00:34:46] Alex Sarlin: Yeah, definitely a good mission since the entrepreneurs and everybody who works at an edtech company wants to know that their solution is working, that it's creating the outcomes they want, you know, that the schools need, that students need, that educators need, and especially for, you know, higher need population.
So you're right. The lines of mission. And then, as you say, it's, it's interesting. I have noticed that too. And we've talked about that on the podcast a little bit about how, you know, people are, as you say, trying to get higher, you know, return higher and higher learning. return on investment for every dollar they're spending to do so, they have to have, you know, really serious threshold of evidence to come in.
And so that, that actually creates a financial incentive for the research because, which has really been missing in the past. I mean, that's been the issue, right? It's been, you know, ed tech entrepreneurs have limited incomes, limited budgets, especially now. And if you're going to spend money on things that are for the product or for the sales team or for the hiring, or, you know, there's so many things to spend money on.
And if the research doesn't actually create more sales or create more growth, it becomes sort of hard to justify. But I think that's been changing, as you say.
[00:35:51] Auditi Chakravarty: Yeah. And we haven't talked at all about the role that the policy environment plays in all of this, and we're seeing more and more conversation and push.
From the policy perspective to incentivize and promote and think about outcomes since from the tech industry overall, and how do we create more incentives and requirements for having levels of evidence? I mean, certainly as our funding is an example, that funding that's tied to levels of evidence is a great example, but I don't think that is going to be the last or the only example of the policy side pushing on this question as well.
Again, because these are public dollars being invested and we have a responsibility to spend them the right
[00:36:34] Alex Sarlin: way. No question. So we've been talking about this co design idea and listeners might get the impression that the whole system is so broken and we're just trying to, you know, that everybody's not talking to each other and we have to bring them together.
But, you know, there have been some sort of shining lights in the ed tech world of people who have actually created meaningful, measurable impacts. For students, particularly for the populations that Airdiff focuses on black, Latino and low income communities. Can you tell us a couple of the, you know, bright spots of ed tech companies that you can name them by name, or you can give sectors that you feel like are further ahead in actually outcome evidence driven, you know, research driven effects for schools.
[00:37:15] Auditi Chakravarty: I think I'll start by saying it is a high bar to set for any edtech solution or edtech company or product to reduce gaps or to effectively solve for things that are the result of systemic inequities. And lack of access to opportunity and whatnot. There are great ed tech products out there that demonstrate positive outcomes for black learners, Latino learners, learners experiencing poverty that are consistent with their overall results.
So they overall produce strong results. And when you look at it by subgroups, you see that the subgroups also have good results, but often not as strong of results as other subgroups. That's not necessarily because of the product or the tool that I think is more of a measure of the inequities in the system.
I think that I feel like I have to highlight, shine a light on one of our own programs and some of the work that they're doing, which is, you know, we're, we're still proving and measuring the results of each of our programs because either programs that are live and in action. But our reading reimagined program, I think is a great example of where the problem that we're going at or the is the fact that too many.
Learners who are, you know, after grade three, you know, grade four and beyond still are not able to decode. Our research shows that about 30 percent of students grade four and beyond don't have the decoding skills that they need to actually become sufficiently literate for the literacy demands of, you know, their academic work going forward.
And so reading reimagined is focused on how do we better. Measure to understand the decoding needs of older elementary learners so that we can then intervene appropriately for those learners given what their decoding needs are and What their linguistic needs might be. Are they English learners? Do they have a particular dialectic background that makes responding and intervening for them unique or that allows us to intervene in some different way that's going to be more effective for them.
And so reading reimagined having some real success in creating first a new way of assessing decoding skills, which is work that they've done in partnership with Stanford University and an assessment that a Stanford team has created called the ROAR assessment that allows us now to much better understand in a very short Very short single assessment of reading, which a reading teacher might otherwise need to use three different assessments of reading to get to that level of information, but a short 10 minute assessment that is able to tell us much more about what a student's decoding abilities are and what their needs might be.
And now they're in the process of testing some quite promising interventions that are all research based with multiple research teams feeding into the work that they're doing to create an integrated app that pulls all this research together to be able to intervene. To support those older elementary learners, and I see that as a promising example of what we're trying to do in the field and what I think more of the field can try to do by starting to really define and understand the problem with the diverse needs of learners in mind and get really, really, really research based about that and then build on top of that.
So I think Reading Reimagined is a great example of doing that. You know, the other one I want to mention, and this is not an, this is going to be a different kind of a, an answer to your question, but I think The best, most effective solutions, period, whether they're tech or not, are the ones that reflect what we know from the learning sciences to be good, effective practices for all learners.
And that means reaching all learners. So creating equitable learning experiences requires reducing barriers. So creating equitable opportunities for all students to have access to, to the same kinds of educational experiences is really foundational if we're going to start talking about creating meaningful impacts for all learners.
And I would point to broadband technology, which was widely enabled by E rate. As being that kind of an equalizer when you think about the system that we have right now in school. So broadband technology, if you think about it, the most remote rural schools and the most economically distressed schools and urban areas, they can access the same Internet resources as those in more economically advantaged communities who have traditionally had better network access.
Don't think about that the same way that has really Reduced, if not eliminated a barrier to access that is very powerful for our priority learners. And I think is really important to highlight in this conversation about ed tech.
[00:42:13] Alex Sarlin: There was a time when the digital divide was on everybody's lips all the time.
And it literally just access to the internet was just. This sort of core missing piece in that there still is in some communities, but for the most part, that has been really removed as the sort of main divider because of E rate and broadband and everything you're saying. And you're mentioning so many different contributing factors to what might make a more equitable and sustainable learning landscape that serves all.
Students in all communities, and this is one of the biggest problems in education in the U. S. If not the biggest problem, it is the inequality, right? We talk about the Pisa scores, and the U. S. Always comes in at a sort of pretty low on the Pisa scores. But the reason it's low is that we have this huge variance, right?
Really bad outcomes. And some people really, really good outcomes for others, and it averages out to sort of okay. And so this is such a big thing. You're talking about policy. You know how that can affect it. Procurement is savviness among buyers. I know that the U. S. Government just gave about 180 million out for more for better literacy assessments, hopefully following some of the same principles as the Stanford assessment that you just mentioned.
There's so many different ways to sort of try it and nudge people to sort The system in the right direction. Obviously, inclusive design is a huge one. If you were somebody with money in your pocket right now, if you are an investor or philanthropy, you know, foundation, how might you try to make sense of this complex world you have researched?
Where would you put your money right now? I know this is a tricky question, but how would you help? Build the kind of momentum that Airtiff is building and try to reduce the inequities that we see in the, in the system.
[00:43:59] Auditi Chakravarty: Yeah, it's such a great question. I wish I had the answer to like, this is where I put the money.
Maybe then I would go into
[00:44:05] Alex Sarlin: that. No, everybody struggles with it. The people with the money struggle with it too. Yeah.
[00:44:12] Auditi Chakravarty: But I think that's where I would go to answer your question. And I think that. I see this work as being one about working as a system, working in greater collaboration. And by collaboration, I don't mean everybody doing the same thing, but I do mean everybody working more with visibility and understanding of what others In the system are learning, doing, prioritizing, whatever it might be.
So what is it? I wonder sometimes about what does it mean to take more of an ecosystem approach across investors who might be private investors for BCs, for instance, and philanthropists and government and nonprofit. How can we. Take this ecosystem approach in order to incentivize the cultivation of networks for collaboration across these silos, maybe in coordination one another.
So for instance, in philanthropy, we are starting to see more of this happen where multiple philanthropic foundations are working together. Going in together to co fund particularly promising organizations. AERDF is one of them, right? We were co funded by three anchor donors who saw the vision and the opportunity for this inclusive R& D model that we were building.
But I think that idea of an ecosystem of funders across sectors, private, public, non profit, philanthropic, who understand each other, Who understand one another's incentives and goals and what they're getting at and can work in a complimentary way so they each know what role they play in the system to come in together in support of tested, viable, community relevant and community based solutions.
I think that could be really powerful and I think it would have us allow us to have real conversations about. Things like taking risks, right? So there's, there's a certain amount of innovation and R and D that involves taking risks, not every one of those players is sits in a place where they're able to take risks, but some can, and if.
If the sector works in coordination, then you might actually, then if I'm an entrepreneur and I have a really innovative idea, but I know it's going to need a lot more early stage R and D, I know who to go to for that. And then when I get to a particular point, then I know, and then this is who I can go to next.
And here's who I can go to after that. And so you really have more of a system of a funding that's set up because that's certainly one of the challenges that I mean, ed tech companies have this all the time. You get a certain amount of funding, you get to a certain point. But if you don't yet have the, the scale or the revenue there, you're not going to be able to get the private investment, but then they don't know.
How do I go and get the right investor for where I am right now in my process? So I think that ecosystem of a funding is a really important one for different, for the sectors to come together around. And then I think the other. Piece of this and we talked a lot about this already, but I just just to put a point on it if I were promoting or really putting my money and effort behind something, especially with companies and entrepreneurs get as close as possible to the practitioners and so.
I would look for who's getting as close as possible to the practitioners, to the communities, to the problems and taking a research based approach with them. That's where I would put my money or put my efforts. I think those are, those are really important.
[00:47:52] Alex Sarlin: That's really interesting. I love the idea of there being a sort of.
Conveyor belt, like in venture where you have people who focus on seed stage and it's much broader ideas and big moon shots and then people who focus on series A and series B and series C as things get proven out, it feels like there's an equivalent ecosystem that could exist a lot more than it does now.
In education where, you know, a big idea that's unproven, but has some research basis, some philanthropies or, or investors might be interested in saying, Hey, let's, let's see if we can get this off the ground. And then as things gain evidence and they gain traction, you know, other foundations can come and keep them moving.
It's such an interesting. I don't want to put words in your mouth. I don't know if that's exactly how you're picturing it, but I really, it's very
interesting to see it that way. And I, it definitely feels like it's a very complex ecosystem and people are trying to work together, but it's not always clear exactly how to not going to let you get out of here without talking a little bit about AI, just something we talk about so much on this podcast, but there's a real debate right now about whether AI is going to increase.
Educational inequities for some of the same reasons as the Internet did when it, you know, when some people have access to it, some people don't. And then suddenly it gets even broader the gap or whether it will actually advance educational equity by providing all sorts of access to students. It can translate into any language.
It can be very easy to adapt any kind of material to any kind of local context. There's so many things that could happen. How do you see AI? And the role of it in advancing educational equity from your particular approach at AirDef.
[00:49:30] Auditi Chakravarty: Yeah, I mean, I think you said it really well about how the debates around AI right now.
I think AI is, AI is a tool. It is a tool to accomplish. Whatever learning, teaching, learning goals, system goals we have. And as a tool, I think AI has the potential to be an accelerant by making things faster and easier. So AI is an accelerant, and it could accelerate bad things, or it could accelerate good things.
And I think whether it accelerates good things is really all about how do we use it, and how do we ensure that we're being evidence based and doing the research in order to make sure That it is accelerating good things. So as an example, each of our programs at air to each of our three current programs has investigated ways that AI can be an accelerant for good things.
So for instance, assessment for good has been exploring how. AI can be accelerant of assessment and both how we develop assessments and how we develop them. And reading reimagined and EF plus math have both been doing research to understand how AI can accelerate personalization or customization. So these are just a few examples.
It's pretty hard to imagine at this point, any R and D program that we would have at AirDef or, or anywhere else that wouldn't be exploring among other things, the role of AI and how it can advance the work. So I think it really is about. Doing so with an eye toward R and D, recognizing that it's really clear AI can play a supporting role alongside teachers and other caring adults in advancing education and equity.
If we do it the right way, it's incumbent on us not to get out ahead of the evidence and especially to not build tools on top of biased or inaccurate models because that will accelerate bad things happening. So I think there's some really exciting work and potential there. I'm Cautiously optimistic, let me just say, and if I, and based on some of what we're seeing in our current programs, I do think there is absolutely a role that AI is going to play.
[00:51:34] Alex Sarlin: Oh, that's really exciting to hear. And I know you follow all these developments very closely. So it's, it's nice to hear that you don't come down firmly on the, Oh man, it's just going to make it even more unequal side. It sounds like you're cautiously optimistic. If we follow the evidence, right. As you say, don't get in front of our knees and you know, use AI to accelerate the things that we know work rather than just whatever AI can do.
Then there's some real room to run there. I think that's fantastic. So as you're talking about AI, you mentioned three major programs that AirDef is really focusing on right now. Assessment for Good, Reading Reimagined, and EF Plus Math. Just to make sure that listeners Totally no. They can obviously go to the AirDiff website and they should, but can you just give a little overview of what these really are just so that we can, everybody can really get their head around what AirDiff is doing right now.
[00:52:24] Auditi Chakravarty: Sure, sure. So I'll start with EF Plus Math. I've spoken about it a little already. EF Plus Math is our, Demonstration program, the first Airtiff program. EF plus math is a program that is developing and testing and developing whether math learning approaches that incorporate the strengthening of executive function skills within them can actually help us to bring Deepen and accelerate math learning and strengthen those executive function skills.
So, they're really, this is an R& D program that is resulting, as I mentioned earlier, three prototype, very promising prototypes that are currently being tested and randomized controlled trials that are going to allow us to do this. You know, add more to the EF research base that exists and also come up with some promising new math teaching solutions.
So that's EF plus math. Reading Reimagined, I spoke about it earlier, is exploring ways to eradicate illiteracy by supporting older elementary students with reading and specifically their decoding skills. And so can't, if we better understand What's going on with those learners ability to code, can measure, and then intervene.
Can we disrupt the flatlining that we see of reading literacy skills after fourth grade and really unlock literacy for all learners? And then the last one is assessment for good, and assessment for good is working to develop an ecosystem of educational assessments by creating. asset based, culturally relevant approaches to measuring the skills that power learning using emerging technologies.
So this is a team that is working with learners, caregivers, and educators to design better, more asset based assessments for things like learners academic, emotional, and social competencies. And so we talk about being able to measure students at the speed of teaching and learning by. using emerging technologies as a way that we get better, more reflective assessment measures for these learners.
So those are our three current programs.
[00:54:33] Alex Sarlin: Yeah. Really exciting work. Yeah. So EF executive function makes sense. They all come together and to center on the assets, strengths and needs of black and Latino learners and learners experiencing poverty. Thank you so much for being here with us today. Auditi Chakravarty is the CEO of AERDF.
That's the advanced education research and development fund modeled after. The DARPAs and ARPAs of the world. Thanks so much for being here with us on EdTech Insiders.
[00:54:59] Auditi Chakravarty: Thank you so much, Alex. Thanks for having me.
[00:55:02] Alex Sarlin: Thanks for listening to this episode of EdTech Insiders. If you liked the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the EdTech community. For those who want even more EdTech Insider, subscribe to the free EdTech Insiders newsletter on Substack.
