Lessons learned from nine i3 grantees that served over 1.5 million students
Over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to work with Investing in Innovation (i3) grantees to support the scaling up and sustainability of evidence-based programs and teaching practices through a contract with the federal government. The i3 program (and now the Education Innovation and Research program or EIR) is a unique investment in U.S. education, designed to discover new innovations, validate existing practices working in a few places, and scale proven practices regionally and nationally – all with a significant investment in rigorous research to document what works and to share lessons with the broader education field.
As part of the federal government support to i3 grantees in January 2017, we released a paper titled “Scaling Up Evidence-Based Practices: Strategies from Investing in Innovation” that shares lessons learned from nine grantees that served over 1.5 million students through i3 grant funding.
The grantees’ experiences suggest the following strategies for scaling up evidence-based practices:
- Use multiple methods to establish buy-in
- Build a regional and national infrastructure
- Adapt practice based on evidence
- Plan for sustainability from day one
These strategies, while not exhaustive, are useful for any organization that is interested in expanding the reach of an effective educational intervention.
You can access the full paper here to get into more detail and grantee examples here.
