#1008: Designing “With” Schools, Not Just for Them

Many education technology(edTech) product rollouts underperform because tools are designed for schools instead of with them. In this practice paper we describe a three-month pilot where an edTech product manager, developer, and designer worked from the school, sat in classrooms, and co-created a Portfolio Analyzer with the Principal, teachers, and students. We adapted Design-Based Implementation Research (DBIR) within a Research–Practice Partnership (RPP) to run short improvement cycles: observe in class, try a change, check it in class, write it into school policy with a scope to review and iterate. The pilot saw strong use in Grades 5, 7, and 9 (~60 students, 10 teachers) with clear improvements to day-to-day usability and review flow, leading to a whole-school rollout decision. We share a simple, repeatable pattern for other K-12 schools and edtech teams.