Our R&D
As a national discovery and invention hub for public education, AERDF generates breakthrough learning solutions that are designed to reach students in actual classrooms. Our work bridges research and real-world impact. At the core of our work is Advanced Inclusive R&D: a model that drives multi-year, high-impact R&D, scientific rigor, interdisciplinary collaboration, and co-design with educators and learners from day one.
AERDF is building the R&D capabilities, infrastructure, partnerships, and expertise the education sector needs to ensure bold discoveries don’t stay in the lab or academic journals, they reach classrooms and transform learning. We are purpose-built to evolve with the pace of artificial intelligence and systemic complexity, ensuring the field can anticipate change rather than react to it.
We develop next-generation learning tools that keep pace with innovation and drive necessary change.
How We Work: AERDF’s R&D Phases
Every AERDF program follows a structured process designed to move bold ideas into lasting solutions:
Our R&D Initiatives
Since 2021, we’ve launched high-impact R&D programs delivering evidence-backed education products that are now being scaled by districts and systems nationwide, reaching over millions of students. Here are our R&D initiatives:
EF+Math is our inaugural R&D program exploring how strengthening students’ executive function skills can help students manage their thoughts, emotions, and behavior while they learn math. With a focus on mathematical conceptual understanding and complex problem-solving, EF+Math seeks to create innovative approaches to teaching and learning math that help all students thrive.
Reading Reimagined is our R&D program that aims to end illiteracy. With a focus on the needs of older elementary students who are not reading at grade level and need to develop foundational reading skills, Reading Reimagined researches and designs classroom-ready solutions that support the linguistic and developmental needs of older elementary readers.
Assessment for Good is our R&D program that seeks to transform assessments. With a focus on the important transition period from ages 8-13, Assessment for Good is developing assessments that deliver accurate, meaningful data that guides instruction and fosters a more student-centered experience – at the speed of teaching and learning, rather than as a retrospective audit.
We’ve pioneered national fellowships, grounded in scientific rigor and interdisciplinary collaboration, designed to cultivate ambitious, bold ideas with the potential to transform teaching and learning.
Our AdvancED Fellowship offered leaders in PreK-12 education the opportunity to develop bold ideas to transform teaching and learning. These field-leading experts defined and refined cutting-edge ideas, challenges, and opportunities for the future of learning.
Transformation is not only possible, it can be repeatable.
This is what breakthroughs can look like: not just new ideas, but adoption and impact. We’ve learned that when diverse teams work across disciplines, with the right infrastructure, leadership, capital, and support, breakthrough innovations can be generated by design, not by happenstance.
Now, we are expanding this model across new challenges and new programs, including our latest initiative, AugmentED, focused on teaching and learning in the age of AI.
The Challenge
Walk into most classrooms today, and they appear frozen in the past. Built for a different era, schools have struggled to adapt to modern needs and prepare students with the durable skills they need for the future.
Enter AI. Entrepreneurs are flooding schools with AI products that automate outdated practices or sideline teachers without asking the most basic questions: What do human teachers uniquely bring to learning? What can AI make possible that no teacher can do alone? And just as important, how do we teach students to learn with AI, not become dependent on it?
Without knowing these answers, this approach will leave all of our students unprepared for a new world.
Our Approach
AugmentED is a new kind of R&D collaborative that aims to combine the strengths of AI and human teachers so that every student — especially those who have been underserved — can thrive in the age of AI.
We’re bringing together teams of teachers, researchers, and engineers to conduct experiments on how AI, teachers, and students can work together to transform learning. Our teams are co-creating and testing AI-powered education tools and capabilities, as well as new models of teaching in AI-supported classrooms. And all of our research will be publicly available.