Designing – and Scaling – the Next Generation of Educational Innovations

December 10, 2025 | By Keith Heumiller

Students use laptops in a classroom

How do we get the most effective educational products and programs into the hands of the teachers and students who need them most?

In this episode of The SRI Homeroom, host Adrienne Woods discusses new research with two leading experts in the design and scale of high-quality education innovations: SRI’s Kerry Friedman and Digital Promise’s Rebecca Griffiths.

Drawing on years of findings from the federally funded LEARN Network, they share evidence-backed strategies and recommendations for research and development (R&D) teams working to design, refine, and scale transformative educational products.

They explore why scaling is uniquely challenging in education, how research, development, and market realities intersect, why user-centered design is essential, and what R&D teams should consider when attempting to turn a promising idea into an impactful innovation.

“It’s really thinking about, who are the students or the teachers who are most impacted by a particular problem of practice that you’re seeking to develop a solution for, and letting their lived experiences really drive the design. And when you do that, you often are able to create solutions that are more effective, not just for those most impacted, but for everyone.” – Kerry Friedman

Friedman and Griffiths also look ahead to the launch of the Accelerate, Transform, and Scale (ATS) Hub, a new federal initiative aimed at strengthening the education innovation ecosystem.

Listen to the full conversation on The SRI Homeroom below, and access a transcript here. Browse more episodes of The SRI Homeroom by visiting SRI.com/Homeroom.

Resources discussed in today’s episode include:

  • The LEARN to Scale Toolkit, designed to support researchers and developers in creating, testing, and scaling evidence-based educational products. The toolkit includes a Go-to-Market Playbook to help innovators think about how to focus their marketing and sales efforts on the customers most likely to derive value from their product.
  • Stories of Scaling that highlight how other education innovators have successfully brought their products to market.
  • The LEARN Network’s research briefs exploring how decision-makers in schools and districts evaluate and select products.

Episode guests:

Kerry Friedman is a Principal Education Researcher and Technical Assistance Provider with SRI Education.
Rebecca Griffiths is Postsecondary Learning Research Director with Digital Promise.
Adrienne Woods is a Senior Education Researcher with SRI Education.

Tags: Education technology Evidence-based Innovation Research & Developers