DREAM 2025: Doing Research on Education That Actually Matters
In November, CourseKata hosted its third DREAM event – DREAM 2025 – our annual convening dedicated to deepening research–practice partnerships and supporting a community of educators and researchers committed to improving statistics and data science education. Building on the momentum from previous years, DREAM 2025 centered on a theme that sits at the core of CourseKata’s mission: How do we conduct research that is useful, actionable, and grounded in the real work of teaching and learning?
Why DREAM Matters
We reflected on a challenge that shapes education broadly: the gap between learning science and real classroom practice. Research is often conducted far from the realities teachers face every day, and classroom wisdom rarely reaches the research world. DREAM is an intentional space where these communities come together in a shared R&D effort.
This year’s goals included:
- Building community among educators and researchers
- Showcasing CourseKata research and why it matters for teaching
- Reflecting on what practically meaningful research looks like
- Brainstorming ways to strengthen researcher–practitioner partnerships
- Identifying pressing issues of practice that research can help address
Lightning Talks: Research with Purpose
Five research teams kicked off the event with 5-minute lightning talks–each addressing two guiding prompts we asked presenters to consider:
- Why should a teacher be interested in your research?
- Why should other CourseKata researchers care about your findings?
These talks showcased a range of work across motivation, engagement, formative learning, and emerging AI-supported learning tools. More importantly, they demonstrated how CourseKata’s measurement infrastructure – survey data, engagement logs, embedded assessments, and now performance assessments – allows researchers to connect their findings directly to classroom practice.
A Collaborative Vision: Research That Serves Teachers
We highlighted CourseKata’s research infrastructure, designed to support both rigorous research and meaningful classroom impact. Examples included data from in-class materials (such as Jupyter notebooks), co-designed performance assessments, Teaching Improvement Groups (TIGs), and our annual research cycle through DREAM, the Teaching Innovation Potluck, and the Summer Institute. Together, these structures allow researchers to ask deeper questions while ensuring findings inform an evolving, teacher-centered curriculum.
Breakout discussions then focused on instructional pain points, what teacher-relevant research looks like in practice, and how to build sustainable researcher–instructor partnerships. These conversations surfaced concrete priorities, including designing studies around real classroom challenges and improving pathways for sharing insights beyond traditional academic outlets.
Looking Ahead
DREAM 2025 served as a powerful reminder that the heart of CourseKata’s research is its people. Whether joining from a high school statistics class, a university psychology department, or a research lab, participants share a commitment to improving learning experiences for students everywhere.
Want to watch the full event? View the DREAM 2025 recording here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hYnYcApZDUqbzBRZpOYQKYxh1o6_YS-z/view