This summary report from the Alliance for Excellent Education, the National Public Education Support Fund, and the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center describes a two-day design convening held in Los Angeles in September 2018 to plan a Global Science of Learning Network (GSLN).
The meeting brought together roughly 47 scientists, practitioners, policymakers, and philanthropists from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Jacobs Foundation, and NPESF. The effort was motivated by the end of NSF funding for six Science of Learning Centers and the need to sustain the community and extend its work toward implementation in policy and practice.
Participants agreed the network should link existing organizations rather than create a competing one, give balanced attention to science, practice, policy, and philanthropy, and focus on applying well-tested findings now, including through consensus statements.
Recommendations included expanding the network to new countries and end users such as families and students, training teachers and a new generation of "broker" leaders who connect research to practice, and exploring structures such as research-practice partnerships, learning centers, a repository of strategies, and an idea marketplace.
The next step proposed was an interim working group, with Bob Wise as interim coordinator, to develop a structure, budget, and timeline for the network.