Giving Compass' Take:

• Partnerships between higher education researchers and high school educators are effective in helping K-12 teachers learn how to improve methods of practice and lesson planning.

• How can donors help support these types of collaborative educational partnerships? Where else can information-sharing benefit the K-12 education system?

• Read about where donors can make a difference in K-12 education.

An Edutopia analysis of a first-person narrative by high school math teacher Bill Hinkley, originally published by EdSurge, examines the educator's process of working with a researcher to learn whether his method of spaced practice, or breaking lessons into shorter sessions, was effective.

Hinkley and researcher Dr. Yana Weinstein-Jones were paired via a program facilitated by educational research organization The Learning Agency, with Weinstein-Jones collecting informal data and notes students kept over months on the practice the duo chose to experiment with: spaced practice.

When developing curriculum and adopting new models or approaches, chief academic officers may benefit from working hand-in-hand with researchers at the college and university level. While partnerships between the two are not new, they may take some additional effort from school districts to arrange — but the added insight can be invaluable in the classroom.

In some cases these partnerships may take place over the school year, while others can happen during the summer, with educators taking extended learning classes at colleges to strengthen curriculum for K-12 students. Educators on both sides should keep certain things in mind before embarking on these partnerships, however, as gaps in the research base can still present challenges, as Sharon Ng and Esther Chan noted in research published in Global Studies of Childhood.

Common challenges include the often different natures of the public school and university worlds, with different cultures, as well as the need for leaders on both sides — from superintendents to university deans — to visibly support the partnership.

Read the full article about how higher education researchers help with K-12 curriculum by Lauren Barack at Education Dive.