Defining a potential product category for assessment publisher

Client: Renaissance Learning
Role: Project Lead Year: 2025

Led a 0 → 1 discovery program with Renaissance Learning and the Gates Foundation. Conducted in-person observational research across pre-K programs in 4 states to understand how teachers and administrators actually use data day-to-day. The result was a validated prototype and prioritized product roadmap for an AI-enabled data integration tool designed to improve instruction and reduce administrator burden.

The Ask

Pre-K teachers and administrators are drowning in fragmented data that doesn't connect to instruction. Assessment tools don't talk to each other, standards vary by state, and the cognitive burden on educators is enormous. Renaissance Learning, supported by the Gates Foundation's Early Learning team, needed to understand whether a new data integration platform could change this, and if so, what it should actually do.

My Role

As lead researcher on this discovery program, I owned the full research arc from secondary landscape analysis through in-person observational fieldwork, concept validation, and final synthesis into a validated product direction. Working in partnership with Renaissance Learning and the Gates Foundation teams, I scoped, recruited for, and led qualitative research across pre-K programs in four states. I then collaborated with a UI designer and a product manager to translate those findings into a and prioritized roadmap that gave the Renaissance and Gates teams a clear, evidence-based path forward.

What I Did

  • Conducted secondary research across early childhood assessment practices, EdTech landscape, and equity frameworks — including targeted universalism — to ground the discovery in both evidence and context

  • Scoped and led in-person observational research and interviews with 22 teachers, administrators, and coaches across programs in Minnesota, Ohio, California, and Washington

  • Surfaced four core pain points shaping educator experience: time-consuming manual documentation, disconnected data systems, caregiver engagement barriers, and fragmented funder reporting requirements

  • Designed and facilitated concept validation workshops with educators and stakeholders to generate and pressure-test feature ideas around AI-assisted workflows

  • Synthesized findings into three opportunity areas across the data lifecycle (collection, review and analysis, reporting) and five design principles to guide development

  • Delivered a validated prototype and prioritized product roadmap for an AI-enabled tool that aggregates observational and summative assessment data to improve teacher instruction and reduce administrator burden

Outcomes

The discovery produced a clear product direction for a net-new tool that was steeped in the realities of high-need pre-K programs. The roadmap and design principles gave Renaissance Learning a validated foundation for development, with equity and educator experience embedded from day one.

One teacher who participated in the co-design workshops said it best: "I've actually been really afraid of AI, but this has helped me see the different opportunities there are to use it and how it could actually help in the classroom."