BEYOND THE GATHERING: A NEW RESOURCE TO EXTEND ANNUAL FORUM LEARNING

This summer, we hosted the 11th NNERPP Annual Forum, which is our annual gathering for NNERPP members, friends, and RPP super fans alike.  At its heart, the Annual Forum is a space for collaborative learning – an opportunity to deepen our shared understanding and grow our collective knowledge of how to do RPP work. If you’ve ever attended the Annual Forum, you may resonate with one (or more) of the following:

• A session sparked an idea you’re eager to explore further with your team.
• A conversation with a colleague makes you rethink something you’ve been working on.
• You immediately have 10 different ways a shared resource could be utilized in your processes.
• You wish you could split your consciousness to attend multiple sessions happening at the same time.
• You leave with a notebook full of ideas, questions, and “aha” moments.

But… what happens to all of these experiences once you’ve left the Forum? It’s a question our NNERPP team has been sitting with for a while. One answer to this question we’d like to offer is the Annual Forum Compendium.

WHY THE ANNUAL FORUM COMPENDIUM

The NNERPP Annual Forum Compendium is our effort to capture and extend the learning that happens at the Annual Forum. The Compendium brings together highlights, questions, and takeaways from this year’s Annual Forum and shares related resources – all in one place. It’s not a comprehensive record of everything that happened at the Forum (capturing the full experience still seems impossible!); it’s a snapshot of the collaborative learning sessions and ideas we generated together. Over the years, the NNERPP community has helped us create resources that support collective learning at large gatherings. Apryl Clarkson and Monica Hogan created a conference template for teams to prepare pre-conference for shared learning. Beth Vaade and Bri Monahan from the Madison Education Partnership (MEP) wrote an article sharing how they manage learning specifically from the Annual Forum. We see the Compendium as an additional tool in this space for post-Forum shared learning. It can be both a valuable memory keeper and a launchpad for deepened or future learning. It’s designed to give the NNERPP and RPP community, whether you attended the Annual Forum or not, a way to revisit the learning that took place.

The Annual Forum generates an enormous amount of knowledge in a span of three days. Each session is a wealth of collaborative learning opportunities; add to that the learning that happens in conversations, questions, and connections during breaks, over meals, and with team members not in attendance. However, there are more sessions and conversations than any one Forum attendee can experience (unless they find a way to split their consciousness :)), and it can often be difficult to revisit ideas post-Forum, once the day-to-day responsibilities take priority again. Hence, we felt compelled to capture at least some of our collective learning and make it accessible beyond the Annual Forum in a way that feels quick and easy to use. We sincerely hope that this will help the entire community better share and grow the knowledge generated at the Annual Forum.

INSIDE THE COMPENDIUM

Inside the Compendium, you’ll find:

• A summary question for each session
• Session descriptions
• Post-Forum notes shared by session attendees
• Resources related to the session topic

You may also notice icons representing NNERPP’s new learning pathways (we first introduced them here) next to the related resources. These pathways organize NNERPP’s resources into 4 categories: (i) I’m New to RPPs, (ii) I’m Strengthening an RPP, (iii) I Want to Learn With Others, and (iv) I want to Explore Knowledge, and can help you quickly identify which related resource may best fit your needs. 

Another way to help you navigate the Compendium with ease are the summary questions at the top of each session page. Questions like “What does thoughtful, strategic AI use look like in a research-practice partnership?” and “Who’s doing what in your RPP? Is it working?” allow you to quickly identify a session’s main topic and are a great place to start your explorations!

HOW TO USE THE COMPENDIUM

It’s yours to explore however you’d like – there’s no single right way to use the Compendium! Here are a few suggestions for how it might be helpful:

• Revisit: Return to a session you attended and use the Compendium to refresh your memory, revisit questions, or explore related resources you didn’t have time to look at during the Forum.
• Explore: Explore sessions you were not able to attend. Use the post-Forum notes to get a sense of the conversations happening.
• Go Deeper: Use the post-Forum notes and related resources to dive deeper into a topic that caught your attention.
• Carry It Forward: Bring an idea, question, or resource back to your team. Share how you’ve used it and/or ways you’ve iterated on it, or, further the conversation with the NNERPP community!

CONCLUSION

The Annual Forum generates energy, ideas, and knowledge for our community. NNERPP wants to continue that momentum throughout the year and we feel the Compendium is a great way to do that! We’d love to hear how you use it or if you have ideas for improvement. 

Dezirae Choi is an Instructional Designer at the National Network of Education Research-Practice Partnerships (NNERPP).

Suggested citation: Choi, D. (2026). Beyond The Gathering: A New Resource To Extend Annual Forum Learning. NNERPP Extra 8(4), 24-26. https://doi.org/10.25613/Z4NC-ZH61